Report: Danys Baez to announce retirement

Danys Baez, 34, spent an unmemorable two seasons with the Phillies and hemorrhaged a 5-8 mark and 5.81 ERA. Baez, who was expected to contribute in an eighth-inning role, was released by the Phillies in August after it was clear he wasn't long for the pressures and expectations in Philadelphia. The former starter and closer pitched 10 seasons with the Indians, Rays, Orioles, Braves and Dodgers. He earned $5.25 million for his efforts with the Phillies. Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports first tweeted the news.

For what it's worth, he was reportedly a decent dude.

Comments

[aksmith]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[Willard Preacher]

JW, your jersey is about to sky rocket in value.

(note that my interpretation of "sky rocket" may be slightly different than yours)

[Fan From Fifty]

FAT: one aspect I think you neglected that (partially) explains non-linearity of $/WAR is this: The "value" of a player is measured not only in WAR (assuming WAR is an accurate measure, which we know it isn't), but also in "stardom," by which I here mean the power to attract fans, both home and away. The gate in San Francisco is bigger when Halliday pitches than when Blanton pitches.

Thus a pair of 3-WAR pitchers is probably less valuable than a single 6-WAR pitcher. (DH Phils gave another correct reason in his post at 2:24.)

More generally, players give "value" to a club in may ways other than WAR and fan appeal: leadership, experience, and tutoring to name just three -- another explanation for non-linearity.

I would like to see a study of salary compared to WAR (but I'm not going to do one).

[Willard Preacher]

Fan From Fifty, all good points, except that we all know that everyone pays just to see the umpires.

[Raul's grandpa]

The amazing thing about this is that his arm retired almost 3 years ago.

[Zudok]

I seem to recall that Baez offered some good advice or spotted a flaw that helped another bullpen mate out. Was it Madson? Bastardo? Somebody will remember.

[mm]

RG: What did he say "Hey kid, i do that...don't do that. Do it like this".

[Scott]

Somewhere, JW slowly pours a forty on his Baez jersey...

[The hook]

What's his wins below replacement?

[GBrettfan]

Zudok - It was Bastardo, I think.

...Yep. Here's a link: http://articles.philly.com/2011-10-01/sports/30232614_1_antonio-bastardo-danys-baez-phillies-reliever

I've liked him much better since we stopped using him as a pitcher.
Seriously, Baez seemed like a good guy when he gave the advice to Bastardo and when he pitched in that 19-inning game. Maybe he'll be a pitching coach someday. I wish him well.

[fumphis]

Hope he finds a home as a pitching coach, seems like he could be good at it.

[lorecore]

"If JW doesn't crack a joke in his thread header when Baez retires, I'll go out and buy a Baez jersey."

[Willard Preacher]

Funny how many pitchers come through Philly that would "make great pitching coaches." Basically, it's about as polite a way a Philly fan says "this guy sucks at pitching."

Though Moyer really WOULD make a hell of a pitching coach.

[Raul's grandpa]

Pat Burrell will be a great hitting coach working with slow players who have bad feet or ankle injuries who strike out too much and aren't great at fielding their position.

Just sayin...

[clout]

I thought Fata's Marlins analysis was pretty good. Young team that's been snakebit by injuries past 3 years. Lotta "ifs" but if everyone stays healthy, if HanRam takes to 3B and if hot prospects like Stanton, Morrison and Coghlan move forward instead of backward, they'll contend.

Also, Ricky Nolasco is not too shabby as 4th starter.

[clout]

With regard to the "Jake Diekman has a tremendous high ceiling" thread, I guess I'd just mention that he is not listed among the Phils top 30 prospects by BA.

Sickels lists 42 Phils prospects he thinks have a chance to see The Show sometime. Diekman is not among them.

How can this be? I'm guessing it's partly because he's 25 years old and just got his first taste of AA ball last season and partly because his BB/9 is way below average and his career H/9 and ERA aren't very good. His career WHIP is 1.47.

He does have a very good fastball, however, which makes him one of only 4,035 minor league pitchers with a good fastball and little else.

[clout]

On the other hand, I hear that Josh Zeid showed up at camp in the best shape of his life.

[bay_area_phan]

I am as skeptical as anyone about Jake Diekman. But it's not because of his age; it's because of his wildness.

Personally, I think age is highly overrated as a criterion for downgrading prospects. The majors are filled with late bloomers --including many key players on the Phillies -- who didn't really "get it" until they were 25 or 26. I'd rather have an old-for-his-league minor leaguer who shows significant signs of breaking out than a young-for-his-league tool-shed who's hitting .220.

