Roundup: Time for Eury De la Rosa to Go; Feasibility of a Full-Scale Rebuild

It’s a slow week for a roundup, what with no real baseball for four days in the last week — in fact, the D-backs have not lost since last week’s edition! The team managed to win all three games of their series with the Cubs this last weekend, although there were as many good points as bad. Also worth noting: it was when the D-backs pulled out two wins in a row against the Cubs in Chicago that the team was finally able to right the ship (if by “ship” we mean the “U.S.S. .500”).

In his return to the rotation on Friday, Trevor Cahill failed to impress, although the diving movement on his sinker and change was more apparent than I can remember. It wasn’t a terrible Cahill start, but what had become par for the course for him earlier this season: 5 innings, 2 walks, 4 hits including a bomb, three earned runs. The short start was not as harmful as it might normally have been, given the All-Star break, but Cahill will have to show a bit more if he’s to convince a potential suitor in August that he’s worth something.

Wade Miley actually didn’t do a whole lot better, but spread his three earned runs over seven innings; on Sunday, Josh Collmenter turned in a great 7 inning, 1 ER performance second only to his shutout of Cincinnati at the end of May. Meanwhile, the bullpen continues to impress with a 3.10 ERA in July (backed by a somewhat less impressive 3.56 FIP). Brad Ziegler has done his job, and Oliver Perez and Randall Delgado haven’t allowed a run yet in July, with Evan Marshall also flawless and putting some June struggles behind him. It’s Matt Stites’s turn to struggle after the league got a chance to see what he can do; Addison Reed has been shaky.

It was Eury De la Rosa who took over in the bullpen when Joe Thatcher was traded, and I’m not sure the club is served by having him work more out of the major league bullpen this year. What’s the best case scenario for De la Rosa, exactly? He’s posted a good 2.52 ERA in 39.1 Triple-A innings so far this year, but that was on the back of fooling left-handed hitters in a way that he hasn’t been able to do in the majors.

In his time with the D-backs last season, De la Rosa tried pitching primarily with his sinker and slider. When that seemed not to work, he used a five pitch array; in August-September last year, he threw his sinker, slider, fourseam, changeup and curveball each between 10 and 28% of the time. It didn’t really work. But look what he’s up to now in this usage chart from Brooks Baseball:

Lefty or not, a fourseam fastball that averages 89 mph is not going to cut it, not without a delivery as heinous as Thatcher’s was. Left-handed hitters call that par for the course. Right-handed hitters call that batting practice. De la Rosa can keep them guessing with five different pitches, sure. But that gets back to the original question: what can we learn about De la Rosa this year? How could he get better with this major league time? His stuff isn’t going to improve, and this isn’t a question of command, it’s a question of fringy stuff. I think we already know how well the junk ball approach is going to work. This is absolutely just a matter of opinion, but my opinion is: I’d rather use the roster spot to see if Will Harris can be what he was last year, or to see one of the new guys (Jake Barrett, etc.) start to take those adjustments that Marshall has already made and Stites is struggling with right now. De la Rosa’s in there because the org feels like they need a lefty matchups guy, and Perez isn’t that guy. I get that — but pretending that marginal advantages matter at all for the balance of the season isn’t really helping.

This morning, RG tackled the question of retooling. Last week, Dave Cameron published his annual top 50 trade values piece, and I think that helps put some of the same questions in focus. Only one D-backs player made the top 50 (no runners up, either), and I’ll say it out loud even though I probably don’t need to: that one played is Paul Goldschmidt. RG is absolutely right that optimism about 2015 has to be given a reality check; but what else can the D-backs do, really? Wade Miley might fetch a good price, Ziegler should, Miguel Montero should. But only Goldy would return a premium prospect, and what’s the point of doing a full scale rebuild when you don’t have much to work with? Maybe Bradley can be that ace next season, although I think we’re all having some doubts.

A full-scale rebuild wouldn’t be a fire sale like the Marlins have done twice (successfully). Basically, a D-backs rebuild would call for a great trade of Goldschmidt (to whom, I leave for a different day) for a couple of building blocks, a trade of Miley and Ziegler and Montero for some decent B prospects types who could someday bring the team back to its current level of talent… and in addition, the rebuild would call for just being terrible for a while. If the D-backs had more pieces that could bring back decent returns, a rebuild could make sense. But they don’t, and that means the prospects the club got back for Goldy would need to work out. The team’s prospects for 2015 are not great. But I’m not sure they’re worse for 2015 than they would be for 2017 or 2018 if they went into a full scale rebuild, and if those chances are nearly even, you might as well opt for rolling the dice sooner.

The links:

• We’ll start with Cameron’s top 10 trade assets, the list on which Goldy comes third. Reading this and past lists gives you an idea of Cameron’s criteria, but one thing I’m not sure he’s accounting for is that the basement for every player is the same: zero. As in zero home runs, zero starts, zero games. The projection ranges of Player A might be approximately two wins above Player B — both at the top end and the low end — but there’s always a non-zero chance that each player might be a zero. It’s always better to have one four win player than to have two two win players, since you can fill the second slot with someone better than replacement level. But at some point, there’s some benefit to having all of your treasure buried in two places instead of one, in case the worst happens. Also: check out the NL West on that list. One player for Colorado (Troy Tulowitzki), two for San Francisco (Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey), and one for Los Angeles (Yasiel Puig). Then just Goldy for Arizona, and none for San Diego. The average division should have about eight entrants, so it’s interesting that the division is lagging.
• Speaking of those hapless Padres: they haven’t picked a new GM yet, but the D-backs’ Ray Montgomery is out of the running, apparently, as Nick Piecoro reported. Piecoro also noted an earlier report by Ken Rosenthal that Towers might be considered for a front office job if he were dismissed by the D-backs, as well as CEO Mike Dee’s comments that that would be up to the new GM, and since they haven’t picked a new GM, any comments about Towers joining the org would be “speculation.” What a strange world, this baseball business is. I’m not even referring to the Byrnes/Towers business. Larry Lucchino ran the Padres before becoming CEO of the Red Sox, and had Theo Epstein on his team, who later promoted Byrnes… in fact, Mike Dee was with the Red Sox, too.
• At Snake Pit, Jim McLennan did an excellent second half preview. I agree on the Archie Bradley comments, and with just about everything else. I’m not personally interested that much in the exact number at which the D-backs will draft next season… there’s so much that could be done in these last games to separate the wheat from the chaff, and that’s ultimately much more important (especially with the club clearly refocused on 2015).
• At Beyond the Box Score, I did a piece on ranking relief pitchers by RE24. Inspired by Ziegler, although no D-backs were in the top ten. I still think RE24 is the only way to really get at the true value of a relief pitcher who is particularly valuable at particular times in some way other than platoon split.
• At Baseball Prospectus, R.J. Anderson was absolutely spot on with his analysis of the Cahill promotion ($). Makes more sense than continuing to use Mike Bolsinger, and not because Cahill is definitely better…this is about rolling the dice, seeing if Cahill can show something in about a month, and being in a position of being the best of a bad situation if a contender has a rotation apocalypse.
• Apparently the Tigers have asked about the availability of Ziegler. Look, I probably have the highest opinion of Ziegler’s value of anyone (see what I mean?), but there is a price at which trading him makes sense. And GM Dave Dombrowski has paid those prices before. The mission after trading Ziegler would be trying to find someone like him. With Pat Neshek excelling for St. Louis, I wonder if the Cardinals would be willing to trade Seth Maness; or, if they don’t lock up Neshek beyond this season, it could be he who the D-backs look to acquire (although they would have more competition for Neshek).