The Giants today acquired 3B Evan Longoria from the Tampa Bay Rays for OF Denard Span, IF Christian Arroyo, RHP Stephen Woods and LHP Matt Krook. The Rays are also reported to be sending somewhere between $10 M and $15 M to the Giants to help cover the cost of the remaining $87 M on his contract.
Longoria gives the Giants a major upgrade of a position that provided negative WAR last year and was looking mighty rough for the upcoming year, unless you had an irrational exuberance about Pablo Sandoval's ability to mount a comeback. Was he their best option for an immediate upgrade on the position? Only option? We will never know. As I have said before, it's easy to draw up trades on a blog and extremely hard to make them happen in real life when the opposing GM is every bit as savvy as you, maybe more. We know that Todd Frazier is an approximately equal talent who is projected to get about half of Longoria's money in a free agent deal, but we don't know what is asking price is or if he was even willing to consider signing with the Giants. For all we know, they may have kicked that tire and been rebuffed.
Denard Span was essentially a sunk cost for the Giants. He was clearly not an option for CF next season and despite talk of him moving to LF, he's never really played LF and who knows if he would be better there than CF? They needed to move his contract and getting the Rays to take him back was a savvy move by Bobby Evans. Between Span's contract and the money coming back from the Rays, Longoria is reportedly CBT neutral for the Giants for 2018. They may not care about 2019 and 20120 because if they can stay under it this year, the penalties reset to a lower amount for the next two seasons. The big goal was to stay under this year.
I still like Christian Arroyo as a prospect but the Giants could not count on him for 2018 due to his inexperience and concerns about his fractured hand. With the acquisition of Longoria, there was really no place for the Giants to put Arroyo in the forseeable future, therefore he became their most expendable significant prospect, a guy who was going to have to be traded at some point anyway.
Stephen Woods has a live arm, but pitched in low A ball at age 22 in 2017. He had a nice K rate but it came with a BB/9 of over 5. He profiles as a future reliever at best.
I think we all know about Matt Krook, who has a high ceiling but severe control issues which improved in Hi A ball in San Jose, but his BB/9 was still over 6! He is still a longterm project who will pitch his age 23 season in 2018.
In summary: 1. The Giants are a better team tonight than they were last night with the acquisition of Evan Longoria. 2. His contract is a longterm risk, but the Giants have never let a bad contract stand in the way of improving the team and it's not my money! 3. Longoria made Arroyo expendable. Span is addition by subtraction. The two pitchers are lottery tickets. I have no complaints about the players the Giants gave up in the deal. 4. Overall, I'm not doing cartwheels over the trade but I'm not bummed out about it either.
The Giants are widely reported to have at least one more major deal in the works and that this trade helped them set it up. Whether that is signing Jay Bruce or making another trade, it will be interesting to watch. Longoria by himself does not make the Giants a contender, but if they can add a corner OF with some HR pop and put Duggar in CF, they may be able to contend for a playoff spot.
One more thought: I have to give Evans kudos for paring down $18 M worth of bad contracts in the Moore and Span trades. If he can find a way to either move Pence's contract or make him useful in 2018, now that would be impressive!
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PS: The Rays will pay the entire $13 M remaining on Span's contract and will send an additional $14.5 M to the Giants. $2 M pays for a trade bonus that was in Longoria's contract. $3 M will be paid by the end of the 2022 season and the remaining $9.5 M will be deferred to 2022-2015. The net of all this is the Giants essentially get Longoria for 5 years/$60 M or an AAV of $12 M. Not too bad. Not too bad at all! Nice work, Bobby!
ReplyDeleteSarris in The Athletic figures $8MM as the price per WAR one can use to evaluate a contract, with a 5% annual inflation. If we ignore the inflation, Longoria’s contract works if he produces 1.5 WAR a year. That seems like a pretty good bet, I think. What the opportunity costs of having him may be, one doesn’t know. But the Giants don’t seem to have a young, top-notch minor-league third baseman being blocked; and they plainly thought they didn’t have one when they contemplated Arroyo.
DeleteThe Giants have a long history of being quick to bail on prospects who struggle in their MLB debuts, so it's possible they soured on Arroyo last year. I think the bigger factor is they just could not count on him in 2018 and since the deal was for 5 years of Longoria, Arroyo was not blocked.
DeleteI think Arroyo can still turn into a good player, but his likely ceiling is basically Joe Panik playing 3B, which is not a profile that would make you wait for him or make him untouchable in a trade.
...err Arroyo WAS blocked.
DeleteHey Doc, I am with you, the Arroyo was a nice prospect, but probably won't hurt us in the long run. Longo, is big upgrade, and they somehow got the Ray's to absorb some of these bad contracts was great. The extra money from the Ray`s puts longo's contract in line with belts current deal. Longo, is a gold glove 3B, with good power and RBI ability at the end of the day, this might be a solid deal for today and in the future.
ReplyDeleteNice work for sure - you've hit it on the head that the Giants are a better team today than they were yesterday. There's hope that they might just catch fire again like they did that first half of 2016, but let's not repeat the second half! Go Giants - good job Bobby Evans, I take back all those bad thoughts I was having about you...can't wait to see who the new outfielder will be, but I hope he's FAST.
ReplyDeleteSo Giants are now committed to a 2-3 year window of contention. Might as well go all in. I'm banging the drum for my off-season dream of getting Andrew McCuthchen for RF and Derek Fisher for CF. Andrew McCuthchen is like the RF version of Evan Longoria. Sure, he is past his prime but is a solid veteran presence and has a reasonable contract that he can be flipped at the trading deadline if this risky experiment of contention falls flat. For 1 year of McCuthchen it'll take Chris Shaw and a few other pieces I presume.
