I’m not trying to cause nevermoor any angst but with Detroit throwing their hat into the ring there are now 3 suitors pursuing Crawford that all spent more than double Oakland’s payroll during the 2010 season. That kind of economic muscle could lead to a bidding war that the A’s won’t (and maybe even can’t) afford to participate in. The Angels are already showing signs of desperation, saying that ownership is willing to go into the red in an effort to buy Anaheim back into the post-season. I’m all for urging the owners of my favorite sports teams to go out and spend money on talent but I tend to draw the line at expenditures that will make said owners poorer then they were at the start of the year.
So here’s Plan B.
1) Trade Daric Barton, Andrew Bailey and prospect Grant Green to Tampa for BJ Upton and Matt Garza.
One of the things that has gradually eroded my patience over at AN has been the continued refusal by otherwise thoughtful individuals to try and bounce their trade ideas off folks who have a vested interest in the non-Oakland side of the deal. Say what you want about SB Nation but there’s no denying the fact that with just a little bit of foresight any writer has the opportunity to converse with fans of every other baseball team. These fans are far more likely to be up to speed on the gossip, rumors and intentions of their team than any A’s fan. They’ll know what’s being said on talk radio and in the local newspapers; they’ll know the tendencies of the GM better than an A’s fan. Are these fans omnipotent? Of course not, but they know a Hell of a lot more about a certain subject than I do and I have always believed that more information (especially once you learn how to filter out the fan boy crap) makes for a better discussion. It leads to more practical trade scenarios… such as the one I just proposed.
I took an idea originally floated by NSJ over to DRay’s Bay and asked if a Bailey/Green package could send Upton Oakland’s way. I was surprised that 54% of the respondents felt that Bailey/Green (plus maybe a little more) seemed like a reasonable proposition. Tampa is slashing their payroll from ~$73 million this year to $50 million next year. Their bullpen has maybe 3 pitchers returning next year; including one arm that missed 2010 due to injury. BJ Upton and Matt Garza are looking to make $4.5 and $5 million respectively through arbitration. Upton is an incredible athlete with a very high ceiling but the feeling around Tampa is that he’s been more tease than production over the past two seasons and as he becomes more expensive, patience wears thin. Garza was, at most, the 3rd best SP on the staff and with prized SP prospect Jeremy “Hellboy†Hellickson more than ready for a big league job Garza’s cost is more than his production is worth.
The problem with going direct to the fans is the chance that any analysis could be tainted by a hometown bias. It’s hard for people to be emotionally detached when discussing the players on their team… especially when talking about a winning team!
Winning team. You know, when they win more games than they lose?
<Sighs> It has been a long time, hasn’t it?
So I took a new plan over to Minorleagueball. The great thing about Sickels’ site is that it attracts fans from all teams; therefore I should be able to find a more impartial voting pool to judge a plan that sent Barton and Bailey to Tampa for Upton and Garza. I used a Trade Value calculation designed by Beyond the Boxscore’s Sky Kalkman to show while the A’s would (theoretically) gain a performance edge in 2011 and 2012 the Rays would receive solid production at two barren spots (1B and the bullpen) and fiscal relief during those years and come out well ahead in 2013 and 2014. I thought I was suggesting a fair proposal.
The voting blew that assumption out of the water.
4 out of 5 voters said the deal heavily favored the A’s. Even accounting for the fact that a large chunk of Sickel’s readership visit his site for fantasy baseball purposes, it’s obvious that something more was in play. Part of the problem might have been with people under-estimating just how good Barton’s 2010 was (4.9 WAR per Fangraphs… better than any season produced by either Upton or Garza). But my guess is the biggest hurdle was the “Potential†tied to BJ Upton. He’s turning 26, he’s produced two 4+ WAR seasons and has all the tools to put up a 30-30 season while playing a good CF… not many are anxious to undersell that kind of potential production.
