Is the Jake Peavy trade a bust yet?

With the slew of injuries Jake Peavy has suffered and the solid pitching of Clayton Richard in San Diego, is it fair to say the White Sox made a mistake in dealing for Peavy? (AP photo)

It's been over a year and a half since the White Sox sent Clayton Richard, Aaron Poreda, Adam Russell and Dexter Carter to the San Diego Padres for a then-injured Jake Peavy. The move—like the Alex Rios waiver acquisition made less than two weeks later—was made more for 2010 than 2009, with the idea that Peavy could stop in as an ace in the Sox rotation for the next few seasons.

But since that trade, Peavy has accrued just 1.5 WAR, exactly 1.0 WAR below Richard's total with San Diego. There's not much argument there: since July 31, 2009, Clayton Richard has been a more valuable pitcher than Jake Peavy.

Unfortunately for the Padres, Richard has been the only player sent to southern California to pan out. Aaron Poreda, the hard-throwing left-hander who had the biggest upside at the time of the deal, has walked 101 while striking out just 77 between Triple-A Portland and Double-A San Antonio in the Padres' system. That's a cringe-worthy 0.76 strikeout-to-walk ratio, for those keeping score at home.

Russell has been who we thought he was—a decent Triple-A reliever and a mediore major-league one. And Carter has completely flamed out after dominating Single-A with the White Sox alongside Dan Hudson in 2009. The 23-year-old went from a 143/32 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 118.0 innings with Single-A Kannapolis in 2009 to 106/57 in 119.0 innings between San Diego's Single-A affiliates.

Nobody should be pining for Poreda, Russell or Carter at this point. But Richard is a different story. The 27-year-old left-hander threw 201.2 innings for San Diego in 2010 with a 3.81 FIP (3.75 ERA), leading to 2.3 WAR. Richard posted FIPs of 4.10 and 4.50 in 2008 and 2009 with the White Sox, though—so was his improvement due to moving from a bandbox to a cavern? Below is a graphic showing Richard's spray chart from his starts at Petco Park in 2010 projected on to U.S. Cellular Field:

Graphic courtesy of the incomparable Chris Spurlock. Check out all his work at Beyond the Box Score. Note: Katron's data shows where the ball was fielded, so in the case of doubles, just because the data shows the ball is over the fence at U.S. Cellular Field doesn't mean it actually would've gone for a home run.

There are only two, maybe three fly balls hit at Petco which resulted in outs that would've resulted in a home run at U.S. Cellular Field. If we consider one of those doubles to be good for a home run, that's three more home runs allowed for Richard, upping his 2010 total from 16 to 19 and his home runs per nine innings rate from 0.71 to 0.85. That still would be a below-average home run rate, though, as pitchers in 2010 averaged 0.96 home runs allowed per nine innings.

Of course, Richard's competition needs to be taken into account. While there isn't a major difference in team wOBAs between the NL West and AL Central, there is a difference: .333 (Colorado), .324 (Arizona), .318 (San Francisco), .308 (Dodgers) vs. .334 (Minnesota), .329 (Detroit), .324 (Kansas City) and .312 (Cleveland).

What this data tells us is something we probably already knew: Richard was helped by pitching at Petco Park in a worse division and worse offensive league. But it wasn't a big difference, in fact, the difference was fairly minor.

Plus, Richard pitched to his 2.3 WAR while making a little over $400,000 in 2010, giving the Padres about $8.5 million in surplus value according to FanGraphs. He's been green-lighted by Will Carroll despite a significant increase in innings from 2009-2010 and seems to be a pretty safe bet to repeat, if not build, upon his 2010 campaign. And that likely would be the case if he were still in Chicago.

So should the White Sox have buyer's remorse on Peavy, especially in the face of a solid No. 3 starter in Richard developing in San Diego?

Peavy has and likely will continue to be injury-prone over the next two seasons. If the White Sox decline his $22 million option for 2013, he'll be owed $37 million in his final two seasons with the team. When healthy, Peavy hasn't pitched like a $16 million or $17 million pitcher. And when he's not healthy, Peavy's in a different area code in terms of earning his contract.

But Peavy's contract hasn't served to financially hamstring the Sox just yet, and if it's a financial burden, it'll only be for one year (2012). Plus, Peavy does have at least two more full seasons to reverse this bad momentum of the last two years.

And while Richard has been better, it's not like the White Sox gave up Brandon McCarthy for John Danks. Richard's 2.3 WAR from 2010 was just a hair above an average value (2.0 WAR is generally considered an average player). Maybe he'll improve, but if he doesn't, the White Sox will have ultimately parted with just an average pitcher along with three youngsters who didn't pan out.

Is that really that bad a package to take a gamble on a former Cy Young winner? I think not.

Comments

[Evil Andy]

The problem with using a purely distance based model for HRs is that it neglects other atmospheric factors. SD is close to sea level and extremely dry. Being "low" means that there is more atmosphere above you, making everything - including a baseball, heavier. Water is, as well, lighter than air (H2O has a molecular weight of 18, N2 has a molecular weight of 28); so extremely low humidity also raises the weight of the air, again making the ball (and everything else) weigh more. (Yes. You weigh more in Death Valley than you do in Macchu Pichu.) Both of those factors make the ball travel less far than they might in other places. In Chicago, I don't think the elevation is that great, but, in Summer I suspect that the humidity is normally substantially greater than SD. So there may have been a few more HRs that got hit off him in Chicago that would have stayed in in SD.

[Evil Andy]

That being said, I would be reluctant to ever trade a decent pitcher if I were Chicago. They should be drafting as many young arms as possible and keeping those that can throw an effective 2 seamer to get an elevated GB%. Cellular is a bandbox, more even than CBP. They've gotta factor that in.

[JJ -- White Sox Beerleaguer]

Good point, Andy, on the atmospheric differences. That's just another factor--like division and league--that can't be taken into account by the spray chart. Maybe Richard's HR total pushes above 20 at the Cell with all other factors considered, but that would be more of an educated guess at this point.

And the Sox have shown a willingness to trade away young talent with reckless abandon in the last few years, pitching included. It sounds like a good idea to stockpile pitching, but then again the Sox have had quite a few above-average rotations in the last few years.

[Mark Huntley]

Your offensive comparison of the NL offenses and the AL offenses in their respected divisions forgets to take into account the AL's DH. These leagues are offensively fairly similiar with that adjustment. Being a San Diego fan and looking back on the trade I think San Diego got the better end of the deal but hope for Peavy's sake he gets back to his original form and puts up some great numbers for Chicago, he's fun to watch when he is on! Wishing the White Sox the Best

[Bob M.]

As a White Sox fan, i'll admit I was in favor of trading for Peavy at the time because I believed the deal would make the Sox strong Series contenders for 2010. With the rash of injuries and peavy's gigantic contract through 2013, I realize that the trade was ill-advised and another haphazard deadline move by Ken Williams. It seems like every year he plays that game of unloading prospects for vets, and it works out maybe 25% of the time.

Good reference to WAR. I am a big believer in that stat. That stat is why I wanted the Sox to re-sign Konerko and let AJ walk to have more $ to go after Victor Martinez. A shame the Sox didn't go that route. Oh well... At least they have 1 recent ring, i shouldn't complain.

[JJ -- White Sox Beerleaguer]

I'm actually glad the Sox didn't throw money at Martinez...he's not long for the catcher position and when he moves to 1B/DH, Adam Dunn will look like the much better signing.