Sunday, January 23, 2011

Hot Stove Update: Jays Dump Vernon Wells' Contract; Manny Gets Chump Change

The Hot Stove had a flare up as the weekend approached, and what a flare up it was! In a surprising almost shocking move, the Blue Jays were able to rid themselves of a contract many considered to be one of the most untradable in baseball by sending Vernon Wells to the LA Angels for Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera. News of the trade brought snorts, guffaws and outright derision of the Angels form all corners of the baseball blogosphere while Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulis was toasted as the latest greatest GM in the game. While I don't love the trade from the Angels viewpoint, I don't think it's nearly as bad as the pundits are making it out to be. Here's the breakdown:

From the Blue Jays perspective, the biggest factor in the trade, by far, is getting out from under Wells' contract in which he is owed $86 M over the next 4 years. Vernon Wells is not a terrible player, and he is coming off a pretty good season, but for a team like the Blue Jays who are trying to compete with the Red Sox and Yankees on a limited budget, it was imperative that they have more payroll flexibility going forward. It almost didn't matter who the Jays got in return, I'm sure they would have been happy to simply give the contract away for nothing. As it happened, the Angels had a couple of lesser contracts they wanted to dump so they sent Napoli and Rivera to the Jays. A lot of analysts are crowing about what a great value the Jays got in Napoli. I'm not so sure. Napoli and Rivera are both terrible fielders with no real positions. The Jays are already not a good defensive team and if Rivera and Napoli play in the field, they will be even worse. I don't expect either player to have a long term career with the Jays.

It's a little more complicated from the Angels perspective. The Angels were looking for an outfielder, mainly a left fielder, and had missed out on Carl Crawford. I think it's pretty clear now that the Angels problems with signing Carl Crawford and Adrian Beltre were not so much the $$$$/season, but the number of years. The Angels also had a logjam of DH types and really had no use for either Napoli or Rivera.

A lot of fans think Napoli should have won the every day catcher job over a year ago, but Mike Scioscia obviously did not like Napoli's work behind the plate, possibly with good reason. Napoli's Catcher ERA(the ERA of Angels pitchers in games he caught) was consistently >5.00 for several years running while it was <4 for Jeff Mathis and Bobby Wilson. Catcher ERA is a notoriously controversial statistic fraught with all kinds of built in biases, but Napoli had amassed enough of a track record so there was probably something significant here, and more than a run difference in ERA is huge. Rumor has it that Napoli had trouble remembering pitch sequences in pitcher/catcher meetings much to the dismay of the coaching staff. In short, Napoli was not going to catch a lot of games for the Angels. They have Kendry Morales coming back at 1B and Bobby Abreu set to be the DH, so the Angels were going to have to pay Napoli $6 M to do a lot of sitting on the bench. Rivera's situation was even worse as he was coming off a down year and has always been a minus fielder. By sending Rivera and Napoli to the Jays, the Angels get back about $11 M of Wells' $23 M salary and they have another $45 M coming off the books next year.

Assuming he is healthy, a big assumption I know, Wells gives that Angels a pretty good leftfielder who can hit for power. It enables them to field a much better defensive team with possibly a more productive lineup. The worst part of getting Wells is the contract, but the Angels are a team that is not afraid to spend a lot of money. Well's contract won't be the albatross for them that it was for the Blue Jays.

I don't know what other options might have been open to the Angels. It's not a trade that makes them an automatic favorite to win the AL West, but it may well have been their best option if they wanted to remain competitive in the short term. I don't think it's as bad a trade for the Angels as it's being portrayed on many other sites.

Manny Ramirez signed a bottom-of-the-barrel 1 year/$2 M contract with the Tampa Bay Rays. Oh how the mighty, or Manny, have fallen! Dude is coming off a 2 year/$45 M contract with the Dodgers and White Sox. The Rays also got another Scott Boras client in a package deal. Johnny Damon signed for about $4 M, a larger amount than what Manny got. The difference likely being that Damon can still play a shaky LF while Manny can't play any position at all. DH's just don't get big contracts these days! If Manny still brings a bat, and if he can stay healthy not having to play in the field, this move could pay off big time for the Rays. The losers in all this may be Desmond Jennings who was penciled into LF for the Rays, and all the fantasy baseball dynasty league owners who have him on their rosters.

6 comments:

  1. I don't think this makes the Angels the favorite to win the AL West, but they should be more competitive. Their middle of the lineup is now formidable with Kendry Morales, Tori Hunter, and Wells. They had offensive problems last year after Morales went down. They still need a leadoff hitter. They have good starting pitching which gives them a chance to compete every game. Its mindboggling though that the Angels are not getting any $ in this deal.

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  2. The problem now is the Angels don't have a position to put a leadoff hitter. Maybe Seattle would trade Chone Figgins back so he could play 3B? I suppose they could still sign Scotty Pods, but he's a poor fielder in CF and if he played LF, Wells would have to move back to CF where he's not such a great fielder. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. The Angels do have an interesting middle of the lineup with Abreu in there too.

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  3. DrB, this is the best explanation I have seen regarding the Angel's side of the deal. So basically they are only paying him $12M this season, net. Then as salaries go off the books, that covers Wells $23M and there's only 3 more left after this season at roughly $21M each.

    I would also note that this opens up the possibility of the Angel's bringing up Hank Conger at C by mid-season, so there is a win by subtraction there as well.

    I would also note that it helps that the Angels are owned by a owner who has a billion dollars burning a hole in his pocket. $86M is almost pocket change for him (for someone with $10,000, the equivalent is $860; with $100,000, $8,600). That is why I've been campaigning since the Giants passed on Vlad and instead bought all those mediocre talents for a billionaire tech owner to buy the Giants and fuel purchases. I'm especially on this now that we need to sign all our young players to long term deals at some point in the relatively near future. Larry Ellison might be a pain of an owner, but he has a LOT of money that would enable the Giants to do a lot of good stuff.

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  4. DrB, Your way of thinking and mine are very similar. I too always try to see and understand both sides of any issue and am more then willing to go outside the box to do so. You however are much kinder and gentler to those unable to do this then I. For this I commend you.

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  5. Thanks for the kind words guys. I've posted some of these ideas over on Fangraphs and got absolutely flamed for it. I just remember the guy making the most noise about it over on fangraphs is the same guy who ranked the Mariners as the #6 organization in baseball last offseason while ranking the Giants #24. We all saw how that turned out.

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  6. Doc,

    It seems a lot of "experts" would still rank the G's in the 24-range for last season, even in retrospect...

    I have never seen a team get so little love after winning their sport's championship in such a dominating fashion (not saying it was dominating, but they certainly did not back into the championship).

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