So (finally, a conclusion seems near!) rather than fight the “Potential†tag I thought it might be better to just try and trump it by including a big ball o’ “Potential†to Oakland’s side: SS prospect Grant Green. Because if I’m being honest I’d love for Upton’s potential to break out if he came to Oakland; in fact, the biggest selling point for replacing Crisp with Upton is the potential for him to go into his peak years and produce better than he ever has before. He’d qualify for all the clichés… change o’ scenery; peak years; FA payday… any or all could help take his production to a higher level. And even if he only produces like he did in 2010 he’d be a more reliable option than Crisp to perform as well and at a similar cost to what Coco did for the A’s in 2010. So Upton’s floor essentially starts at or near the ceiling of what we can expect from Crisp in 2011.
2) Trade Matt Garza and Rajai Davis to the LA Dodgers for Matt Kemp and prospect Ethan Martin.
Originally I took another idea floated by NSJ to True Blue LA and watched that trade proposal get torn to shreds. Then burned. And then it rained for 3 days and a mudslide buried the remains. But during the course of the conversation I learned that A) the members there have a very low opinion of GM Ned Colletti’s intelligence and B) in their opinion, based on Colletti’s previous dealings the Dodgers GM would practically jump all over a Dallas Braden for Matt Kemp deal. The only reservation would be the Dodgers not having an internal replacement for their starting CF… which is where Rajai figures in. I originally tried to keep the deal as Braden + Davis (keeping Garza in Oakland) but the finances didn’t work out. There’s no denying that Garza has been the better workhorse of the two SP so putting him in the mix adds even more incentive for Colletti to say “Yes!†However, I felt the inclusion of Garza made the deal a little lopsided and decided to add a little something on the backside for the A’s… SP prospect Ethan Martin. Martin is probably one of the Top 5 SP prospects in the Dodgers’ system but he struggled badly in High-A and is further behind than LA’s top arms. (And if the Dodgers balked at including Martin there are a couple players in the short season leagues I’d be cool with.)
Kemp is a physical beast coming off a trying year in LA. His UZR score in CF was atrocious in 2010 but his arm is strong enough to play in RF. He hit 249/310/450 while setting a new career high with 28 HR. Kemp has never been big on drawing a walk, relying on high BABIPs to keep his OBP up. He heads into his age-26 season owed $6.95 million and he’s eligible for arbitration in 2012, his final year of team control before he’s eligible for free agency.
3) Sign Adam Dunn to a 3 year/$36 million contract with a 4th year option at $11 million or a $3 million buy-out to play 1B.
Trading Barton leaves a gaping hole at 1B and I’m willing to gamble that the improvement Dunn showed with the glove in 2010 is somewhat real. Keep in mind, Dunn spent almost all of his big league career in the outfield until he split time between LF and 1B for the Nationals in 2009. He won’t ever be as good with the glove as Barton was but he’ll be good enough to live with as long as keeps hitting like he has in the past. Dunn turns 31 in November and has been one of the most consistent hitters in baseball (wOBA between 403 and 365) for the past 7 years.
(Holy shit this is getting long.)
So what does all this do for the A’s?
The additions of BJ Upton and Matt Kemp, each with two more years of team control, means that the 2011 and 2012 seasons represent the A’s best chance at returning to the post season in the next half-decade. These two are just entering what is supposed to be their peak years… if they blossom we could see outfield production like Oakland hasn’t had in a generation. The trades are essentially a gamble that those two fulfill their upside. Dunn’s bat offers consistent power and OBP even if there are some questions about his glove. Oakland also controls Cahill, Gio, Anderson and Braden for the next three years and unless Tyson Ross suddenly becomes durable they don’t have anyone in the farm system that can be expected to push any of those four SP down the pecking order prior to 2013. Chris Carter probably doesn’t fully blossom until 2012 but maybe we get a little lucky and he forces the issue by the middle of next year. And by forcing the issue I mean he’s hitting the ball so freakin’ hard no one’s going to bitch about any defensive slippage in LF. We’re also crossing our fingers that Mike Wuertz’s elbow will let him close (Hell, pitch) games for the A’s in 2011.
