Potential Outfield Target: Grady Sizemore
November 1, 2011 at 6:20 pm by Ben Duronio under Atlanta Braves
The Indians declined Grady Sizemore’s $8.5m option, which has made him a free agent. Sizemore is certainly an interesting target for a team searching for an outfielder as he has the potential to be one of the game’s best overall players when healthy. He has not been anywhere close to that over the past few seasons, amassing a 1.9 fWAR in that span.
Sizemore will probably cost around $5m (rough estimate, I have been wrong in the past and will be wrong again in the future). He will most likely be signed to a one year deal ala Adrian Beltre and try to resurrect his career. Some team will take that risk on him, and I see it as a risk worth taking for a team strapped for cash. A team like the Braves could be a near ideal candidate for a player like Sizemore.
The Braves have no backup centerfielder, so signing him to start in left field gives the Braves the ability to have that backup centerfielder in a starting role. That gives the team the ability to keep all four players they currently have signed for the bench, and focus on signing a shortstop and backup shortstop.
The cost fits in the Braves’ payroll. A player like Willingham would be ideal due to his handedness, power, and consistency offensively. The contract for Willingham is a problem, as is the fact that a draft pick will be lost as compensation if the team signs him. Willingham stated he is looking for a three year deal. Personally, I do not know if I am comfortable having roughly 20% of the team’s 2014 payroll locked up between two aging all-bat right-handed batters (Uggla and Willingham).
Having Martin Prado gives the Braves insurance on Sizemore not returning to form or suffering from injuries. This is an important factor, and gives the Braves a bit of an edge that most teams likely lack. If the team is dead set on Prado not starting in the outfield if Sizemore fails, the trade market can be utilized at any point.
In terms of what to expect from Sizemore, it’s extremely difficult to pinpoint. He could put up a 5 win season, playing well offensively and having a solid defensive season in left field, or he could just as easily be forced to miss a plethora of games and be valueless by the first few weeks of the season. Sizemore is a risky asset at this point, but there may be no other team better suited to take on his risk than the Braves.
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If healthy, this is the kind of guy who can make the Braves lineup scary. And Prado could still be very effective in the super utility role as well as provide a right handed bat off the bench who’s defense and utility make him an asset late in a ball game.
This is one of those high risk high reward type of deals that I would love for the Braves to make. In fact, if your estimation is correct, we’d basically just use that $5 mil we saved on Lowe and put it right into Sizemore. I wouldn’t be upset with that at all.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this since the news came out that Cleveland wasn’t picking up the option. I still think Willingham would be a better fit, but it sounds like he’s going to want more money than I’d want the Braves to give him. I think $5 mil for one year would be a pretty acceptable risk for a guy like Sizemore, especially since Prado can step into the LF role if his injury troubles continue.
The one thing that worries me a little bit is the fact that he’s a lefty. I know handedness isn’t THAT big of a deal, but adding him would make an already lefty-heavy lineup even more so. I just worry about teams bringing in lefty specialists late in the game to neutralize Heyward, McCann, Sizemore, etc.
Still think it’s worth it though. Low risk/high reward potential. If they can get him for $5 mil, I hope Wren gives it some serious consideration.
I don’t know about him, I love the skill set he brings to the table, but I looked at his splits, and even in his best year, 2008, when he had 33 homers, 90 RBI’s, and 38 steals, he still only hit .224 against lefties. Lefties tore apart our lineup this year, and we need to fix that this offseason.
Martin, in his best year in 2010 only hit .275 against lefties, so platooning wouldn’t be an option unless you want to use Diaz.
Just had a quick scan on Sizemore’s injury history and it seems he has had every body part surgically repaired! The odds are not great for him to be fully healthy for 2012 but he is due to have better luck with injuries so at $5m it is probably worth the risk.
$5m for 1 season probably will not get us much production anyway so we will need to take some risks. I would even throw in a second year based on KPIs at a higher salary.
I actually would think about Willingham a bit more in this case. So what the 20% payroll are on aging players. Uggla and Willingham really is not that old and they will perform and more likely to be more healthy.
20% on Uggla and Willingham will be better than 50% on Lowe, Chipper and Hudson, if you are talking about aging.
When you consider the Braves reputation for injury management this becomes a ticking time bomb.
That said I would be far more excited for one potentially awesome/exciting Grady Sizemore year than three average/ultimately-dissapointing Willingham years.
Question, if he does sign for a year and does his best Beltre, after the Cubs sign him do we get their draft pick? Can you be a type A after one year?
