Why the Angels traded Sean Newcomb

The Angels farm system is a veritable wasteland. Again.

Top prospects Sean Newcomb (#1) and Chris Ellis (#2) are now members of the suddenly replete Atlanta pitching pipeline, where they join another former Halos top pitching prospect, Ricardo Sanchez, and several other young arms picked up in confusing trades carried out by the new Braves front office.

While the losses of both Newcomb and Ellis hurt, it is Newcomb’s departure that really smarts. He is a consensus top-25 prospect in the game and—now that Heaney and Tropeano are in the big leagues—essentially the only thing keeping the Angels’ farm system out of the cellar it occupied from 2013–2014. The top-rated pitching prospect in the organization is now a toss-up between Joe Gatto, Victor Alcantara, and Nate Smith, none of whom would be in the top eight in a strong system, while the top-rated position player prospect is still … uhh … hold on I’m sure there’s one in here somewhere … Roberto Baldoquin? Yeah, let’s go with him. Posting a .560 OPS in a hitter-friendly league is good, right? Sure.

This rapid re-depletion the farm—not to mention of the unexpected departure of longtime fan favorite Erick Aybar—has many fans upset. And understandably so. It’s impossible not to feel at least some frustration when your favorite team trades a potential franchise player away. In the end, though, I think Billy Eppler was completely justified in dealing Newcomb for Andrelton Simmons and effectively hitting the reset button on the farm system.

1) Andrelton Simmons may be the best defensive shortstop EVER

Seriously. Ever. Simmons is the owner of just over 15 defensive WAR since his call up in June 2012. That figure is not only far and away the most valuable four-year stretch to start a career in baseball history at any position, let alone shortstop, it’s also the most valuable five-year stretch. Did I mention Simmons isn’t even in his fourth full season yet? Yeah.

WAR is a counting stat, meaning the more games one plays the more opportunities one has to build his value. The average number of games played for the first nine guys behind Simmons on the five-year list is 696, nearly five full seasons. With that time, the best of the best were able to accrue between 11–14 dWAR. Simmons, meanwhile, is at 15.2 dWAR after just 499 games. With his glove alone, then, Simmons earns his team a full win every 33 games. ON AVERAGE.

Lest you think this is just one metric being glitchy, Defensive Runs Saved isn’t the only advanced stat to heap lofty praise on Simmons’ glovework in the form of gaudy numbers. Ultimate Zone Rating thinks Simmons (68.4 UZR) was almost twice as good as the next best shortstop—J.J. Hardy (39.3 UZR)—the past four years, and more valuable cumulatively from 2012 to the present than any shortstop from 2009 to the present. In other words, even with a three year head start no other shortstop could equal Simmons’ first three-plus seasons defensively. Baseball Prospectus’s Fielding Runs Above Average is just as enamored, ranking Simmons 21st all-time among shortstops with 51.4 FRAA. Once again, this is in just 499 games.

But advanced stats, schmadvanced stats, right? You don’t need numbers and charts to know that Simmons is an elite defender. Just sit back and watch him do his thing:

Yeah, I think I’m cool with giving up Newcomb for half a decade of that at a reasonable cost.

2) The cost wasn’t *that* high, relatively

Just a over year ago, the A’s acquired a season-plus of Jeff Samardzija and three months of Jason Hammel in exchange for three players: Addison Russell (their No. 1 prospect), Billy McKinney (No. 5-ish), and Dan Straily (MLB-ish). The two prospects headed to Chicago didn’t just rank high in Oakland’s system, they were also regarded as two of the better young players in the game: Russell was a top three prospect overall and McKinney was on the upper fringes of the top 100. That is, they were both regarded more highly than Newcomb and Ellis are now, but brought in only two years combined of potential playing time even with a fringe MLB arm attached to the deal. Think about that. For less than what the A’s paid for Samardzija, the Angels get five years of Andrelton Simmons in his prime.

BUT NATHAN, you may be saying, it was the team’s top two prospects, not first and fifth. Yes, that’s true. But the Angels’ top two prospects aren’t the same as most everyone else’s top two prospects. Sifting through the top 10 prospects in most farm systems is like going through a power rankings of the 10 best James Bond movies: There are a couple greats (From Russia With Love, Casino Royale), a number of good-not-greats (Dr. No, Thunderball, License to Kill), and maybe personal favorite or two toward the bottom that others are low on (A View to Kill). With the Angels, though, it’s more like looking at a ranking of The Land Before Time movies: The top choice is obvious, the next couple are vague recollections in the far reaches of your mind, and the rest you’ve literally never heard of and you are like 75 percent sure are completely made up. (I refuse to believe Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends is a real thing.) Newcomb absolutely has the potential to be great, but Ellis probably isn’t a top-five guy in most systems. Case in point: He’s currently ranked ninth in the Braves system. The only reason he was so highly regarded with the Angels is it was either him or a cardboard cutout of Mike Trout.

3) Trading a left-handed starter was inevitable

Before Thursday’s trade, the Angels were heading into the 2016 season with Andrew Heaney, C.J. Wilson, Tyler Skaggs, Hector Santiago, Sean Newcomb, and Nate Smith as potential starters over the course of the season. And those were just the lefties! With Jered Weaver, Garrett Richards, Matt Shoemaker, and Nick Tropeano also in tow, things were just way too crowded for that many arms on the roster.

And while it might be cool to deal the righties and go with an all-lefty rotation, the odds were heavily in favor of one of the southpaws being traded this winter. And so one was. I’m sure Eppler would have much preferred to part with Santiago or Wilson over Newcomb, but those two don’t come close to boasting the upside and cost control needed to reel in someone like Simmons.

The good news is that even with Newcomb gone the Angels can still field a pretty solid rotation without using either Wilson or Santiago. A starting five of Richards, Heaney, Weaver, Skaggs, and Shoemaker with Tropeano as the swing man ain’t too shabby.

4) They probably had no other choice

When the Simmons trade rumors starting emerging in earnest Thursday morning, the only guy confirmed to be attached was Erick Aybar. A while later, Chris Ellis was added to the potential deal, along with an unknown “3rd piece.” The Braves likely wanted Newcomb to be the third piece from the get-go, but at the time a whole host of different players were probably being bandied about. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Eppler went down a list of names of individuals and/or groups of players other than Newcomb that he was content to give the Braves. But considering what Atlanta was asking for Simmons from other teams—they wanted Steven Matz AND Michael Conforto from the Mets—it seems apparent they were never going to budge from Newcomb because no one else in the organization came close to his ceiling.

Eppler simply did what he had to do to get the deal done. Painful as it is, I’m glad he did.