The issue, as always, is fitting all this within the budget. A new article by Jeff Euston (he of the Cot’s Contracts Euston’s) makes me think that my earlier arbitration estimates for Kouzmanoff, Sweeney, Braden and Cust might have been high.
Kouz $3.5 million (vs. $5 million)
Braden $2.5 million (vs. $2.75 million)
Cust $4 million (vs. $5 million)
Sweeney $750K (vs. $2 million)
So making those adjustments while adding Upton, Kemp and Dunn to the line-up puts the 2011 payroll at approximately $61.5 million. Now normally I try to set a hard cap at $60 million when I do things like this but $61.5 is not a crazy, out-of-bounds figure. The 2012 payroll sits at $52 million with arbitration decisions on Rosales, Cust, Kouzmanoff, Sweeney and Outman bumping that figure somewhere between $2 – $12 million. The probable departures of Upton and Kemp leave the 2013 payroll at approximately $52 million.
Could all this happen?
How the Hell should I know?! I’m a muppet; I got fucking saw dust for brains.
But if I’ve read the tea laves right this seems a plausible scenario.
I never realized until just now that the tags are placed alphabetically.
Fail
(and pinned)
So in true rosterbation form we’re talking:
C: Zook
1B: Dunn
2B: Ellis
3B: Kz
SS: Pennington
LF: Coco/Buck/Carter/Sweeney/etc
CF: Upton
RF: Kemp
DH: Cust
Right? And we don’t have a closer any more.
It’s certainly creative, and the moves seem reasonable. I just wonder how much forward progress we are getting from this that is not due to the assumption we can sign Dunn. I’ll run the numbers tomorrow and have more detailed thoughts, but my concern is that if we are assuming we can’t sign Acronym, I’m not sure why we assume we can sign Dunn.
Using 3 year WAR averages as a baseline…
Kemp: 2.87
Upton: 3.45
Barton: 2.5
Bailey: 1.75
And there are all kinds of arguments to adjust/anticipate higher or lower scores for all of them… well, maybe not Barton. One could make a compelling argument against this deal from Oakland’s perspective. Like I said in way too many words this is a high stakes bet that Upton and Kemp will break out over the next two seasons. It will take that happening from at least one of those outfielders for this to become a clear win on Oakland’s score card.
Thanks for doing this part.
It seems to me that a lateral move from gaping OF holes to gaping 1B/Closer holes is a positive in and of itself (and Upton is the best player involved). I think I come out in favor of the entire idea (hell, it would be fun to have a Dunn/Cust pairing in the lineup).
In my fantasy world where we just blow all our $$$ on Acronym, though, I think we may be better off than these deals. Which only means that they are moves we can’t / shouldn’t make until we know we are not getting him.
Just to clarify something I said…
I don’t think there’s a legit argument that could be made for Barton to post a WAR below 2.5. Higher, yes. But not lower.
(I know no one has said anything but it was bugging me.)
And you’re right, signing Crawford would be a whole lot easier than all this maneuvering.
Injury.
Sure. A bus hitting any of these guys would result in diminished performance.
And a re-tailoring of their uniform.
Barring an injury (of which he is currently not in possession of) there is not a good argument to project a sub-2.5 WAR from Barton.
I think we’re all agreed on that (in principle, if not in precise WAR detail).
I gotta take my wife to a bookstore. Later.
Now that’s a euphemism.
Trade one by itself would be a disaster for the A’s so I’m assuming trade two must already be agreed upon before trade one happens. Even still, I don’t see why the Dodgers can’t just negotiate with the Rays directly as the Rays have Garza and better prospects as secondary pieces to offer. This would also free the Rays to deal Upton in a separate package for prospects and salary relief.
Also, the Dodgers certainly don’t have to settle for Rajai as a replacement for Kemp. If that’s their only option, they shouldn’t be looking to trade Kemp at all. There are plenty of Garza-level starters available this offseason so they can just sign one of those and keep Kemp. I just don’t see the motive for the Dodgers making this trade.