Before all of his injuries I thought Sizemore was one of the more complete and most exciting young players in baseball, I would love to see him in Atlanta if it could be worked out. It could also be a great insurance policy if he plays well and Heyward struggles again. They could bench heyward, or trade him, and put Sizemore and Prado in the corner OF spots.
A trade has to be in the works though and FW definitely has a lot of pieces to play with in the starting rotation. I think a SS has to be a target if Pastornicky is not ready for this season and Simmons as is is still at least a year away.
I’d prefer a 1 year deal at $3m with a vesting option for a 2nd year at something like $7-8m if he reaches X number of PA’s (or something similar). Obviously it makes more sense for us as we leverage less this season (given our payroll limitations) if he reamins real injury prone, and for him it might make a lot of sense as well as he can still make up to $11m over 2 years and hit the FA market again at age 31.
The possibility of this would, of course, depend on what kind of market is out there for him, but I’d be super happy if we could ink a deal like that.
The SS market is very limited so I think our most likely scernario is to re-sign AGon and use spring training to gauge Pastornicky. In my mind Pastornicky still need more ABs in AAA but you never know.
If we were to offer Minor or Delgado straight up what will it bring back? Is that too much if we got Reddick from the Red Sox?
DOB…
“Starting position open: shortstop (Alex Gonzalez, a free agent, probably won’t be back).”
So is it Pastornicky?
Do you thing Magglio will be too expensive? He too is old and injury prone, but right handed and with power. I’d rather pay a little more to Mags than 5 for another lefty OFer.
[...] but would cost a draft pick (Braves put value on these) and a 3 year deal. Capitol Avenue put up a piece on the possibility of getting Grady Sizemore, and I honestly like that idea even if he hits [...]
I would like picking up Grady if it was a 1 year deal for $4 mil or less. When healthy Sizemore is a dominant player and if he doesn’t come back then we still have Prado to fall back on.
It’s not the best option but our offense is more dependent on players coming back (Heyward, Prado, McCann) than adding another hitter.
@Eric Just listened to Keith Law on Cleveland radio and he was saying that Sizemore doesn’t have the athleticism or arm to play RF and wouldn’t sign him unless you thought you could get 150 games. Of course if you could they probably would have resigned him or he wouldn’t be so affordable.
Also, he said that Willingham plays a horrible LF and is better suited for 1B. With as little as we spend on the draft, I’d hate to give up a 1st rounder for 1-2 years of him. Hated to see his was a Type A.
@Andres pretty sure Jeff Schultz wrote that, but I would think the position was Pasto’s to lose if A-Gon isn’t resigned. Who else would Wren want on the free agent list?
How would Dejesus compare to Sizemore? In terms of both Contract and abilities?
I’ve had quite enough of signing players like Troy Glaus. If the Braves can’t find a healthy, productive bat in free agency or the trade market, I’d rather they just go with what they have and re-evaluate in July.
What did Glaus do wrong? He paid for his contract with that monster May-June that he had two years ago. It’s not his fault he’s old and cannot bend his legs anymore.
One year stop-gap rentals are bad, but at least the Braves don’t have Garrett Anderson anymore. THAT was bad.
What the team needs more than anything is a better training staff so their pitchers don’t break down, get injured, lose effectiveness in August and September. It’s pretty sad to see two straight collapses and one end in the Braves going home. One year you might designate as a fluke but the second just shows that they were all exhausted by the end of the year. I say training staff because I don’t think the current coaching staff knows how to put their pitchers in the best position to sustainably succeed.
Hm. I kind of wrote off Sizemore until this post, but your argument makes sense, Ben. As long as we don’t overpay, I’d be fine with it. Even if Chipper AND Sizemore went down, we’d be able to plug Prado at 3B and Diaz in left (assuming they aren’t long-term injuries). Plus, you’re right about us being able to make a trade if necessary. I’m ok with this.
As things are now, though, we’d be able to platoon Sizemore with Prado/Diaz if nothing else. As long as we still have money to beef up the bench, I wouldn’t be opposed.
I like Sizemore and always have. Obviously he’s a huge risk. If he did come, my biggest fear is that we have 3 key components of the lineup that are major injury risks: Grady Sizemore, Chipper Jones and Jason Heyward. Having a guy like Prado on the team would obviously help a lot, but this makes the utility IF signing that much more important. You almost have to get a guy like Jamey Carroll, Nick Punto or Jerry Hairston. We can’t have Brandon Hicks fill the position because it may be a spot that the Braves use a lot and Hicks is not a proven hitter.
I have always been a big fan of Sizemore. They love him up here in Cleveland. He is a great guy and will work hard on and off the field.
