THE TRADE: A Rationale for the Record

Its definitely old news. I was specifically trying to address an idea I’ve heard each of the last few days that no one had provided a rationale in support of the trade. This is the sense I’ve gotten sense the trade via comments from the FO etc.

the biggest rummage sale in the history of baseball, I’d suspect. With his contract, he may end the season leading the team in tenure if he bats that low lol…

No doubt there’s alot riding on this move.

That’s ridiculous.

If this is true, then it resulted from a failure to judge the market. If this failure made the Wells trade necessary, then you’ll have to do a lot of work to convince us that the Angels aren’t totally spastic. Do they really have a plan? The scenario you’re imagining sounds like one of desperation. A desperate team, with suspect negotiating tactics and little market savvy, can’t be trusted to properly evaluate its own best interests.

There’s no question the organization made a big mistake here. They started the offseason with a big chunk of change but a list of priorities. It’s clear the Downs and Takahashi deals were going on at the same time. Arte has confirmed they never made an official offer to Crawford so we can look at both Werth and Crawford as shaking their foundation. If that makes them incompetent, if not being prepared to go the distance from jump makes them incompetent then they have good company. Everyone in the league except the Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies got cold shoulders when this shit started going down. I don’t say its necessarily ok, but its wrong to suggest they can’t be trusted to run their company.

Refresh my memory. I have no idea what happens inside the Angels’ locker room, and neither do you. And what is "leadership" anyways? These guys were some of the best players on a good team. The best players leave, and the team is no longer good anymore. We don’t need a mystical force like "leadership" to explain that phenomenon

Not your best argument and kinda a cop-out. Yes their best players left and their leaders left. That left room for others to step in. Are you pretending to not know the value of leadership or is your concept of sports really that robotic? On a sports team, non-cntractual time, activities and off-time are collectively governed by the team members off the record. On a team with leadership we work out, take extra BP, hang out together instead of in risky environments, etc. On a team without leadership, we leave on our separate ways after organized activities. There’s a difference in unofficial governing on championship teams. I think you’re f’in with me here and you know that leadership is important.

First of all, I don’t know how something can be "well documented" and merely "legend" at the same time. Second, it’s not reasonable to assume that a playa’ lifestyle has anything to do with the team’s success. It’s totally and completely normal for a single male twenty-something to crash the bars chasing booze and action, especially a dumb jock with a large expendable income. Good lord, look at the NBA, the stars even glamorize it. Why blame Napoli for something plenty of other successful pro athletes do, and something we might do ourselves, if placed in the same situation?

Shit, I’m not hating on Naps! I’m 37 with my own business, 2 kids, and a wife. Every now and then I dip myself. but every morning that I wake up I look in the mirror and promise that I will accept responsibility for everything I do each day. It’s not up to you and I, it’s up to the manager. When your manager was a catcher he’s going to be unfair to catchers, like a former point guard is going to be tough on point guards in basketball. basketball is my favorite sport but I have and will always say there’s nothing like a sport where every second you’re on the field it’s accounted for, no one else is in that box, posted up on that base. Basketball players can choose to be passers or rebounders for a night, but not baseball. Suboptimal is sitting somewhere counting your every move. You party at your peril and you pay the consequences, just like the rest of us. When’s the last baseball player you heard with a beaten wife, rape charge (besides the two this winter), murder, etc. 162 games, 3 nights in a row at times? Na. big difference in the sports. It takes serious effort to be a playa traveling on a baseball club. You have to work at it when you should be working on something else. Once they put five fools in the batters box or on your base you can fudge it, til then…

I don’t understand. Were Napoli and Rivera selling hard drugs to the rookies during warm-ups? The Angels had nothing but good things to say about Juan just two years ago. They even signed him to a three-year deal when he hadn’t done jack shit for two seasons. Now, after a down season, he’s perceived as lazy and a "bad role model." Why wasn’t he a bad role model the year before, when he had a .811 OPS? It’s just projection on our part, unsupportable by any available facts.