And even if everything goes the A’s way w/r/t trade one and two, you still have to deal with, you know, actually signing Adam Dunn. Otherwise, this whole scheme seems like a lateral move for the A’s (- a Grant Green).
The Rays would be hard pressed to take on Kemp’s salary.
Trade 1 is pointless unless Trade 2 has already been set up and I agree with you, they could find better prospect packages if they dealt Garza and Upton separately. Thing is, Tampa isn’t looking to rebuild… they’re trying to reload. They can slide Desmond Jennings into CF and this is the offseason to find a cost-efficient corner OF.
As for LA, even with Lilly back in the fold the Dodgers are still 2 pitchers short of a full rotation. They appear extremely down on John Ely and while they’d love to bring Vincent Padilla back he’s trying to recover from a neck injury. I realize you’re not the biggest Garza fan but he’s got the basic numbers of s #3 SP. He’s also big and throws 93 MPH (on average) and has pitched just under 600 innings over the past 3 seasons.
I’ll admit though, I’m counting on lingering tension between Kemp and the FO to help facilitate a trade.
As for Dunn, I based my offer on this Fangraphs article.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/contract-crowdsourcing-results-adam-dunn/
(Link function didn’t want to work. Sorry.)
I’d be willing to go to 4 years guaranteed to bring Dunn in.
The Rays can easily take on Kemp’s salary if they’re swapping Garza + prospect for him and trading Upton away in a separate package. But this is besides the point as the Rays would have no issue with either getting Barton/Bailey/Green or Kemp + major league ready prospects. Both of these are reloading scenarios.
When I said there were plenty of Garza-level starters available, I meant there were plenty of free agent number three starters available. Going the free agent route lets them keep Kemp so again, I don’t see why the Dodgers can’t just sign one or two and not deal with having to replace Kemp.
Why wouldn’t Tampa just trade Garza for prospects and keep the devil they know in Upton? Why would they trade for Kemp and trade Upton?
Whom do you consider to be #3 SP available in FA?
Collettis doesn’t sound like the type to look at xFIP. He’s going to go old school and look at Garza and see a 27 yo 6’4″ 215 lb RH with a fastball that sits at 93 and nearly 600 IP over the past three seasons. He’s going to see 15 wins and a sub-4 ERA while pitching in the AL East.
Even if we (rightly) ignore the W/L record and ERA I’m not seeing the physical comparable on the FA list.
These questions can also be asked for your TB/OAK trade proposal.
And Colletti doesn’t have to find a #3 starter on the FA market equivalent to Garza. He just needs to believe that having that FA #3 starter + still having Kemp on his team is better than having just Garza.
I thought about your original question some more… could the Rays afford to keep both Upton and Kemp? They’d have ~$39 million committed to 19 players, including Upton and Kemp. They’d have no one at 1B or DH and 4 openings in the bullpen. I’m not sure they can find inexpensive enough bats at 1B and DH that would be of sufficient quality to help them compete in the East but maybe they could. They would then have to focus on dealing prospects to find a closer. When Dan Wheeler is your best bullpen arm you need to find some reinforcements, including someone to finish games. They’d have to be willing to get gouged to receive the cash necessary to pay for a Soria or to land a pre-arb arm like Bailey… and Tampa tends to follow the SD method of cheap relief pitcher acquisition. But they certainly have the farm system to pull off a bullpen arm trade if they chose to go that route.
So it would be a stretch for Tampa to afford both Upton and Kemp but they might be able to do it.
As for Colletti and the Dodgers… can you put names on these #3 SPs you’re talking about? When I look at Cot’s FA SP list I don’t see anyone who pops out as fitting your definition of a #3 SP. There are a few guys who certainly fit at the back end of the rotation; couple more that are boom-or-bust wild cards. But I’m not sure who you want to to pair with Kemp to make a comparison to Garza.
When Craig Breslow is your best bullpen arm you need to find some reinforcements, including someone to finish games.
Or stop blowing out the better arms!
