Forget Darvish, Jays should get Felix and Votto
by cjcl590 on Dec 15, 2011 7:00 PM EST
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PrintWhile I hope the Jays get Yu Darvish, there's a significant amount of risk with posting $50MM and then guaranteeing a contract close to $50MM to get him to Toronto. There's a much better risk/reward proposition with obtaining Felix Hernandez.. Hernandez is owed $58MM for the next three years. Assuming you have to pay $100MM to get Darvish for 3-4 years ($13-14MM/year), obtaining Hernandez would be more cost efficient.
The Mariners need help in the OF, could use more young starting pitching and need an impact bat. The Jays have all three. Travis Snider and Kyle Drabek both fulfill the young potential that the Mariners' are seeking. Snider is from the Seattle area as well. Drabek could benefit from pitching at a more spacious ballpark, just as another piece to the deal, Brett Cecil could. Cecil could win 12-15 games again if he was not pitching in the more difficult AL East. He also had two excellent starts last year against the Rangers so that bodes well for how he would pitch in the AL West. Finally adding Adam Lind to this deal would seal the deal. The Mariners need a 1B with pop and have been pursuing Prince Fielder. Lind gives you the potential for 3 WAR and 30 HR's at a reasonable contract for the next 4-5 seasons.
What would the Jays do at 1B? Well they'd have a few options. The most obvious is to sign Prince Fielder with the savings they gain by going after Hernandez instead of Darvish. I would not go more than 3 years with Fielder, but I would try and offer him 3 yr/$80MM. This way, he can still be a free agent at age 30 and when more teams might be able to give him a better offer and he could work on inflating his stats in a hitter friendly ballpark like the Rogers Centre. The other more intriguing option is to package more of the Jays depth and obtain Joey Votto. The Reds are in no rush to dealing him, but could use young pitching and probably need to unload some salary. They also have Yonder Alonso. You could do a straight up Alonso for Henderson Alvarez, but I'd rather see the Jays try and do a Deck McGuire, Colby Rasmus, and Adeiny Hechavarria deal for Joey Votto. The Reds would add two quality 2-3 starters and everyday position players in Thames and Hechavarria.
While you deplete the farm system of McGuire, Drabek, Snider, and Hechavarria you get Votto and Hernandez.. The Jays have enough depth on the pitching side to overcome the loss of McGuire and Drabek. Snider is probably going to blossom somewhere else and LF is now covered with the Thames/Francisco platoon. Hechavarria does deplete the middle IF depth, but it's case of selling high on a guy who may be an all-field/can't hit guy.
You could find a cheaper 1 yr option in CF such as Coco Crisp who could play CF and bat leadoff with some speed. Him and Rajai could be adequate in CF while we wait for Gose or Jake Marisnick to come in next year.
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Snider, Drabek, Cecil, and Lind for Hernandez
Really?
The M’s wouldn’t even reply to that text, or if it was a phone call they would just hang up laughing. 4 of our player coming of down year(s) isn’t even close to what they would want. The conversation for Felix would mostly likely start with Brett Lawrie+, and probably end with d’Arnaud+. Maybe even both of then.
Do you have a young, talented cost controlled player having a down year who's "attitude" has cased problems with an aging player or manager?
Don't worry, I Alex Anthopoulos will take him off your hands, I'll even give you some moderately useful veterans that will "help you make a playoff run".
Nor would Boras reply to a 3/80. .
Actually, he will. He will burst into a reply of laughing till he can’t any more.
Do you have a young, talented cost controlled player having a down year who's "attitude" has cased problems with an aging player or manager?
Don't worry, I Alex Anthopoulos will take him off your hands, I'll even give you some moderately useful veterans that will "help you make a playoff run".
i don't know
3/$80 million is not necessarily a bad deal for him.
my guess is that the biggest offer he’s going to get this offseason will be something like 7 years, $150. so the question is, if he’s a free agent in 3 years, would you expect him to be able to beat 4 years, $70 million. if he stays healthy and doesn’t have a huge decline, i think he’d easily beat that. taking 3/80 is definitely a risky move for him, but it would probably have higher expected value than whatever he’ll end up signing.
Votto needs 1 of Lawrie, or d'Arnaud. Possibly Bautista.
Do you have a young, talented cost controlled player having a down year who's "attitude" has cased problems with an aging player or manager?
Don't worry, I Alex Anthopoulos will take him off your hands, I'll even give you some moderately useful veterans that will "help you make a playoff run".
Probably both. Throw in McGuire and one or both of Nicolino and Syndergaard
Why bother?
The Mariners are going to ask for a King’s Ransom and random mediocre parts from the Jays roster isn’t going to cut it.
Same for the Reds.
Jocketty is no fool. And Z got burned rather badly the last time.
In honor of the Jays 2nd Baseman who played with fire in more ways than one.
by Damaso's Burnt Shirt on Dec 15, 2011 8:36 PM EST up reply actions
The conversation for Felix would mostly likely start with Brett Lawrie+, and probably end with d’Arnaud+. Maybe even both of then.
