ESPN Radio 1000's Bruce Levine is reporting the Sox have signed Scott
Linebrink to a four-year, $19 million deal pending a physical.
(Note: As of this writing, another source hasn't verified the story or the numbers, so this could be subject to change.)
It's
not the annual salary. Todd Jones received $7 million and Joe Borowski
$4.5 million for less impressive bodies of work, so Linebrink could
actually be considered underpaid by some.
No, this is all about
the years, and the message. Four years for a reliever means this is "the guy," and certain numbers are leading Linebrink away from that role. Let's go through 'em:
No. 1: Strikeout rate.Linebrink
has never been a huge strikeout guy, but in his prime he was able to K
nearly a batter an inning. Unfortunately, he's getting further away
from that point, as his rate of strikeouts per nine innings suggests:
- 2004: 8.89
- 2005: 8.55
- 2006: 8.09
- 2007: 6.40
The sharp drop last year may be a little misleading, because after the midseason trade to Milwaukee, he struck out 25 in 25 1/3 innings as a Brewer. That doesn't disqualify the struggles in San Diego though, so caution flags abound here.
No. 2: Home run rate.From 2004 to July 2007, Linebrink pitched half his games in PETCO Park, the most favorable park for pitchers in the big leagues, before pitching a couple months in Milwaukee's Miller Park, a fairly neutral environment. Here are his innings per homer rates:
- 2004: 10.50
- 2005: 18.42
- 2006: 8.41
- 2007: 5.86
Once again, he settled down a bit in Milwaukee, where he was about at his 2006 rate. But in PETCO Park, he allowed nine in 45 innings. Remember how often Brandon McCarthy gave up homers in relief during the 2006 season? That was Linebrink in the first half of the 2007.
I'm looking at the Bill James Handbook 2008's park factors, and the transition looks scary. Park index, in case you don't know, measure the ease with which an event can be achieved in a ballpark. An average score is 100, and the lower the score, the harder it is for an event to happen.
For home runs last year, PETCO's park index for home runs was 71. Miller Park scored a 114. U.S. Cellular scored 121 -- and that was in a down year, since the three-year average is 130.
No. 3: Walks.While Linebrink's numbers basically improved across the board after the trade to Milwaukee, he somehow saw his walk rate spike, as he issued 11 free passes in 25 innings. There wasn't any particular trend in this category, but it's another flag.
Linebrink also managed to post his worst ERA since 2004 (3.71), but that number is hard to trust. The Padres had the best bullpen in the league last year, which may have prevented Linebrink's baserunners from scoring. On the other hand, Milwaukee had probably the worst defense in the league, which wouldn't help him out.
Factor in all of the aforementioned trouble spots with the fact that he's pitched his entire career in the National League, and I can't see how this would end well.
There is one small reason for hope -- his ground ball rate. He had been a flyball pitcher his entire career (career 0.89 groundball to flyball ratio), but somehow managed a 1.23 G/F ratio in 2007 -- helped by a robust 1.64 ratio during his 25 1/3 innings in Milwaukee.
If this is indeed a new development, that will increase his chances of survival at U.S. Cellular Field. But statistically, it's more likely an outlier, and if they're banking on that, they better prepare for a walk every other inning as well. Four years and $19 million is an awful lot to invest in one optimistic aspect of a pitcher.
The first thing this proposed deal reminded me of was the four-year, $18 million deal the Angels threw at Justin Speier last year. It seemed slightly excessive at the time, but had Speier not spent some of the year on the DL, Year One would've been a definite success. Instead, it's a qualified one.
Speier was actually a couple years older than Linebrink when he scored that contract, but he'd been a top-flight reliever in the American League for three years prior, and a large enough share of his peripherals were heading in the right direction. If Speier were a free agent this year, I'd be more inclined to give him this 4/$19M contract, even if he's 34 now.
I know I have my biases against investing years and money into relievers, and I also know that acquiring a "proven" reliever was inevitable after the spectacular failures of the 2007 bullpen. Linebrink had better rediscover how to get batters out, because if he doesn't reverse course, we're looking at even more dead weight on the roster a couple years down the road.
UPDATE: Dan Szymborski at Baseball Think Factory has posted
his ZIPS projection for Linebrink. Not...good:
2008 ZiPS Projection - Scott Linebrink
-------------------------------------------------------------
W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
-------------------------------------------------------------
Projection 5 5 70 0 69 75 36 12 23 49 4.70
2009? 4 6 70 0 69 78 39 13 22 48 5.09
2010? 4 6 71 0 70 79 40 13 23 47 5.14
2011? 4 6 71 0 70 79 41 13 24 48 5.27
-------------------------------------------------------------
Opt. (15%) 7 4 78 0 80 77 31 10 23 63 3.49
Pes. (15%) 3 5 59 0 55 66 37 13 24 35 6.05
--------------------------------------------------------------
Top Comps: Jerry Reed, Donn Pall