Pirates Trade for Wandy Rodriguez

By Paul Sporer

Reports around the net are confirming that the Pirates have acquired Houston Astros lefty Wandy Rodriguez via trade first reported by Tim Singer of MLB.com.  It has been subsequently confirmed by sources for MLB insiders including FOX Sports’ Jon Paul Morosi:

CONFIRMED: #Pirates get LHP Wandy Rodriguez and cash from #Astros for Rudy Owens, Colton Cain and Robbie Grossman.

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) July 25, 2012

Let’s hope we aren’t Dempster’d on this one as several reports went up outlining the Ryan Dempster to Atlanta deal only to have him call it off entirely with his 10-5 rights that require he approve any deal.  It is not yet known what the Pirates are sending back to the Astros in this deal.  The incentive for Houston is salary relief.  They are said to be paying some of his remaining contract and how much will likely determine how good their returns are for him.

Rodriguez’s salary is $10 million dollars this year meaning there is about $3.3 mil left this year and then it bumps up to $13 mil next year with an option for the same in 2014 that becomes a player option with this trade and can vest depending how he performs.  So he’s expensive for sure, but we’ll see just how expensive he is for the Pirates.

Wandy has remained his steady self with a little age regression thrown in as his ERA+ has moved from 110 in 2010 to 109 last year and then 106 this year.  Skills-wise he lost a chunk of his strikeout thunder this year (6.1 K/9, down from 7.8 last year), but he also lowered his walk rate in stride down to a career-best 2.2 BB/9 yielding a strong 2.8 K/BB in his 131 innings of work.  He has a 3.79 ERA and 1.27 WHIP which are both better than the 4.04 ERA and 1.29 WHIP league averages for Senior Circuit hurlers.  He has been 1.8 wins above replacement according to FanGraphs WAR and a flat 1.0 above according to Baseball-Reference WAR.

UPDATE mid-post: The Pirates are sending Robbie Grossman, Rudy Owens and Colton Cain to Houston.

Original grumblings suggested Grossman and Alen Hanson which would’ve been excessive to me.  This is still a good haul for the Stros so I’m assuming they’re paying a solid bit of this remaining cash for Wandy.

For his career, Rodriguez has a 4.45 ERA and 1.34 WHIP with a 3-5 record in 10 starts spanning 61 innings of work.  He also has an 8.3 K/9 and 3.5 K/BB in that time.  Of course that all comes against the Pirates offense so it’s hard to make too many judgments with the info since he will no longer be facing them there.  Over the years, Rodriguez has developed into a groundball pitcher including a 51% groundball rate this year which is always good for avoiding big trouble (read: home runs).

He usually sits around average in terms of home runs per flyball with a career mark of 11% that has been as high as 15% (back in his rookie year) and as low as 9%.  PNC Park stifles home runs at a significantly better clip than Minute Maid Park, though, so that is likely going to be a net positive for Rodriguez.  For those wondering the specifics, Minute Maid has a home run park factor of 110 to righties and 109 to lefties where 100 is average.  PNC is 75 for righties and 87 lefties.

This deal likely pushes Kevin Correia into the bullpen.  Correia has been the definition of replacement level for three years running by Fangraphs measures and slightly below according to B-Ref.  It gives the rotation a pair of lefties now with Erik Bedard being the other.  If Bedard and Jeff Karstens are your last two starters in a rotation, you’re doing pretty well.  Rodriguez’s next start was actually supposed to be against the Pirates on Saturday in Houston vs. Bedard, so we’ll see if he’s slotted in there or perhaps on Sunday so that he gets a start against his old squad in a familiar setting.

More on the departing pieces later.

UPDATE 10:01 PM Central: According to Rob Biertempfel via Twitter, the Astros will send about $12 million over as such: $2.3 million this year; $4.5 million next year and $5.5 million if (when) the player option is picked up in 2014.  This is the kind of sizable amount I was hoping to see given the prospects that the Pirates sent back in this deal.  The Astros are in full rebuild mode and have shed tons of money so they could afford to essentially *buy* better prospects in this deal by upping the cash they’d send with Rodriguez.  Knowing these figures allows for better analysis of the trade which I’ll include with the post about the departing pieces.