The Kraken Release 2001.11

[cheekimonk]

The Kraken Release
August 11, 2001
Charlotte, NC
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In early May the Kraken Release sat down with Carolina GM Ben Teague to discuss a flurry of activity on the trade/acquisitions front. With the MBBA trade deadline now come and gone, Teague took some time to again sit down and discuss some last minute deals:

Waiver Claims:

On Thursday, April 12 Carolina claimed P Angus MacGyver off waivers from Atlantic City.
On Wednesday, May 2 Carolina claimed P Esequiel Mejia off waivers from Seattle.

MBBA stats since arriving in Carolina:

Angus MacGyver: 5-5, 5.66 ERA, 1.63 WHIP, 21 K, 18 BB, 70.0 IP in 39 appearances with 5 starts
Esequiel Mejia: 5-4, 4.33 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 61 K, 10 BB, 112.3 IP in 19 appearances with 15 starts

Aren't waiver claims very risky? Essentially you are taking a player that another team decided was not cutting it at the major league level. And with MacGyver out of option years, Mejia having the right to refuse a minor league assignment, and both players in the last year of contracts paying them over $1.6m per year you had to commit to their presence on the major league squad regardless of results.

Well, risk is always relative. In our case the larger goal is to be hitting on all cylinders by 2002 or 2003. Meanwhile, we had around $40m in cap space going unused at the time these claims were executed, so we didn't view the risk as that high. Besides, a player on the waiver wire might not have been able to find a place on that squad, but that doesn't mean he can't be an upgrade for our team and in this case we believe we definitely got upgrades. Both of these pitchers have similar profiles and, for the most part, possess exactly what our scouts value. They have superior control, stamina, and have the kind of movement that keeps hitters from consistently getting solid contact which leads to a lot more groundballs than flyballs.

MacGyver was claimed early this season before he could make an appearance for Atlantic City and his numbers the past three seasons were not alarming. But Mejia, on the other hand, had ERAs of 6.33 and 5.46 in 1999 and 2000, respectively, and through 6 appearances in Seattle his 2001 ERA was 17.55. Certainly you would be expecting better numbers from him, and possibly MacGyver, too.

We do. You never fully know what the circumstances were for a player while he was with another team. But more than that Seattle is a team aiming for a Division title this year. They don't have the luxury of letting a player struggle through finding his role on the squad while we can afford to be more patient right now. In Mejia's case, for example, he had appeared in 6 games with Seattle, had only 1 start, and was carrying that inflated ERA on just 6.67 innings...4 of those being in the start when he allowed 9 earned runs. We took him and immediately inserted him into our rotation where, in 15 starts, he delivered an ERA of 4.13 and only issued 9 walks in 109 innings. Those are good indicators to us. In MacGyver's case we gave him 2 starts and moved him to he bullpen after he struggled. We can afford right now to make those moves and let the players show us where they are comfortable.

Trade:

Carolina sent 24-year-old versatile INF prospect Wallace Holmes and 23-year-old closer Roy Kitt to Calgary for 26-year-old ]1B Joe Sullivan and 24-year-old minor league pitcher Carlos Martinez

I have to admit that trading Wallace Holmes was a shock to me given how you have praised a guy like Jaime Bosque who don't just play but excel defensively at a number of different positions. What convinced you to move him to acquire Sullivan when the starter at first at the time, 26-year-old Ray Moreno was having another consistently productive year at the plate?

First, concerning your point about Holmes, you hinted at the answer. We already had a Jaime Bosque. Now I wouldn't have given up Holmes just for the sake that we had Bosque who is 36-years-old, but we really had another Jaime Bosque in 27-year-old Jaiden France. Pressed to pick amongst the three I would take Holmes as he is young, has a very good upside offensively, and was already an elite defender. But adding Sullivan to the equation changes the dynamics quite a bit which brings me to Moreno. On the face of it, first base is really the only position where a team can afford to sacrifice some defense if the offensive production makes up the difference. It's true that Ray was consistent offensively hitting somewhere just under .300 and have an OBP of more than .350 pretty much every season since he won the starting job over Greg Chetwynd in 1999. But we had gotten to a point this season where it was clear we had too many "contributors" offensively and not enough catalysts: guys like Larry Sunderland, Tom Mohler, and Jack Robbins who can use their power and/or speed to make things happen. Sullivan, who has averaged around 27 home runs and 110 RBI each season since 1998, was the first piece in my task to change the profile of our lineup and make it more dynamic.

Trade:

Carolina sent 23-year-old, and first round pick in the 2000 draft, 1B Vicente Vasquez to Des Moines for 30-year-old catcher Matias Ferrero

Given your answer on the previous trade I assume that Ferrero is seen as another piece to your rework of the lineup, but how hard is it to trade a first-round draft pick - especially one from just a year ago - for someone just reaching his thirties?

Trading a first-round draft pick hurts...there's just no way around that fact. Even guys picked in lower rounds are hard to let go of if they were picked recently and haven't had the chance to show some promise. So, since Vasquez was both a first-rounder and from last year it was a tough decision. But two things made this deal a winner to me. First was the acquisition of Joe Sullivan. Even as the ink was drying on that trade with Calgary my thoughts were turning to what to do with Vasquez. Second, our starter at catcher was 27-year-old Robert Bloomquist who is a 3.5 star prospect. The problem though, to be quite honest, is that he's been a 3.5 star prospect since we acquired him from Seattle in 1998. He is a solid player right now, another "consistent" presence in our lineup, but we have tried almost everything in the last 3+ seasons to move him along and it doesn't seem like he has progressed. He also has a frustrating split that has allowed him to hit .313 and .327 against lefties the last two seasons, but .232 and .242 against righties. Finally, acquiring Ferrero was made even more urgent by the fact that our farm system has not produced any catching prospects whatsoever. If Bloomquist were to have gone down before Ferrero arrived then we would have been forced to either put a defensively strong catcher with a cannon arm at that position and hope that makes up for a lack of offensive production, or to sign a veteran free agent catcher and the words "veteran" and "catcher" make me nervous when they appear together.

The Kraken Release will have part two of our interview with Carolina Kraken GM Ben Teague in a later edition.

[recte44]

Catchers > First Basemen by so, so much. That's why you won that deal.