Tony Reaggins began his general explanation about chemistry, good people, and good team members while talking about removing cancers when asked how this deal made sense. We have tons of pictures on the internet of Juan Rivera and Napoli partying, maybe its not relevant. Maybe it was insignificant when there weren’t so many youngsters on the squad. Maybe it interfered with what they were expected to be in terms of leadership. It may be mystical, but people who coach and play sports think it’s a big deal.

Wells has proven himself as a hitter. Remember the post is about what context the Angels were working under. The guy was fresh off a kick ass season. He’s a proven hitter. If anything, they confirmed that this was their perception at the press conference. The idea that he’s a family person was important to them. Maybe, like many businesses, they think that makes better employees. Its not a new concept. As for Naps being a masher, you’re preaching to the choir. If you made me pick, I’d have #6 in the lineup waiting on him right now. He provided 75% of my highlights last year. But if he was not growing as a catcher like Sosh wanted him to, then I understand why he has to go. I have nothing good to say about Mathis except at least pitchers do ask for him behind the plate and there’s no pitcher uproar over Naps being gone.

I almost spat my beverage all over my keyboard when I read this. No! This is totally the opposite of what makes sense, because Napoli’s and Rivera’s contracts are not four-year liabilities. The Angels would have been forced to pay them $0 in 2012 if they didn’t want them. They could have then taken that money and tried (and failed) to get Pujols. It’s a counter-factual claim. Besides, you’re assuming that $12 million due to Napoli and Rivera would just be a sunk cost in 2011. They can still produce value on the field too, you know. In fact, they have a hell of a lot more chance of justifying their salaries than Vernon Wells does.

Ok, now we’re getting to the meat of the rationale. If we are comparing the value of trade and doing in respect to player value you can’t allow any players to have free years. If you’re saying it’s a bad deal and player value/skill has nothing to do with it, then you’re just concerned that they took on 86 million, not that they didn’t get equal value. If they shouldn’t have traded Napoli and rivera because they are net beneficial to the team then you’re comparing what they would provide in terms of benefit and what they would cost over four years. I was generous in assuming Napoli would only cost 5.8 all four years, when that’s not realistic. I don’t buy the salary dump argument, but it cuts both ways. If you only control the player for a year or two then why not get a player (who under that scenario only has to be a bit better) locked up for 4 years to be net beneficial. The object is to get better and save as much as you can. It’s not a cost saving move. Plus, my argument is the coachability outweighs everything if it was affecting the team as a whole. No one’s suggesting he was so bad, however, that you non-tender the kid and let him go where he wants. He’s worth something. That’s why we offered him arbitration. He finalized the deal with texas in 36 hours, surely this was all planned. Arte made it clear today that the deal w/ Toronto fell apart twice in the last three weeks. The idea that there was no negotiation is unfounded. Toronto wanted a relief pitcher. We weren’t in the biz of giving up ours. We gave up Napoli for $5 million cash and that’s hard for me to say, but we did it. They got their pitcher. The idea that they were just going to give Wells away because newspaper writers say its a horrible deal is disproven by the facts. If that’s the big hangup: then we waived/released Rivera, sold Napoli for five bills, and signed Vernon for a four year deal. They wanted something and we wanted Vernon. Add that to us wanting to get rid of these two and you got yourself a trade.

Not to pick nits, but can’t help it here. Calculus is a noun that has something to do with math, but calculous is an adjective that means, "made out of little rocks." Anyways, this is the same voodoo economics the Angels official press organs have been preaching: $86 million is somehow a "discount" because it’s "only" four years. They also happen to be the age 32-35 seasons of a player who is not nearly as good as Crawford, Beltre, or Werth. But when you add up everything the Angels gave up to get him, Vernon Wells will cost more than any of those guys until 2015. Wells has averaged just 2.4 WAR per season in his career, and being paid like an elite player does not actually make him one.

