The Tigers had a $9 M option on Cameron Maybin with a $1 M buyout. The Tigers are looking to shed contracts so they traded Maybin to the Angels for a low level prospect. The Angels will pick up Maybin's option, thus relieving the Tigers of even the $1 M buyout. Maybin had a pretty good year batting .315 and running up a 2.0 fWAR, but once again missed substantial time with an injury. Still, 2.0 fWAR is worth about $16 M on the open market, so the option is cheap in comparison.
Maybin will move to LF where his D will play up although the Angels probably could have gotten a better offensive LF without sacrificing too much on D. Maybin has averaged 2 fWAR per 600 PA's over the course of his career, so if he can stay healthy, it's a good deal for the Angels.
BTW, Maybin is a very Giantsy LF. I would not have been shocked if the Giants had made this deal.
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Giants picked up Moore's option. I'm very happy about that.
ReplyDeleteAs for Maybin, I saw that when got on the Internet this AM. I'm okay we didn't get him and I'd rather keep the prospects as he's never really gotten it together for more than the odd-season (2011 being his WAR peak) and he's been injury and extended slump prone.
As far as trade value, I'd say the Angels won. They essentially gave up a relief prospect from a fairly bad farm system who isn't likely to contribute whereas Maybin, even if he goes back to being who he was with the bat (.250ish hitter), he can probably be a Pagan-like LFer and is certainly better than trying use some career-over, over-paid retread fished out of the bottom of FA.
I agree. The Giants just got themselves out from one contract with an injury prone player. The best predictor of future injury is past injury. No thanks on Maybin. I would much rather take a chance on Mac Williamson/Parker with Austin Slater and Steven Duggar as backup options.
DeleteBTW, related to Maybin, I've been Dugger for CF which is why I'm not wanting to trade prospects. But when re-read sometimes when I do I wonder what exactly the writers are thinking when they write what they write:
ReplyDeleteSteve Dugger
"His left-handed swing can get busy and he has trouble handling breaking balls, so Duggar has some swing-and-miss issues that limit his ability to hit for a high average. He does have an eye for drawing walks and is more likely to be an on-base threat than a big power source. While he doesn't have the pop of a typical right fielder, he does have the requisite strong arm for the position."
He hit .321 with an .823 OPS for the Flying Squirrels. For a guy who profiles as a CF with ++ speed and range, I'll take that. I'll take that with 30 points off the BA in the majors. I mean a guy who hits .280 with a 10% walk rate. Heck yes..
So I'm assuming there's more to it than he hit .321... But what are the assumptions? He's never going to change? The coaches can't fix his swing? He's another Gary Brown who Will Not Listen (if the rumors/speculation were true)? It just doesn't line up...
But I know they're much better at it than I am so I just... I don't know how to process it... Anyway, semi-rant over...
I think I am closer to your point of view on Duggar. A lot of guys who write about prospects for a living tend to focus on what players can't do well and for some very odd reason, there seems to be an industry-wide bias against whoever the Giants have in their farm system at any given time. Now, I have to admit that the odds are very much against any give prospect in any system, so maybe those guys are right. They probably feel like they are paid to be skeptical, which is probably a healthy attitude if you are getting paid for it. One more thought: Guys at big time websites like Fangraphs rely heavily on the opinions of scouts who they get to know. We don't know how many scouts they talk to or from what organizations. I would not put it past professional scouts to feed disinformation to some of these guys. Not saying that's always the case, but again, if they can be skeptical, then so can I.
DeleteAs for Eric Longenhagen, he has scouts he talks to, but he also appears to make his own observations and draws his own conclusions, so I respect that. I got into a debate with him a couple of offseasons ago about the Giants Cuban prospect(I cant' quite think if his name right now and if I look it up, I'll lose the rest of this comment). Turns out Eric was probably right and I was wrong about him.
Back to Duggar. Yes, his swing looks like it has a lot of moving parts to me and his leg kick is way to high for my liking, but there are lots of successful MLB players with high leg kicks. Swing and miss? The Cubs just won a World Series with a bunch of players who had K rates close to 30% in the minor leagues. Duggar's is under 20%. Couple that with a walk rate of 10+% and it seems like he actually is a guy the stats guys would love! As for power, he only hit 1 HR after his promotion to Richmond, but he hit 9 in a half-season with San Jose. So we'll just have to see how Duggar develops but the numbers look good to me.
Daniel Carbonell is the guy I had the debate with Eric Longenhagen over.
DeleteIf Duggar hits for gap power in AT&T Park and hits all of his HR's in places like Coor's Field, Arizona or Cincinnati, well, that's pretty much the Giants formula for the past 7 seasons, right?
DeleteI'd be happy with it.
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