Distinguishing Buyers From Sellers in the NL

Tag : buyers and sellers

As baseball's trading season nears, there is always muchspeculation over which teams will be buyers and which will besellers, which entails psychologizing, and gets away from thefundamentals at work. To repeat a bit of what I wrote yesterday inaddressing which American League teams should be looking to improve, that's a shame, because thosefundamentals are on open display.
The two really important pieces of information needed to judgewhether a team should buy or sell are its winning percentage andthe difference between how many runs it has scored and allowed.(This statistic, called run differential, is in many ways a betterindicator of how good a team really is, rather than its record.)There are four types of teams: Those that have a good record and agood run differential, those with bad marks in both areas, andthose that either have a good run differential masked by a badrecord, or the reverse.
One reason I think we'll see an unusually active trading seasonthis year is that so many National League teams have both a bad record and a bad run differential Washington, Pittsburgh, Houston, Cincinnati, San Francisco , San Diego , and Colorado all have bad records, and all of them have been significantlyoutscored, meaning their bad records likely aren't flukes. Not allof these teams are likely to hold fire sales, and some of them havenothing worth trading, but all were at least 71/2 games out of aplayoff spot going into last night's action, and in positions wherethey'd be better off regrouping for next year.
To whom these teams (and the similarly situated squads in Seattleand Kansas City ) might be peddling their wares is, of course, the interestingquestion.
The teams with perhaps the most incentives to add reinforcementsare Milwaukee (42-34) and Florida (40-35). Both are within a coupleof wins of a playoff spot, despite having scored as many runs asthey've allowed. If they can actually improve their underlyingperformances, they should be able to sustain their records andremain in the hunt deep into the year. Both teams also have prettyobvious, oddly similar, and fairly modest needs: An averagecatcher, a decent fifth starter, and a reliever would measurablyimprove both teams.
After these two would be two more teams whose records aren't inline with their performances: Atlanta (38-40, despite the third-best run differential in the league) andLos Angeles (35-40, despite an even differential). Both shouldimprove even if they hold steady, but even marginal improvementscould give them real boosts in eminently winnable races. Theproblem for Atlanta is that it will be hard for them to add anyreal players  their only true soft spot has been in right field,manned by 24-year-old Jeff Francoeur, who still might become a starand certainly isn't going anywhere. Los Angeles has a somewhatsimilar problem in that they've been losing two of three for amonth mainly because of injuries to star players such as RafaelFurcal, who should be back sooner or later  trading off youngtalent to fill holes they'll fill as players come off the disabledlist might not be a great idea.
The final teams that should look to improve are two teams withbasically even run differentials and .500-ish records: Arizona and the Mets. As everyone knows, the Mets have basically nothingto trade, meaning they'll either have to fleece someone or add totheir already bloated payroll by picking up talent in astraight-out salary dump. Arizona, though, while it sent off alarge chunk of its farm system for ace Dan Haren this winter, stillhas plenty of young talent, if few roster spots that might berealistically be improved. (Their two worst players to date,outfielder Eric Byrnes and 90-year-old pitcher Randy Johnson , are the two best-paid players on the team.) The other teams inthe league  Chicago , St. Louis, and Philadelphia  all have their holes, as all teams do, but none needs to goall-out for fresh talent.
Put together the picture in both leagues, and this looks an awfullot like a market that should have more sellers than buyers, andfew buyers in desperate need. As said, baseball isn't necessarilyrational, so that doesn't mean we'll see an epic month of madhousetrading, or even any at all. But if things work as they should,July could be exciting and fast.
tmarchman@nysun.com