Oops on the misspell. You don’t deny the relative math here, which is the oint, so I won’t labor. If the projection of 35 home runs for Napoli is correct your notion that Wells will cost more is so off its crazy. That fool will be pushing $20m quick…if he doesn’t then its a matter of Wells doing better than him and he will. He was paid to much, yes. The market has normalized his pay somewhat.

Hehehe…wordfuck, though it is, it’s accurate. The realities the Angels were dealing with when popping their mouths off changed like a MFer come this week. Realities changed. They often do.
Is Vald being offered $2m a year realistic? Yes. Three months ago it wasn’t. Realities change. Wells does not get a bajillion dollars LOL. No matter how many creative ways it’s said, that’s not what he gets. he gets approx $20m a year for 4 years. The swap for Mathis hasn’t happened yet and is independent of this. If he gets the job he will have won it in camp. Maybe someone else will win the job. You don’t keep a disruption when his game is one dimensional. I read today that many teams were concerned about the one dimensional nature of his game, by the way. The team says it doesn’t affect their ability to make other moves. If anything, we know its of no consequence becayse even when they have a shitload of bucks they play it their way. If they’re consistent about that maybe it means the “collusion of one” is valid and they’re proud of it? Wells is worth $20m on a friday at the end of January when you haven’t done shit, you need an offensive upgrade, a guy who hits doubles and homers, your fans are disappointed, Soscia wants to get rid of these players, and you like Vernon Wells. Again, in this market he would have made between $13-20m depending on when he signed so the Angeles weren’t far off.

Remember, I was merely providing a rationale and scenario for the trade. Your answer is basically Napoli is too good for the trade, Wells, contract is too high, and you can’t count Naps/JR for four years (which means we have neither of them and is irrelevant to this scenario and flawed in player comparison for value). Maybe you don’t like the rationale, which is cool, but you haven’t really refuted it. I can’t totally justify the 86 million which I think is your main point, but I can see how it would make sense to do this now after all that’s happen this offseason and I think we’re better. 4 years at a net of 17 million per is a pretty good deal for a player like Wells.

Much respect for reading it all. I hope I hit all the comments and maybe mitigated your perception a tad :) Peace.

lazy and apathetic

And that’s GA’s job.

I just can’t get past the concept of Wells being a better ballplayer “than of this years FAs”.

The bottom-line is that all your posts say the exact same thing. The posts providing the counter-perspective will say things that have been expressed multiple times since the trade went down.

The “Wells trade was good” camp on HH and nationally is an island with very few inhabitants. I’m ready to leave this as an “agree to disagree” situation and move on…..

I think its clear I’m in this camp. I will say that if not for the money, Crawford and Beltre were perfect fits for the team’s needs. In a normal FA season, I think the team would have came across as heroes for passing on those guys because they would have scooped some solid Plan B guys for third and leadoff and whatever. The pickings got thin real quick so very public losses made this deal look desperate. I do thin it became a Plan B, but I agree it’s good for the team.

This just doesn’t happen to be one.

Most of us regulars spend the week with HH minimized in one window to help pass the time at work. During that time, we get so worked up over ever rumor, link or provocative comment on here that it’s hard not to think the world is ending for the Angels or that so-and-so is some subversive sent by the FO or another team. Sometimes I’m glad when I get home or the weekend comes so I can ignore the various battlegrounds here and elsewhere on the internet for a while.

I’ve been moving steadily in the direction of accepting the Wells trade for a while now (basically since DOV made his first award-winning video). After this busy weekend, I have to say the process is complete. Most of my anger at the FO stemmed from backtracking on prior commitments to spend to improve the team. They’ve now backed that up to the tune of two players and about $70 million in new contractual obligations. When you take into account the money exchanged, the impact for this season is in the same range that we are paying Pineiro or Rodney (both of whom will be gone in 9-10 months). After this season, the price rises steeply, but still leaves a fairly significant sum of payroll that will be cleared over the next two years. The team spent like they said they would, just not in a way most of us expected.

What’s done is done and it doesn’t really affect any of us personally or financially. Let’s go win.