Ricciardi Project Follow-Up

The Ricciardi Project was meant to be an objective statistical overview of the trades made by Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi in his first five seasons in that position.
Of the 27 trades analyzed in the document, 11 players from 7 of the trades them spent time in the Majors with the Jays or the team they were traded to by Ricciardi in 2007.

Chad Gaudin : Gaudin became a dependable, if not ordinary, starter for Beane and co. in the last season, logging almost 200 innings and going 11-13 with an ERA+ of 95 and a Value Over Replacement Player of 24.3 along with 10 win shares. Gaudin was traded for Dustin Majewski who was a fringe prospect for the Jays and was lost in the AAA portion of the 2007 Rule Five draft to Texas. Gaudin may turn out be a good number 3 starter in the Majors but he would not have had room on the 2007 Jays roster (although he would have been a better option than Towers before the emergence of McGowan and Marcum). Speaking of Towers…here’s an interesting read that over-values him, Towers is not at the same level as Silva…

The Bush/Overbay trade: Obviously when Ricciardi acquired Overbay he wasn’t thinking “I need a first baseman who will hit 10 home runs and get on base only 31.5% of the time”. Big things were expected of Overbay during the 2007 season and as he fought through injuries he could not live up to these expectations, only contributing 6 Win Shares to the team. The regression of Overbay along with Vernon Wells kept the Jays from contending and both will be looked upon to rebound this year. Luckily for J.P.’s public image both Gabe Gross and David Bush regressed during the 2007 season; Gross was able to again throw over 175 innings but was lucky to go 12-10 with an ERA of 5.12 and ERA+ of 88. Gross was again used off the bench by the Brewer but could not manage to get on base as often as in 2006, falling from an OBP of .382 to .329. When looking at VORP, the advantage goes to the Brewers for the second consecutive year as Overbay was -3.6, Gross was 2.9 and Bush was 13 Over Replacement Player and the two contributed 10 total Win Shares. 2008 will be an important season for Overbay to turn it around…

O-Dog and Glaus: The other blockbuster completed by the Jays management staff during December 2005 was to acquire power hitting third baseman Troy Glaus with Sergio Santos from the D-Back for Orlando Hudson and Miguel Batista. This trade has not quite brought upon the results Ricciardi was hoping for…
Hudson outperformed Glaus for the second year in a row while playing, arguably, better defense at a more difficult defensive position. He beat out Glaus in VORP 32.8 to 20.5, Win Shares, 20 to 14 and even RBIs 63 to 62 while earning $7 million less. The O-Dog is a free agent at the end of the year and should be expected to have a good contract year while Glaus was just named in the Mitchell Report…It’s not looking good for Troy to outplay Hudson this season.

Hillenbrand and Chulk for Accardo: Ricciardi hasn’t made many deadline deals since his arrival at the Jays (Stewart, Adams…?) but this one is a trade that needed to be made near the deadline because of clubhouse issues. The trade ended up working out really well for the Jays. When examining the trade with VORP, Hillenbrand actually contributed negatively to the Giants with a -6.3 VORP, however Chulk outpitched Accardo that season according to the stat: 2.1 to 0.6. Hillenbrand left San Francisco as a free agent and in 2007, Accardo became the de facto closer for a team missing B.J. Ryan, notching 30 saves and a VORP of 26.2 and contributing 12 win shares while Chulk was productive for the Giants with a VORP of 12.8 and 5 win shares.

Brian Wolfe: The pitcher received for Corey Koskie, who did not play in 2007, played a part in the Blue Jays bullpen during that season, appearing in HERE games and establishing a VORP of 13.5 while earning minimum salary and contributing 5 win shares. A good acquisition by Jays management for what was in essence a salary dump.

Eric Hinske: Apparently, the Player to be named later had a higher value as Hinske managed to negate the first year gains of 1.4 VORP with a 2007 VORP of -1.5 in limited at bats.