Yeah, I dunno. I know you’re mostly being snarky there, and I know there is unexplored/unexploited opportunity to improve health/conditioning, but ultimately, pitching at high velocity/intensity being the unnnatural act it is, arms are gonna blow out. Gotta just have a lot of good ones on hand.
I’m optimistic about DLS, but he won’t be ready for Oakland by Opening Day 2011.
Garza’s averaged 2.6 WAR over the last 3 years. Kemp’s averaged (like you said) 2.87 WAR the last 3 years. Putting aside the fact that Kemp is more likely to breakout since he’s already reached 5 WAR just a year ago, while Garza’s been more or less a #3 starter his entire career…it shouldn’t be very hard for Colletti to find -.3 WAR of pitcher right? In any case, the #3 starters he could target are Millwood, Garland, Harang, Pavano, De La Rosa, Takahashi (only one year of data though) and Westbrook, who all averaged around a 4.50 FIP or less the last 3 years (granted, not the best way to evaluate and project, we’ll know more when CHONE projections come out).
He can also sign those relatively cheap high risk, high reward options (Webb, Harden, Duchscherer, etc) you mentioned. Or, he can target a #3 starter in a trade. In any case, I don’t see why he would be so desperate to get Garza and only Garza, especially at the expense of Kemp.
I really liked that one Merc writer’s book on the Rays pitcher: Bayless on Garza
Based on your previous position on Minorleageball I would not have presumed that a 4.50 FIP was an acceptable rate for a #3 SP.
De La Rosa is going to be well pursued by anyone who loses the Lee race and by those who don’t have the means to bid on Lee. Garland and Harang averaged 1.7 WAR for the last 3 years and are well shy of the 600 IP mark Garza sets.
Carl Pavano would be interesting and maybe Westbrook. Milwood strikes me as too old for a long term investment and for the same money going after one of Webb/Harden/Etc. seems like a better bet.
I think Garza is a better option than all those names but I agree, if things are fine on the LA homefront, perhaps not enough of an upgrade to part with Kemp.
Thanks for spending time on the Minorleagueball thread.
And I can’t add. I only added the buy-out portion of Wheeler’s contract when I checked Tampa’s payroll. If they keep him it’ll cost them $4 million. If they let him walk it’ll cost them $1 million. If they trade him (to save the $$$) it’ll leave them with 2 bullpen arms… one of which didn’t pitch in 2010.
The one thing that’s really hanging me up about this scenario is getting rid of Bailey.
From the performance side, we’re losing our closer, inserting a possibly unreliable/unhealthy Wuertz into that role, shortening an already injury-shortened pen (and g you’ve been advocating nontendering Devine, too, right?) … seems like the bullpen in this scenario would be a major roster lacuna.
From the value side, given Bailey’s age, service time, cost, relative health, and Meaningless Counting Stats, seems to me that he should be insanely valuable in trade. Whereas Barton, with his unrecognized/underappreciated skills and development, seems like a really low (perceived) value in relation to his performance value. Packaging them together seems to work against both of their value.
Tampa strikes me as having a more sabermetric-inclined FO, so Bailey’s Meaningless Counting stats and Barton’s unappreciatedness are more likely to be given their just due.
I have been pro-see ya on Devine… perhaps this trade scenario makes keeping him more important. He’d probably cost ~$600K, bumping the total payroll to just over $62 million. Higher than my preferred limit but within reason considering the A’s spent $62.3 million in 2009.
But why trade Bailey to a team that won’t overvalue him if there are other teams that will?
Who out there needs a “Proven Closer”?
Exactly. I can sort of buy the argument of selling high on Barton to a stats-friendly regime — but, agian, he’s so cheap, has performed so well, and possibly still has a bit more ceiling … I just don’t see getting enough value in return for his loss.
Barton only gets better if he starts to hit for more power. He’s pretty much maxed out on the OBP and Fielding goodness.
Put another way… if anyone is going to throw a 7 Win season on the board in the next two years Barton is the 3rd most likely to do so.
