On June 30th, 2009, the Pirates traded reliever Sean Burnett and outfielder Nyjer Morgan to the Nationals for reliever Joel Hanrahan and outfielder Lastings Milledge. With exactly one year in the books, which side is ahead?
Hanrahan has tossed 63 innings for the Pirates with a 3.00 ERA, 11.9 K/9, 4.6 BB/9, and 0.43 HR/9. He's totaled 1.0 WAR for the Pirates. His fastball velocity has increased since the trade, to the point where he's averaging 95.4 mph this year. Hanrahan will be arbitration-eligible for the first time after this season, and he's under team control through 2013. He's part of a strong late-game relief trio in Pittsburgh, along with Evan Meek and Octavio Dotel.
Milledge is hitting .281/.339/.384 in 490 plate appearances for the Pirates. He's played 928 innings in left field, but has moved to right field since Jose Tabata's promotion. He's totaled 1.2 WAR for the Pirates. Like Hanrahan, Milledge is arbitration-eligible for the first time in 2011 and under control through 2013.
For the Nationals, lefty reliever Sean Burnett has a 2.96 ERA, 7.7 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, and 0.70 HR/9 in 51.6 innings. He's totaled 0.4 WAR for the Nats. That value came entirely from 2010, as he's increased his K/9 to 8.1. He's earning $775K this year after losing an arbitration hearing in February. Burnett is under team control through 2012.
Morgan is hitting .291/.345/.368 in 530 plate appearances with 41 stolen bases in 59 attempts for the Nationals since the trade. His 2.7 WAR comes entirely from 2009, as he's actually had negative value in 2010. Morgan's '09 season ended in late August with a broken wrist. It's been a rough 2010 season offensively, and Morgan leads the league with 11 times caught stealing. Morgan has tallied 1,000 innings in center field in his time with Washington. After the season it appears that he'll miss the Super Two cutoff by a few days, meaning he will not be arbitration-eligible until after the 2011 season. Morgan is under team control through 2014.
I'd rather have Hanrahan than Burnett at this point, and the Pirates' reliever is under team control for an extra season. Morgan's last two months have been discouraging, but he might be better than Milledge defensively and is under control for an extra year. While the Nationals are ahead 0.9 in WAR, this challenge trade remains something of a toss-up a year later.
Milledge just keeps getting better and better after a slow start this year. At this point, he’s outplaying McCutchen.
There’s no reasonable, or even unreasonable, metric by which you could justify that statement.
McCutchen is sporting a WAR of 2.5 right now, while Milledge has a -.7
McCutchen has an OPS+ of 128; Milledge has an OPS+ of 97.
McCutchen has more hits, 2B, 3B, HR, BB and SB than Milledge, has a higher BA, OBP and SLG than Milledge, and has a better K/AB and K/BB ratio than Milledge.
What you’ve written is the very definition of incorrect.
I said AT THIS POINT, Milledge is outplaying McCutchen. I said Milledge is getting better and better after a slow start.
Milledge is hitting .328/.400/.507 in the past month. McCutchen is hitting .267/.368/.433 in the past month.
Not really a difficult concept.
This trade is a win for the Pirates, especially with the ages of all involved thrown in.
actually its a win for the nats as they picked up a true leadoff hitter which they lacked at the time of the trade
as well as a very good reliever
i would like to add since morgan came to the nats last year, the offense has been clicking so much better than when milledge was here and btw i honestly dont miss hanrahahn blowing games for us
the WAR doesnt tell the whole story as anyone who has watched the nats consistly over the past 2 years can eassily tell the diffrence between the nats with hanrahan milledge vs nats with morgan burnett
Brian Sabean and Omar Minaya agree with you! The smarter GMs, not so much…
Brian Sabean and Omar Minaya agree with you! The smarter GMs, not so much…
Nyjer Morgan is a true leadoff hitter…who has a .251 average this year, never walks, and leads the league in caught stealing. Yeah, what a stud in the lineup. I don’t miss him oversliding second base at all.
Nyjer Morgan is a true leadoff hitter…who has a .251 average this year, never walks, and leads the league in caught stealing. Yeah, what a stud in the lineup. I don’t miss him oversliding second base at all.