As long as he can stay healthy he would be amazing for the Braves. I am all for signing him and would continue to support it even if he did end up only playing 80 games in left
Is Furcal an option?
@BrianB, the funny thing is that Prado has played one fewer game than Heyward over the last two years. Injury prone, what?
@Jon, Heyward may have played in a lot of games in which he should not have. We all know he was ineffective for much of the year; how much of that was due to trying to play through nagging injuries? Often at the behest of Messr. Jones.
@24 jon
It’s kind of a wash. Heyward played injured, so just because he amassed a certain number of games played, doesn’t mean he wasn’t hurt for a significant portion of them. On top of that, Prado missed significant time in both of the last two seasons… ’10 during the playoff run, and in ’11 he had a terrible staff infection…
No matter how you slice it, Heyward’s never had a healthy professional season.
Of the 3 mentioned, I’m still digging Drew. I’d also like to think Andruw could be in the mix but he’s probably overkill with Diaz on the roster. Willingham will probably take 3 years and that scares me a bit. Grady fits the mold for the team but his last successful year was too many surgeries ago.
On Jamey Carrol: He’s going to get a starting gig somewhere and someone’s going to pay him 5-6 million for 2-3 years. He’s out of our price range.
Signing Sizemore would not be a low risk / high reward signing for the Braves. A low risk, high reward deal is like trading some scrub reliever for Omar Infante, or picking up EOF off the waiver wire. There was little to no risk in those deals.
Signing Sizemore is a high risk / high reward proposition. Its a high risk because he’s been hurt or ineffective constantly over the past couple of years, and yet will still require almost all of the Braves available cash. If he flames out in early May, the Braves will have no room to take on salary in a trade. They’ll be stuck with Prado starting and Constanza or some other AAA scrub coming off the bench and starting when Chipper is gimpy.
All that being said I think it would be a pretty solid move for the Braves. The Braves finished 13 games behind the Phillies this year. To be serious contenders they have to figure out how to fill a pretty big gap. The Braves aren’t going to catch the Phillies by standing pat.
I commented on the Willingham/Cuddyer post supporting the idea of signing Sizemore for the right price. I’m interested to hear any thoughts on the same statistics I posted in that comment:
O-Swing% 18.5% (pre-2010) 31.5% (2010-11)
BB% 11.2% (pre-2010) 6.2% (2010-11)
Is there precedent for a turnaround from these type of drastic shifts in discipline? Could this be a product of injuries or a small sample size (435 PAs)?
@23, Gavin
Furcal is absolutely not an option. There is no chance whatsoever we sign him. If you’ll remember, we tried to get him a few years ago and the Braves had worked out a contract and everything. All that was missing was the signature which Furcal had agreed to. Last minute, and he and scumbag agent went and resigned with the Dodgers.
Frank Wren said he will never again work with Furcal or his agent.
If Grady and his agent understand what kind of player he is, or is perceived to be, as opposed to the player he was, then I would be thrilled to take a gamble on him.
Sizemore is exactly what this team does NOT need. He is left handed, hits poorly against LH pitchers, is injury prone, and likely can’t play CF anymore.
He is certainly NOT worth signing for $5M and moving Prado, who is arguably the team’s best RH bat, to the bench.
@32
Nick, there’s a Mr. Dan Uggla on the line for you. Something about a glaring oversight and his very large forearms having a solution to that.
Please forgive my ignorance, but will Sizemore now be classified as a Type A or B free agent, and cause whatever team to sign him a draft pick? Or is he not good enough, or didn’t play enough, or something about arbitration, that makes this all moot?
Apparently I should also apologize for my grammar.
@30,
ahhhhh. I remember, thanks!
Sign Sizemore for left field and move Prado to short stop. That will solve looking for a new shortstop. That could be a powerful lineup considering how healthy Sizemore is. Then sign a utility man.
I would definitely argue against the notion that Prado is the best RH bat. I would definitely put Uggla and Chipper’s RH bat ahead of Prado.
A36 /kmims222
Prado is not a SS, period. He has almost no experience there as a professional player.
Have everyone become Super Utility Players by playing “Musical Positions” (played like Musical Chairs, duh). I’d love to see Heyward behind the plate for an inning and Freeman locking down CF. That would make the idea of Prado moving to SS seem almost smart.
Anyone know anything about Parraz?
[...] – If you read my FIsh Stripes Plan for Offseason Success piece, you would know that I am interested in the Marlins pursuing Grady Sizemore. It seems that Capitol Avenue Club’s Ben Duronio thinks that the Atlanta Braves would be suited to pursue him as well. [...]