Because I had a day and half to finish writing this?
You’re right, Tampa won’t over-value Bailey ’cause he’s a “Proven Closer”. But they’re also in a situation where Garza is about to become their most expensive SP and they aren’t about to move Niemann or Davis to the bullpen in order to get Hellickson into the rotation. Shields and Price are better pitchers than Garza… something’s got to give, especially since the payroll is slashed.
More importantly, while Tampa doesn’t like to spend big on bullpen arms they are heading into 2011 with only 2 healthy relief pitchers, Dan Wheeler and Andy Sonnanstine. No one who expects to compete dares to try and find 5 bullpen arms off the scrap heap. They need some arms they can count on. Bailey’s healthy, he’s inexpensive and he’s shown that he can handle end game situations. The Save totals aren’t going to make him attractive to Tampa; it’s the combination of all those other factors that does.
Again, isn’t that where Oakland sits if we trade Bailey?
No. The A’s aren’t messing with the scrap heap.
They’re pilfering through the medical waste pile.
Also: what about Werth? I would presume that your argument would be that with all the high-stakes players going all-in on Acronym, Werth will be the similarly over-priced consolation prize.
Maybe there’s a chance that if that is the perception, and the big money boys are all queueing up for Acronym, that the A’s could possibly swoop in and set the market with Werth? I think I’d actually be pretty comfortable with an OF of Carter — Crisp/Rajai/Sweeknee — Werth. Sign Manny to platoon with/replace Cust (heck, Manny might cost less than Cust for ’11), pick up a couple scrapheap relievers … presuming no Acronym/Lee to Rangers/Slegna (and even then, if Lee stays with the Rangers, I’m not all that concerned), you’ve got a team that should compete for the division title the next two years.
The Phillies are going to make sure that if there is a bargain to be found with Werth they’ll be the ones to land it. I think a player doesn’t switch agents to Scott Boras the season before he tastes FA unless he’s thinking max profit. Boras knows that Crawford is going to attract a feeding frenzy and he’ll wait for those left hungry before hard shopping his client. The only way I see the A’s swooping in on Werth is if they go to the meeting with checkbook in hand and say yes to the first numbers that come out of Boras’ mouth.
Which would be too much. Werth is the guy I’m most worried about in terms of signing one of the big FA bats and watching him fall apart a couple years down the road.
I don’t disagree with any of that. Should clarify: I wasn’t saying that the A’s should/could get a bargain with Werth — as you say, something along the lines of agreeing to (very nearly) the first thing that pops out of Boras’s mouth.
As always, I’d advocate overpaying with a (relatively) short, innovatively front-loaded contract. That could ameliorate some (though not all) of Werth’s all-too-real risk.
I really think that at some point this franchise needs to bite the bullet and actually land an elite FA or two.
Re: “setting the market,” my thinking was tat by overpaying right off the bat for Werth, they’d effectively drive up the prices for Dunn and Acronym for whichever competitors sign them.
My problem with the front-loaded contract concept is that teams have to have considered doing just that… and they’re extremely rare. A-Rod has been brought up as an example of this practice but you need to consider how unique his situation is.
A-Rod made $32 million in 2010. His base salary goes $31M in 2011, $29M in 2012, $28M in 2013 and then $25/$21/$20/$20. But before we start holding up this contract as a shining example of front-loading deals… A-Rod gets a $3 million bonus Jan. 15, 2014. That pushes his 2014 salary back up to $28 million. His salary most certainly goes down in 2015… which just happens to be when he turns 40.
So front loading contracts works for (unless the PEDs do him in) an absolute first ballot HOF that might set a new HR record before he retires and the real depreciation in the value of the contract occurs once he hits 40.
Given the A’s recent history, I find it essentially impossible that they will land any of the premier free agents: CC, Dunn, Konerko, Werth, etc. This should come as no surprise, and I don’t mind fantasyrosterbaiting, but the A’s haven’t landed a tier one free agent since…ever?
