MLB 2013!!

[snoopy369]

Probably time for another thread, right? And what better time than the first blockbuster trade of the 2012-2013 offseason...

So think of all of those trades 12 year olds post, where their team takes all of the stars from another team in exchange for one player they don't like and a bunch of prospects.

Sort of like this one, except it's real. Josh Johnson, Jose Reyes, Emile Bonifacio, John Buck, and Mark Buerhle go to the Blue Jays, for ... Yunel Escobar (someone wanted him? why?) and prospects. And no, nobody at the MLB level - no Brett Lawrie, nothing.

Jeffrey Loria continues to prove timeand time again that he's the worst owner in MLB - by a lot - and I haven't even mention the disaster the Expos/Nationals were when he owned them. (Remember, in 1994, when the Expos/White Sox world series seemed inevitable prior to the strike? Yeah, five years later, Loria turned it into a laughing stock that only this year has recovered from his ownership.)

Somebody call Mark Cuban, see if he'd be willing to take this franchise over perhaps?

[SlowwHand]

It's a shame the league can't nullify this trade.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Loria is, of course, a greedy bastard, but it is interesting to see the pieces in this deal. Josh Johnson and Mark Burhle definitely didn't pitch to expectations (and Johnson seems to get hurt quite a bit). Reyes was far less of a player than he was with New York the year before. Bonifacio and Buck just outright sucked at the plate.

If Loria's rep wasn't so horrible (and they didn't sell all their other good players), this may have seemed like a decent trade.

[-Jrabbit]

So now it's a franchise with no players and no manager?
Quite a piece of work.

[gjramsey]

But they have a nice shiny stadium

[snoopy369]

Loria is, of course, a greedy bastard, but it is interesting to see the pieces in this deal. Josh Johnson and Mark Burhle definitely didn't pitch to expectations (and Johnson seems to get hurt quite a bit). Reyes was far less of a player than he was with New York the year before. Bonifacio and Buck just outright sucked at the plate.

If Loria's rep wasn't so horrible (and they didn't sell all their other good players), this may have seemed like a decent trade.

Buehrle certainly pitched to any reasonable expectation. The fact that he was given an insane contract notwithstanding, he was worth 2.1 WAR according to fangraphs and 3.2 according to BBR (fangraphs likes high K pitchers more). His xFIP was identical, the ERA was a bit higher but well within his range (3.74). He was 13-13 for a well below .500 team. What's not to like about that performance? Sure, if you think he should be paid an average $12MM/year, he's not worth that, but that was a dumb contract from day one.

Reyes didn't perform like last year, but he also performed admirably given the circumstances. 2.8 WAR (BBR)/4.5 WAR (Fangraphs) on a bad team is pretty good; his peak was around 5 WAR which he had last year and back in the 2006-2008 glory days, but a good portion of that came from super high steal totals, which now that he's older he won't get no matter what. 4.7 WAR was with one of the highest batting averages in recent history, and .050 points higher than he's been in the past. .287/.347/.433 is perfectly reasonable performance for Reyes, 40 steals, fielding in the range you expect of him based on past performance(below average for a SS, but since he's a hitting SS that's pretty much expected - he's not one of those fielding-only guys who's really good and skews the UZR and average north). Again, maybe he's not worth his contract, but fangraphs disagrees (value: $20.1MM) and even at BBR's lower WAR he made his $11MM.

Josh Johnson is the one who underperformed of this group, really. Buck and Bonifacio are both lower performing guys who don't have the high expectations; Bonifacio is beloved of fantasy folks due to his eligibility, but he's never had more than a good half at best. Johnson was hurt last year and so this year certainly wasn't at his best, and perhaps won't be - or maybe he just needed a year off.

I just don't see this as "getting rid of a bunch of underperforming guys". It's trading ALL of your stars, except Stanton, for a relatively meager return. Sure, maybe they're only worth their contracts, and so you're not really losing anything - but somehow I don't see him spending $100MM this year on salary replacing them. At best, Loria is removing the last of the debatable contacts, sort of like the Boston trade last year; but Boston did retain some of their salary and stars, and clearly intend to spend the saved money this year on bettering their team. MIA already did trade away several good players near the deadline - Gaby Sanchez, Heath Bell (well, okay, several highly paid players), Anibel Sanchez, Omar Infante. This is just finishing the job they started in July.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't think you can de-link expectations from salary. And it wasn't like the Marlins got nothing. Sure they didn't get any mega prospects, but they did get in a nice haul:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/nicolino-marisnick-key-prospects-in-marlinsjays-deal/

Though, like I said, Loria's rep (and what happened earlier this offseason and at the trade deadline last year) makes this deal seem far worse than it is. It is the cleaning out of the team. Then again, Marlins fans should be used to it - maybe they'll get another World Series out of it .

