On Saturday, the Milwaukee Brewers and Toronto Blue Jays worked out a trade that sent first baseman Adam Lind to the Brew-Crew and found Marco Estrada in Canada. It’s the first real trade of the offseason and it involves two players that most baseball fans have heard of. This is exciting. The thing is: it appears to be decidedly one-sided. In Lind, the Brewers have acquired a guy with an OPS+ above 130 each of the past two seasons, and given up a fringe starter/long reliever with fringe-y stuff and fringier upside. And it’s not just that Lind will be a complimentary piece for the lineup: he fills a huge need. He’ll presumably slide in and give the Brewers something better than the -4.6 WAR (!) that their first baseman have amassed over the last two years. That -4.6 WAR is the worst for any position in the majors and the Brewers have fixed their flaw by parting with just Marco Estrada.
However, contracts must always be considered when evaluating a trade. It seems the Blue Jays had little leverage as they looked to move Lind, having previously acknowledged that they were unlikely to pick up his $7.5 Million option for 2015. However, the $7.5 Million one year deal would be a steal on the free agent market and other teams were obviously interested. Consider that Mike Morse, coming off a 2013 in which he posted a .651 OPS in 337 PAs, made $6 Million for the World Champion San Francisco Giants in 2014. For comparison’s sake, Lind posted an .860 OPS in 310 PAs in that same time frame. So Lind is good, carries no long term commitment, and the team doesn’t need to overpay for his one year of services? Yes, please.
Estrada’s contract situation is equally hassle free: he’s got one more year of arbitration before he’ll be a free agent next offseason. I’m just not as excited about Estrada’s contract situation because he’s not as good as Lind at his chosen craft. He posted an 87 ERA+ effectively meaning that he was 13% worse than league average. Lind, meanwhile posted an OPS+ of 141 last year (41% better than league average).
I’m sure that the Blue Jays have a plan with this, but I’m just not sure what it is.
After picking up JA Happ’s $6.7 Million option, the last thing they should be doing is acquiring more below league average starters with fringe-y stuff. While I’m here, I should discuss my additional displeasure with this Happ decision. Happ’s ERAs since 2011: 5.35, 4.79, 4.56, 4.22. He’s never posted a FIP below 4.00, and his WHIP has been above 1.30 since his rookie year. He’s 31 and never pitched more than the 166 innings that he did as a rookie. What the hell are the Blue Jays doing giving this guy $6.5 Million–when they had an option not to? Aaron Harang made $1 Million last year to throw 204 innings at a 3.57 ERA.
JA Happ’s most comparable player, according to baseball-reference, is Ricky Romero. Lefty-throwing Romero, incidentally also still under contract with the Blue Jays, is no longer usable at the major league level and will make $7.5 Million next year. There’s a club option for Romero for 2016, when he will be Happ’s current age of 31. (With the Blue Jays’ displayed propensity to pick up unnecessary options for 31-year old lefties, there’s no guarantee they part ways with him either.)
The Blue Jays picked up Happ and Estrada, and have agreed to pay the pair somewhere in the neighborhood of $11 Million next season. This is not money well spent on a club with a limited payroll, even if they have stretched it in recent seasons.
Proponents of the move will point to the depth of the Blue Jays rotation now. In this case, depth is being used as a substitute for quality, a plan that I can’t endorse. In addition to Estrada and Happ, they’ve got Marcus Stroman, RA Dickey, Mark Buehrle, Drew Hutchison and possibly Aaron Sanchez lined up as starters. Forgive me if I’m not terribly excited about this group.
The Royals got much credit this postseason for developing a plan, executing that plan in the face of criticism, and riding it to success. Here, I suppose I should give the Blue Jays credit for having a plan–even if that plan is to assemble a rotation of below average starters. I suppose an organizational philosophy has to start somewhere.
-Sean Morash
Stat of the Day: Josh Harrison hit 6 extra-base hits in 2013. In 2014, he had 58 extra-base hits.
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