With the mid-tier FAs, the A’s have a horrible track record even when they want the guy. No Randy, to Renteria, no Scutaro, no Beltre. Maybe Beane’s a bad salesman, maybe the A’s are the cheap, maybe Oakland is too ghetto, whatever. The A’s just aren’t going to get a mid-tier to above FA. So we’re basically limited to trades here. And I don’t want to do any of these deals if it they are contingent on the A’s signing a FA. Because they won’t, and then we’ll have the Jeff Larish (or whoever) experiment all over again at first base.
If the A’s want a major upgrade, they need to be going down the Matt Holliday route – trade for an established star (not a Kemp or Upton hoping for a rebound) going into the last year or two of his contract. Who’s available that fits that mold?
Pujols!
Yeah, and Fielder. Pass.
Adrian Gonzalez.
(Just to piss off Boston!)
Any non-1B?
Like a corner OF, perhaps?
Depends on the circumstances. Given that the A’s are currently cash-rich and relatively prospect-poor — and as it appears that the target pool is relatively small — I don’t know that that approach makes a lot of sense right now.
Plus, it seems as though we may be on the verge of a sea change in how teams value FAs and contracts — we may be seeing an MLB-wide shift to exactly the approach you advocate, which would mean (a) more competition for the small pool of players you describe, and (b) possible relative undervaluing of FAs. Maybe.
I don’t see the sea change you’re talking about. As I’ve noted before, those rare free agents who are good enough and young enough to still be productive in 5 years end up getting 7 year deals (Teixeira, Holliday, maybe Crawford and Lee this year).
And per your link to Tango’s post from last week, on average the lower- and mid-tier free agents are still the better values, though still risky in their own way.
Fair enough. I’m just talking out my ass. (Not being snarky there.)
I agree with the first paragraph.
Loiaza cost them a 1st round draft pick! And I think signing Mike Magnante did as well. Although I’m not sure that either/both were tier 1 FAs. That was back in the days when a Type B cost the signing team a draft pick.
So… no joy unless I can find a 1B via trade? I could probably come up with something but he’d be a lot less certain than Dunn.
EDIT: Although in my defense… there’s a solid chance my 3/36 with a chance at 4/44 is going to be the best offer Dunn sees.
Do you really see the Forst A’s playing Dunn at 1B?
I think Dunn’s defensive improvement might be for real.
Here are the options after about 5 minutes of research…
Keep Conor Jackson. He’ll probably cost between $2.5 – $3 million.
If Dunn stays in Washington, pursue Josh Willingham. If Dunn is done in DC then forget about Willingham.
Baltimore’s Luke Scott. Expect to overpay.
Arizona’s Mark Reynolds. His defense has gotten better at 3B but his limited exposure there in AZ means he’d be a project for Gallego.
Cincy’s Yonder Alonso doesn’t have a place to play with the Reds but I have no idea what they’d be asking for.
Any worries about dealing Green?
Only one – I think he’ll put up very good numbers in the PCL and may have a very high trade value in the future. But I’m not really a fan of Green as a player. The plate discipline looks awful and reports on his defense are not kind.
So he’s Brandon Wood with less power?
Considering how much Wood has tanked as a big leaguer, that’s too much after-the-fact bias to deal with. The main knocks on Green’s D are the excessive error totals (which should go down with experience) and his arm. Which was hurt during the season. If his arm is healthy does that improve the throwing?
The plate discipline is bad, but this was also his first season of pro-ball. Prospects can show radical changes in their plate discipline after their initial exposure. He struck out 117 times in 548 at bats… not good but not excessive.
You also need to keep in mind that Green hit 318/363/520 with 65 extra-base hits in High-A ball less than a year out of college. There are red flags but there are also positive indicators.
reports on his defense are not kind
but there are also positive indicators
Not if we are getting reasonable value for him.
I try not to fall in love with prospects who are years away, except in the aggregate they-add-franchise-value sense.
Does the intelligentsia not like Plan B?
This is great stuff grover – thank you.