[snoopy369]

You absolutely can de-link expectations from salary. If someone who's consistently worth 3WAR gets a salary for $12MM, and 1WAR=$4MM, then his salary is in line with expectations. If he gets $15MM, then he's expected to make $12MM and has a dumb contract to start with. I have no problem calling out GMs for dumb contracts; and perhaps they signed them for different reasons (for example, perhaps they didn't mind paying an extra $XMM to get someone who will fill seats, ie Pujols to the Angels, or signing an aging superstar for one final season, or Jerry Reinsdorf signing a loyal player out of loyalty).

In any event, Buerhle was worth between $10MM and $15MM depending on who you look at (BBR or Fangraphs), and as a result I think he met even his salary.

Prospect wise, trading away your entire team for a prospect group that consists of:
* A SP with a ceiling of a #3 or #4 starter, who's in A ball
* A CF with tools but who can't hit, who's in AA ball
* A SS with good defensive tools
* A SP/RP with an average fastball and nothing else, who's in A ball

And Yunel Escobar, who's an idiot.

I'm not saying it's total junk, but for the rest of the good players on the team other than Giancarlo Stanton, it's not much. Out of that crew, I'd expect you get 1 MLB starter (but not a great one, just a reliable starting player) and 1 MLB utility player, given the normal fail-out rate of minor leaguers. IIRC a normal 'mlb starter' who is worth 1WAR a year after his rookie year (say 0 WAR for rookie, then 1 from year 2 through 6), so 5 WAR, is paid $500k a year from 1 through 3 then say $1.5, 2.5, 3.5 for the arb years; so 9MM for 20MM-25MM of value (who knows what a WAR will be worth). Say 13MM surplus value, total. The utility player won't have almost any value, say 3MM surplus. So they got 16MM surplus value from this trade. Reyes had 10MM surplus value last year (though if you fairly space out his contract, it's probably more like 5MM), Buerhle was at least on par, Johnson was a bit underperforming but has the potential to be a star still IMO... I have a hard time seeing 16MM surplus value as being enough to make a trade like this, even if it weren't the last good players on the team.

You also can't write off the fact that this isn't the only trade they've made; BOS for example had a similar trade (though the contracts were worse, IMO), but it was the only trade they made, so they still had some guys left; and they clearly will use that money for good. Loria doesn't have that sort of credibility, and combined with all of the other trades, you basically don't offer fans any reason to come to games next year. Unless they make some major FA moves (which would be dumb given this trade), they're going to be about 40-122 next year, if they're lucky.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You absolutely can de-link expectations from salary.

If you are the Yankees, I guess. But this is a business. Regardless of whether or not a GM makes a bad deal or dumb contract, the salary is a very big part of the calcuation. In lots of deals, the salary is a very big portion of the calculation. And here, what it seems like is that Toronto is taking on ALL of the salary and for Burhle, IIRC, the salary is severely backloaded and ramps up pretty good starting next year (He's owed an average of $17mil a year for the next 3 years). When one team takes on oodles of salary, that in itself will decrease the value of what you are getting in return (In addition to Buehrle, Reyes is owed an average of $19.5 per year for 5 more years).

Also I think you are underselling Marisnick and Nicolino.

And I've consistently pointed out that this looks worse because of all the other deals they've made the last 2 years. However, this one trade isn't abysmmal (its also the sort of fire trade like deal the Marlins have made to reload).

Basically:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/cliff_corcoran/11/13/blue-jays-marlins-trade-reyes-johnson-buehrle/index.html

If this was any other team, I would actually rate this trade fairly favorably for the Marlins. Yes, it looks bad, but they rid themselves of $158.75 million worth of contracts and acquired a solid replacement for Reyes at shortstop and some promising youngsters in the process. They didn't get any blue-chip prospects, but they did well given the salary relief involved and the uncertainty connected to two of the three key players they sent to Toronto and the age of the third.

[OzzyKP]

Tigers picked up Torii Hunter for the next two years.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Good OF upgrade, just watch the age (he'll be 37 and 38 in the two years of his new deal).

[OzzyKP]

Berry, Dirks, Garcia and, perhaps, Castellanos can be there to fill in when the old man needs a day off.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm assuming you want Dirks to play every day

[Imran Siddiqui]

Cy Youngs Decided!!

R.A. Dickey (NYM) in the NL ( )

And in a shocker, David Price (TBR) edged out Justin Verlander (DET) in the AL

[OzzyKP]

Do the sabermetric gods concur?