Yep
by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Dec 16, 2011 2:14 AM EST up reply actions
Offer Fielder 3 years, right now, and his agent won't stop laughing long enough to say no.
and you won’t be getting Hernandez for a handful of players you don’t want.
I blog, therefore I am.
maybe like $35M
which would be downright stupid
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
by Pikachu on Dec 15, 2011 7:37 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I'd think long and hard about it
it would depend quite a bit on other moves (or lack thereof) the Jays chose to make though
If the Jays can sign Darvish
I would be a lot more open to signing Fielder, though still reluctant
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
How do you know he would cost that much for a short-term deal?
27 million would make him the highest-paid player, I believe, which would stroke his ego, while still leaving him in a position to get another long-term deal at the end of it.
He might not take it, but since the Jays won’t go longer than 5 years, and he wants 7, a short deal would be their only hope of reaching an agreement.
by Defense Counts! on Dec 15, 2011 7:45 PM EST up reply actions
BTW
When is the next Community Overall Prospect post going up? You and JaysSask seemed to be alternating, but there hasn;t been a new post in a while
I disagree
You almost certainly lose that deal in terms of straight $/WAR, but you take on no tail risk whatsoever. In almost any free agent deal, you expect not to get full value to to the winner’s curse, so this just changes the odds to a much greater chance of realizing a loss, in exchange for reducing the magnitude of the loss
If you needed a big bat to slot in, and thought that was the last piece, I’d do 3Y/$100M. Not that I think the Jays are there, nor would Prince necessarily accept it (though using Tango’s rule of thumb for the AAV/years tradeoff, it’s roughly equivalent to 10Y/250M), but it could definitely make sense.
For every year you add, reduce the AAV by 1MM
(This rule breaks down a bit when going below 3 years)
Basically, for an extra year, $1M less in AAV (this obviously breaks down towards the extremes). This based off the results from standard aging/inflation curves – hence the rule of thumb.
So basically, if you get a 5Y/$100M offer, that’s roughly the same as 4Y/84M or 6Y/114M. I prefer to think of it in terms of “families of offers” – that is, take the years and add it to the AAV to get a total (ie, 4+25 = 33). Then reallocate the 33 to figure out roughly what’s equivalent
Too bad
The Mariners and Reds aren’t trading either of those guys in the first place, nevermind that getting either would mean completely emptying out the farm system
The major thing that everyone should consider is
What if some other team came up to us and offered some kind of package of 3-4 players who had down years but showed some potential for Bautista the Booster Juice man, would we budge? I mean if anyone wants Bautista, they better be willing to offer someone like Strasburg or Harper in that deal ATLEAST. In our case, people would be asking for Lawrie or D’arnaud to start the chat, anything less is just MLB the show
"the savings they gain by going after Hernandez instead of Darvish"
Felix is owed almost $60 million over the next three years. there’s no savings there, and really isn’t even that much surplus value left in his contract (well not nearly as much as some people seem to think). i think the halladay trade is a good comparable. they got halladay for 4 years, $70 million. we might have to give up a bit more than that because the mariners have more leverage than we did, but that’s the ballpark of what it would cost.
It's not a bad comp
But Felix is way younger than Halladay was, so with Halladay you had to project lower future performance due to aging (Felix is just entering his prime), though Halladay certainly hasn’t actually shown any of these effects. Then you have to consider the negotiating position – but the haul for Felix would almost certainly be significantly higher.
Halladay’s WAR in 3 years leading up to trade: 5.6, 7.5, 7.4
Felix’s WAR the last 3 years: 6.8, 6.2, 5.5
so if anything Halladay would have projected slightly better, but practically it’s the same.
but yea, negotiating position is the reason Felix would get back more, but I don’t think it would be significantly more. I think something like: marisnick, hutchison, hechavarria and thames is what it would cost.
Here's what I meant
Let’s assume that the 3 year average is the true talent level – so Halladay is 6.8WAR, Felix is 6.2 WAR. Halladay was 32-33, so you have to apply the aging curve. Let’s just use the standard 0.5 reduction, so we’d get 6.3, 5.8, 5.2, 4.7 = 22 WAR over 4 years. Let’s just use $5M/win…that’s $110M, or $40M surplus (average of $10M/year)
Felix on the other hand is 25, so basically you don’t apply any aging factor. so you get about 18.5 WAR over 3 years. That’s $92M of value, for roughly $57M or $35M surplus (about 11.5/year)
So actually, Halladay’s deal, with extension provided more surplus, despite Felix having the higher projected value. Thinking about it, I dunno that I really would want to give up a massive package for that…Felix is great, but he’s getting paid to be great.
I would think it would probably cost more than that, because if I’m the Jays I would make that trade without a second thought.
Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
Forgot about that part
Meant to address it, but yeah I agree. Mariners would want MLB ready premium prospects – Marisnick too far off, they’ve got 3 or 4 pitching prospects better than Hutchison, and Thames/Hech is more filler than the quality you’d want back for Felix
well hutch and marisnick are almost certainly going to be top 100 prospects (possibly top 50 even), so that qualifies as premium prospects, and is a similar return to what we got for halladay.
you seem to agree that felix has similar trade value to what halladay had (a bit more due to the jays lack of leverage with halladay), but yet you seem so disagree that the trade return should be similar to what we got for halladay? or maybe i’m just overvaluing our prospects now/undervaluing trio that we got for halladay.
I think the the leverage thing is a big, big deal – Halladay had the no trade, and basically only agreed to Philly. So they had no reason to offer us much, and all AA could have done would have been to wait.
Beyond that, may be I am undervaluing our guys – I don’t think so, when you consider what others have got for premium pitchers with less surplus. I dunno, maybe that should be enough, I just get the impression if you asked 100 Mariner fans you’re going to get 80 noes and 20 hell noes.
Santana had one year of team control for $13 million plus two comp picks, and he got back a top 100 hitter a top 100 pitcher, and a couple lower end pitching prospects.
Lee (first time) had 1.5 years of team control for $10 million plus two comp picks, and he got back two top 100 hitters, a top 100 pitcher, and a lower end pitching prospect.
Lee (second time) had 1 year of team control for $8 million plus two comp picks, and he got back a top 100 pitcher and a couple lower end prospects.
Lee (third time) had half a year of team control for $2 million plus two comp picks, and he got back a top 100 hitter, two lower end pitching prospects and a lower end hitting prospect.
Halladay we already covered.
Is there anyone else recently I’m missing?
Maybe Marisnick/Hutch/Hech/Thames is a little light, but not by a huge amount.
Nice analysis
Looking this over, I tend to agree in the end. The one thing I think would need to be looked at a little more is exactly where in the top 100 these guys were, because the talent curve resembles an inverse function, where top 10 is way more valuable than someone 40-50, and similarly a 40-50 prospect is worth a lot more than a fringey top 100. That said, at first glance, I can’t recall any of the guys in those deals being top 10 types.
Greinke shoud factor in there as well (Jeffress, A. Escobar, L. Cain and Odorizzi + dumping Betancourt), but this would seem to more support what you advance. As an aside (and purely a joke) the academic criticism would be that your sample is skewed by Lee, but that was such a weird case.
smoak (3rd Lee trade) was top 15. the rest were in the 30-70 range, except the 2nd Lee deal where the only top 100 guy was Aumont around 90.
anyway, the reason it looks kind of lop-sided is the money that Felix is owed. you could use that $18 million and get a good #3 starter like Jackson/Buehrle. so the trade isn’t really 4 prospects for an ace, but rather 4 prospects to upgrade a 3 WAR starter to a 6 WAR starter.
would you?
or would you rather spend the money that you’d owe felix on darvish, and use those prospects to trade for a good cost-controlled hitter at 1B/LF/2B?
this confuses me
You start out by saying Felix will cost less than darvish, which is wrong when you take out the posting fee. Your main argument against Darvish is that he costs a lot and then you say get fielder for 3 years/ 80 million, which would not even be enough for him. We can’t trade a lot of junk and players coming off bad years for the best players in baseball
Apparently is more like playing whack-a-mole
by MjwW on Dec 15, 2011 8:31 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
You can't kill the votto talk... you can only stop it till it rises up from the dead.
In honor of the Jays 2nd Baseman who played with fire in more ways than one.
by Damaso's Burnt Shirt on Dec 15, 2011 8:40 PM EST up reply actions 5 recs
comparing Roy to Felix
Best pitcher in baseball right now, Felix had a down year, Roy had a no trade cluase and everyone knew he was getting traded, he also had one year on his contract but I think the deal they set had him resign an extension. So I think Felix for 2-3 top prospects, the third may or may not be as high on the prospect list but would be good. At least one maybe two pitchers, now of the players would have played in the Majors…pure prospects. Noy worth it ethier is Votto, Consider that gaining prospects at a high rate through dratf and international free agency will be limited, current prospects in the system need to be more valued.
Youre assuming that it's people who play video games who make ridiculous trade proposal
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
by Pikachu on Dec 16, 2011 12:40 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
that's the joke.jpg
Rent this for cheap!!
by Bowling_Guy25 on Dec 16, 2011 12:54 PM EST up reply actions
but I traded EE, Johnny Mac and Reyes for Pineda, so it must be possible in real life!
may or may not have turned on forced trades
Awesome trade proposal
It combines the worst elements of Jays’ fans (unrealistic trade for Votto) and Yankees’ fans (unrealistic trade for Felix).
Hic sunt fortuna dracones
There is only 1 "n" in Hutchison
by JaysfanDL on Dec 16, 2011 11:03 AM EST reply actions 5 recs
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