[lorecore]

bap: i disagree, especially in the case of situational pitchers.

The minor leagues are filled with guys who put up impressive numbers in their mid20's at lower levels because they figure out how to beat their less experience/developed opposition. These are the 'cup of coffee' players that carve out a niche for themselves over time and earn the chance at the bigs, but don't have the true talent to last.

Late bloomers on the Phils, such as Utley, Howard, Victorino do not fall into this category. Utley was a 1st round pure hitter. Howard was a raw slugger. Vic basically showed nothing at all in the minors until his very last year and proved himself in the majors quickly. Even the most recent 'late bloomer' Mayberry had his coming out party in the bigs, while playing basically like an ordinary MiLB'er his whole career.

[Bonehead]

Geez, Danys was paid $43 mil during his career.

[MG]

It really is amazing how long Baez was able to stick around despite not having a good season since '05.

Even managed to stick around for 3 years after this TJ surgery (thanks in large part to the Phils) putting up these terrible numbers:

9-14, 4.98 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 155 1/3 IP, 3.4 BB/9, 5.0 K/9, 1.5 K/BB, 0 saves

Baez made $12.5M from the O's and Phils during this stretch.

He would be a classic example of where it foolish to give a fading veteran reliever moderately large dollars.

[MG]

ERA since '05 (06-11): 5.16 ERA
Salary since '05: $22.1M

Baez laughing all the way to the bank.

[bay_area_phan]

lorecore: There are no doubt many older minor leaguers who put up good numbers simply because they're playing less experienced players. There are also many 18-year old Anthony Hewitt types who have great tools but put up lousy numbers. My point is simply: among these 2 groups, I'd give the old-for-his-league player with good numbers a better chance of having a decent major league career than the 18-year old with lousy numbers. The latter player is nothing more than a lottery ticket; the former player is also a longshot, but he's a longshot who has at least proven an ability to hit a certain level of professional pitching.

[SoCal_Phil]

Phils should hire him as a organizational bullpen coach. Hell, if we gave Ed Wade another job, why not?

[Coach factory Store]

Money spent on the brain is never spent in vain.

[Hugh Mulcahy]

good dude; shot pitcher

Vaya con dios, Senor Baez.

[Andy]

Someone at the Coach store had the sweetbreads for dinner.

[Andy]

bap - The argument for, say, Carlos Tocci, is that a sixteen year old with a few obvious physical talents has a shot at being a GOOD MLB player; whereas a guy like Ruf who tears up lower levels at an advanced age has an outside shot at being a replacement player.

For what it's worth, at ages 18-19 Victorino was in the lower levels of the Dodgers organization accumulating 26 XBH in 520ish PAs. He stole a lot of bases, though, since he had "The.Speed.Tool." Sometimes those young guys pan out, though.

[lorecore]

BAP: If Hewitt plays in Lakewood for another 6 years, i bet he starts to improve. Then he'll be the late bloomer your ready to roll the dice on.

[bay_area_phan]

lorecore: Well, maybe you've got a point . . .

Nonetheless, I do think scouts tend to get overly fixated on age. Plenty of players suddenly "get it" at age 25. When a 24-year old suddenly starts raking at A, it doesn't prove that he's going to hit major league pitching; but I also don't see how it can be taken as a bad thing.

[lorecore]

Yeah, optimism is optimism, whether its cautious or not.

In this situation, Diekman had his first good season(debatable with his BBs) at 24yr with a new funky delivery who now has off the charts numbers vs lefties. That gives me reason to think his success isn't as genuine as the nubmers may suggest.

Apparently had good velocity and movement on his fastball, so that will earn him added attention since there seems to be something to work with. And i mean, he's a lefty reliever, so he'll probably get a job to play baseball for the next 15 years as is.

[lorecore]

and before clout reads this, No I did not say Hewitt is a late bloomer, purely hypothetical.

[Jack]

As to Clout's take on the Marlins, sure, if everything goes right, they have the talent to win 85+ games, which means they'll be relevant.

Of course, there are only a few teams in baseball for whom most things go right in a given year. So while it's possible the Marlins could be one of those teams, the odds are against them.

Again, it's really easy in Spring Training to say every team got better (well, except the Mets). What's hard is to acknowledge that for a lot of those teams, things won't go smoothly. Injuries, poor performance, young guys taking a step backwards. These things never look obvious before the season, but always happen.