ReplyDeleteDerek Fisher is my white whale. Why would the Astros trade him? They have George Springer in CF and Josh Reddick in RF. Astros will probably platoon Marwin Gonzalez and Fisher and rotate them through the DH. But Astros also have a top prospect Kyle Tucker who will be knocking on the door. Between Tucker and Fisher, I assume Fisher will be easier to acquire. Astros don't need anything but they might be interested in Aramis Garcia, since teams are always in need of catching prospects and Astros will need to replace McCann/Gattis soon. They might also be looking for bullpen upgrades and Hunter Strickland can do that. An additional piece or two like Kyle Crick and Sandro Fabian might be enough. Then with the following lineup I think they can be legitimate wild card contenders and still be under the luxury tax.
CF Derek Fisher (L)
RF Andrew McCutchen
1B Brandon Belt (L)
C Buster Posey
3B Evan Longoria
2B Joe Panik (L)
LF Hunter Pence
SS Brandon Crawford (L)
Agreed, nice trade by the Giants. Longoria is a big upgrade at 3rd base, looking forward to seeing him play. Hate to see them lose Christan Arroyo though. The FO made it clear that they are reloading not rebuilding so this trade makes a lot of sense. Good job! Wonder what the next big move will be?
ReplyDeleteLG
I think Pence is full no-trade and the only way to get him to agree would be to bench him here or trade him to a place he could win. I think some of the best fiction writers in the world couldn't write that as a successful scenario.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks for the break-down. I kept reading the press on the trade and they were useless.
Also, FWIW, even if he's a 2WAR player, we were basically -2 WAR at the position (including Nunez's +1.1!) so it's at least +4 WAR swing of what happened last year.
Great point about the WAR swing. I agree completely.
DeleteIndeed, that's a really good point Moses. I think people also greatly undervalue that Longoria was the 2017 Gold Glove WINNER at 3B. That's sooo key at the hot corner, it cannot be overvalued so long as the offensive value also provides strength and upside.
DeleteWith all that said - I STILL feel the Giants need to see what Bumgarner's value is on the trade market. You can't keep an aging team viable without playing BOTH SIDES OF THE TRADING COIN.
The return from trading Madison could potentially even boost *this year's team*, while opening room to see what Beede, Straton & Sanchez can provide at the big league level. Allow 1 elite arm to be returned in the trade (along with other positional assets), and that's a recipe to re-open the SF window for the next 5 years. Needs to be the right package, but I don't know that there's a more valuable arm in the whole of baseball - and for teams looking at WS contention, the legend of Madison Bumgarner might just be an opportunity too good to pass up. HOwever, that's also why if a trade does come to pass, it may not be until the 2018 deadline.
The Astros needed Verlander in 2017, traded their 3, 9 and 11 prospects for the contract through 2020 at $22M/yr. Imagine what any team in contention in August would cough up for Bumgarner who comes with a cheap contract and team option through 2019! (Hopefully the Giants are the ones in contention and can start getting excited about the playoffs and Bumgarner, but this is what if that doesn't happen). You could probably get someone's #1-#5, if not #1-#3 and a major leaguer that hit the DL and is out for 2018 but ready to bounce back in 2019.
DeleteNYY send Ellsbury and eat half the salary, SF sends Pence and dump the salary. Ellsbury costs $10M/yr or so this way and he's a strong defensive CF, you've dumped Pence's salary so for 2018 you just freed up MORE CBT space. Ellsbury comes with potential offensive upside - might have a revival out in the NL West. Pence might say OK to NYY, Yankees might like his PH bat and hustle (Stanton and Judge would usually be an OF spot and DH, so he can get some playing time). SF would like to get Clint Frazier in the deal, but...
DeleteEllsbury is under a costly contract through age 37 or 38, unless you mean that the Yankees pay half his salary every year for its duration. He has had a negative defensive fWAR two of the last three seasons, and Steamer projects a still worse one for 2018—in short he isn’t now defensively strong and presumably will decline with age.
DeleteI'm reading that Ellsbury has 3 years 63M+ left but that the NYY are so desperate to clear him that they will throw in 34M if someone takes him. He can be had for $9-10 M/yr and if we can send Pence the other way it makes it a $7-8M swing for the CBT calculation adding to the space already created by trading Moore and Span. He was valuable for the Yankees down the stretch last year, came alive when Judge was struggling and then Hicks was hurt. Remember he had that concussion in May, takes a while to recover, but he did recover and finished 2017 looking GOOD. Not MVP good but $8-9M good...
DeleteMcCutchen?
ReplyDeleteGiants have the "face" or the Rays, should they trade for the "face" of the Pirates for one year with negative OF defense? At AT&T?
Although, considering Moses' "WAR swing" analysis, anything greater than ZERO in the OF will be a positive swing!
His $14.5 million is more than covered by his WAR (unless he repeats 2016)! But it does put a lot of squeeze on the CB buffer. And there's still CF.
Just a very average hitter who plays a very good CF will be a positive WAR swing and make the Giants strong up the middle. Again.
Even with his rebound in 2017, McCutchen hit the fewest triples of his career which suggests his legs may not be what the Giants want in Triples Alley.
If they got him on the cheap (mid prospects, not top) plus a little salary relief (they don't have anyone left to trade that makes any money except Dyson) -- but why would Pittsburgh do that? jp