Some Insight On Mike Hampton’s Signing

As many of you know, Mike Hampton just signed a 1 year 2 million dollar deal plus another 2 million dollars worth of incentives with the Houston Astros yesterday and pending a physical will be under their control until 15 days after next year’s World Series. I was personally disappointed that Mike Hampton didn’t give the Braves a chance to sign him after all he put the organization and their fans through. To recap: Hampton was traded to the Braves in 2003 in what was the most complicated trade in MLB history. Hampton made 60 starts for the first two years he was with the Braves, nearly a full load, but made a total of 25 during the next 4 seasons. Hampton was injured for all but 12 starts in 2005, all of 2006, all of 2007, and all but his final 13 starts in 2008. Hampton was one of the highest paid players on the Braves’ team for the entire time. It would seem like Hampton owes the Braves for helping them through the worst time in his pitching career and getting him back on his feet. Regardless, he chose to sign with the Astros, probably because he wants to be closer to his children. I can’t blame him for that; I would choose family over club loyalty any day. However, for my purposes today I would like to look at this deal from the standpoint of the Astros Front Office.

The Astros are currently in a position to cut payroll. The Houston front office has the task at hand of trying to maintain a payroll of under 100 million. They’re looking at being at right around 100 million without doing anything, but they hoped to re-sign Randy Wolf. In order to do this they’d have to make a few trades. Randy Wolf would likely make at least 8 million a year for 2-3 years. In order to keep their group intact they’d have to re-sign Randy Wolf at that rate. They also want to bring back Doug Brocail and Mark Loretta. Both players would cost around 7-8 million total. At that rate they’d be well above their 100 million dollar payroll that they’re required to meet. About 2 weeks ago it was reported that the Astros may need to trade their closer, Jose Valverde, and their utility slugger, Ty Wigginton to make payroll. A week ago the Astros slowed negotiations with Randy Wolf and yesterday they signed Mike Hampton. What does this mean?

My prediction: they’re trying to replace Randy Wolf with Mike Hampton at half the cost. It is a good time for them to get into a high-risk high-reward scenario because of payroll constraints. The Astros could then possibly decline to sign Randy Wolf (they didn’t offer him arbitration for fear that he’d accept), bring back both Brocail and Loretta, and trade Wigginton but keep their closer, Valverde. Now, here’s why I am not upset by this signing.

Randy Wolf seems like a good option for the Braves to sign to bolster their rotation, especially if they’re able to sign A.J. Burnett. Burnett, Wolf, Jurrjens, Campillo, and Hanson would make a decently competitive rotation with at least 1 lefty. Wolf has the potential to have a solid year this season. He made 33 starts going 12-12 with a 4.30 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP. He’d had injury problems in the past so just making it to 33 starts is an accomplishment for him. I know he’s 32 but I feel like he could improve those numbers. The Braves could probably sign him for 2 years 20 million. The Astros are getting the high-risk high-reward pitcher with Hampton and the Braves would replace their high-risk with a low-risk low-reward pitcher in Randy Wolf.

Another scenario I can see coming from this: Braves trade for Wigginton. He wouldn’t command too much bounty as he’s never been a largely prolific offensive player (career numbers 270/330/460). He is a diverse fielder with the ability to play all the numbered positions and both corner outfield positions. I like him in LF for the Braves in 2009. He’s arbitration eligible so he’ll likely make 5-8 million dollars. He’s a right-handed batter with some serious home-run power. He’s hit 24, 22, and 23 homers in the past 3 seasons. The Braves could likely get him for a 3-star pitching prospect at the lower levels. He wouldn’t command anything near a Peavy-type bounty. He’s eligible for free agency at the end of 2009 so the Braves could evaluate after 2009 what they’d like to do in terms of Wigginton and their current outfield prospects or if he does well enough keep him on board to play 3^rd (his preferred position) after Chipper leaves/retires.

What would replacing Hampton with Wolf do for the Braves? Hampton had just at 3 win shares for his 3 starts (2.6 pitching and .3 batting). Multiplying this across a full season comes out to exactly 8 win shares. Hampton had 11 and 10 win shares in 2003 and 2004. 2005-2008 were pretty much lost years for Hampton. It is fairly safe to count on Hampton for 8-10 win shares a year provided he is healthy. For our purposes, let us assume he will be healthy. Randy Wolf had 8 win shares last season, all pitching. It is safe to assume Randy Wolf will have at least 8 next season. Essentially, if the Braves picked up Randy Wolf they’d be picking up a guaranteed 180 innings, where the Astros would be gambling on Hampton’s health. Hampton costs less but is more of a risk. As far as quality of pitching, they’re both very similar and can be expected to put up similar numbers.

Randy Wolf, A Poor Man's Tom Glavine

It is hard to say how Ty Wigginton would affect our run production, but one thing he consistently does is hit 20+ homers. He hit 23 last season. All of the Braves’ outfielders combined hit 27 last season. If we could get Wigginton without giving up too much he’d be a huge upgrade in the Homer department for our outfield. We can assume Francoeur will jump back and hit at least 20. If Schafer hits 15-20 next season that’s a 60+ homer outfield. 10 NL teams had 60+ homer outfields, the Braves should too. Outfielders should hit home runs. Period. If all he does is crank out 25 home runs while winning The Dave Kingman Award (given by Bill James to the player who hits a lot of homers while doing as little else positive for an offense as possible), he’d be worth it to me. For those of you curious, Dave Kingman was a guy who always hit a ton of homers, but he was a guy you probably didn’t want on your team even if he hit 40. His batting average usually hovered around 200, he struck out all the time, he never drew walks, and his OBP was very low. All he literally did was hit home runs.

So, if the Astros do fail to sign Randy Wolf and the Braves do, in fact, sign him I believe it would be an upgrade for us. Sure this isn’t one of the “2 front of the line starters” Frank Wren was talking about but let’s face it, we aren’t getting 2 aces. If this also frees up Wigginton to be traded to us, I’d be happy too. It’s bad that we didn’t get Hampton back, but we could come out on top of this one. We’ll see how it all pans out. We could have some serious movement next week when the Winter Meetings come about.