As we hurtle toward Opening Day, there’s little doubt that we’ll see a flurry of relatively minor trades as teams swap out-of-options players and spare parts as rosters are finalized.
The first of those trades occurred today, with the Yankees sending righthander Sergio Mitre to Milwaukee for Chris Dickerson.
Both Mitre and Dickerson are inconsistent performers who are old enough that they’ve likely topped out in terms of skill. They’ve both shown flashes of solid performance (Mitre’s 2007 and 2010, Dickerson’s 2008 and 2009), but both also struggled fairly recently (Mitre in 2009, Dickerson in 2010) and spent time on the DL.
Mitre is the rare sinkerballer who can’t keep the ball in the park–while his career groundball rate is 58.7%, he’s allowed 1.1 HR/9. In 2010, those numbers were 50.9% and 1.17. Moving from Yankee Stadium to Miller Park–not to mention switching leagues and divisions–will no doubt help, but 2010 brought some worrisome trends, like a career-worst groundball rate and fastball velocity. Since Mitre doesn’t relies heavily on his fastball, he needs to have all of his velocity and sink there to be more than a long relief mop-up guy.
That might seem like an overly pessimistic view of a guy who’s coming off a season with a 3.33 ERA, but 54 innings is a pretty small sample, and a 4.69 FIP looks far closer to his true talent level. The nice thing about Mitre is that his changeup keeps lefties at bay, so if the fastball is there, he can probably eat innings as a fifth starter. His last turn through the NL, with the Marlins in 2007, showed him to be more than up to that task–of course, that’s the only year in seven that he’s posted a HR/9 under 1.00, and 2003-06 were in the NL as well.
So, Mitre may not be a vital cog in a team’s pitching staff, and I wouldn’t start him over Chris Narveson (maybe Randy Wolf, but probably not), but as a long man, he’s a nice guy to have around, and if a Milwaukee starter gets hurt, he can slide in and rattle off some solid outings.
Dickerson, coming off a .206/.250/.268 performance, has a far hazier future. The Yankees aren’t going to carry a guy with those numbers for long. It’s worth noting that Dickerson’s 2009 triple-slash (.275/.370/.373) evokes Brett Gardner‘s 2010 (.277/.383/.379). Like Gardner, Dickerson is a patient lefty hitter with some speed and defense (and his average power could play up in Yankee Stadium), but his Achilles’ heel is a strikeout rate that, even in 2009, was too high. He’s struck out 135 times in 527 career plate appearances–a 25.6% rate (by comparison, Ryan Howard‘s is 27.4%). Dickerson’s career Isolated Power is .137, which is awfully low to justify such a high whiff rate, although his discipline and speed certainly helps.
The question is if his 2009 form will come back, or if an injury-riddled 2010 will lead to permanent setbacks for Dickerson. The Yankees, already employing Nick Swisher, Curtis Granderson, and Gardner, certainly don’t need more lefty-swinging outfielders, but a player of Dickerson’s pre-2010 caliber certainly deserves a big role. That makes him a rather confusing target for New York, although perhaps they’re hoping to turn a profit on Dickerson–if he opens the season on a tear, then they could flip him for something better than Mitre. After all, a healthy and productive Dickerson is likely to garner a bigger return than one of questionable health and production.
Dickerson’s got a higher upside than Mitre, since his top form is “starting center fielder,” while Mitre’s is just “solid fifth starter.” I’ll take a league-average starting CF over a solid-average fifth starter anyday, but it’s certainly easier to say Mitre’s currently in peak form than it is to make that claim with Dickerson. For what it’s worth, the outfielder’s hitting .277/.350/.389 this spring, while Mitre allowed three homers and seven earned runs in eleven spring innings, with a solid 8/1 K/BB.
Overall, I’m kind of confused about this deal from both sides. The Brewers are strong in the rotation but weak in center field, so they traded a center fielder to a team with a ton of center fielders in return for…a starting pitcher. In the short term, Mitre will fill the rotation spot that was initially going to go to (gulp) Wily Peralta (at least, that’s what would make sense), and he’s a huge improvement there, but that’s just a temporary situation, and a 2009-form Dickerson would probably be far better than Carlos Gomez in center field, so the short-term upgrade to Mitre makes little sense with that sort of gain.
Dickerson could certainly wind up tanking and becoming a Triple-A lifer for the rest of his career, and Mitre could turn in some quality work for Milwaukee, but I feel like there’s a much better chance of the Brewers getting stung here than the Yankees regretting making the trade. After all, Mitre was never going to factor into the Yankees’ title hopes, not with veterans Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, and Kevin Millwood and youngsters David Phelps, Ivan Nova, Adam Warren, Andrew Brackman, Dellin Betances, and Manny Banuelos on hand to fill two rotation slots.
With that said, I also feel like the Brewers have a better chance of really liking this deal later on. Short of turning a big profit on Dickerson through trading, New York isn’t going to get too much from their new acquisition, since they’re so deep at the outfield spots, and therefore, they’re less likely to get significant on-field contributions from the trade. Mitre definitely should give Milwaukee something, at least.
So, call it a mixed reaction for both sides. We’ll see if this deal produces significant results for either side as 2011 rolls on.