At first last year this seemed like a steal for the nationals for how well Nyjer played and burnett was steady. Burnett has gotten alittle better this year but nyjer has degressed quite a bit so at the moment i would say the trade was a stalemate until more games have played. When we traded those Joel and Lastings to the Pirates, they were hanging on to a thread so maybe a change of scenery helped spark something so they are making this trade alot more interesting now with the better play.
wow what a inteligent post^^^ i dont see you throwing any stats out there to justify hanrahan over burnett and last i checked theres nothing wrong with using era as a stat for a reliever
i wouldnt say its a bad stat, just not the best indicator of performance overall given the low number of innings many releivers compile. one bad outing can destroy an era and a whole seasons worth of solid work if thats all youre looking at.
i wouldnt say its a bad stat, just not the best indicator of performance overall given the low number of innings many releivers compile. one bad outing can destroy an era and a whole seasons worth of solid work if thats all youre looking at.
ERA is a useful stat for starters, but it’s a terrible stat for a reliever because they don’t pitch many innings. It’s much better to look at things like WHIP which aren’t as easily distorted by sample size. Burnett has a 1.36 WHIP, Hanrahan has a 1.13. I’ll take the guy that doesn’t allow as many baserunners.
how did you end up here ben dick? it sounds like youve never read a post here or anywhere more intelligent than espn
The guy obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but resorting to child like insults really doesn’t help credit your side either.
how did you end up here ben dick? it sounds like youve never read a post here or anywhere more intelligent than espn
isnt FIP kind of a joke stat? if you go by that statistic cliff lee is a better pitcher than jiminez so far this season
so forgive me if i dont take that statistic seriously
you still fail to mention how era is a flawed stat
Cliff Lee is 0.6 better than Jimenez in FIP, and I don’t see why you think that makes it flawed! You may feel Jimenez is better and you may be right, but certainly it wouldnt be by much (for the record, I think Lee is better). And, uh, in most intelligent baseball circles, you are better off not mentioning that you think ERA works and FIP is a joke stat!
ERA is flawed because it doesn’t take into account chance- balls finding holes etc, something which will regress to career means over time. You can search online for more on the topic. The only way you could do worse is if you used wins as a stat!
No, FIP isn’t a joke.
And Lee HAS been a better pitcher than Jimenez this year. Jimenez has just been ridiculously lucky.
Lee has walked only 5 all year. ALL YEAR.
And ERA is a flawed stat FOR RELIEVERS because it gets skewed by small sample sizes.
Which, if you had read, Nate Rose had already explained.
No, FIP isn’t a joke.
And Lee HAS been a better pitcher than Jimenez this year. Jimenez has just been ridiculously lucky.
Lee has walked only 5 all year. ALL YEAR.
And ERA is a flawed stat FOR RELIEVERS because it gets skewed by small sample sizes.
Which, if you had read, Nate Rose had already explained.
I don’t forgive you for not taking FIP seriously, so forgive me for not forgiving you.
isnt FIP kind of a joke stat? if you go by that statistic cliff lee is a better pitcher than jiminez so far this season
so forgive me if i dont take that statistic seriously
you still fail to mention how era is a flawed stat
Both are #4 OF right now. Nats wanted Morgan to a) get rid of Milledge, and b) get someone that can play defense. Morgan is much better defensively than Milledge.
That being said, it is definitely an even trade – Bucs fans prefer Milledge and Nats fans prefer Morgan. Regardless, neither is a long-term solution at their respective positions.
Milledge has no speed, no power, no arm. I have no idea why people thought he had the potential to be a five tool player.
SOPRANOSFAN WINS….Milledge has become a good person who is still a DUMB baseball player! He is the ONLY PLAYER IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL to finish the season with more 6-5s than 6-3s. As far as outplaying McCutchen, defense, power, and baserunning have been all McC. even during a slump. McCutchen makes great plays routinely while Milledge has a difficult time being in the same area code as routine flyballs. I have watched all but a couple of Pirate games on the package and I WILL say that Milledge has hustled on EVERY play this season. I credit McCutchen’s influence. REPEAT: SOPRANOSFAN WINS!