Trade: Adam Dunn to Arizona

I'm more than a little befuddled by this. Mainly I can't believe that Adam Dunn made it all the way through waivers to Arizona. Every other team in the National League with a worse record than Arizona had a chance to claim him. Dunn was playing this year on a $13M extention and he will be a free agent after the season. So, pretend you are the Washington Nationals (I know, it's painful). You could have claimed Adam Dunn on waivers and then either the Reds would try and work out a trade with you (which you probably wouldn't have tried too hard to pull off), the Reds would have pulled Dunn back off waivers (which costs you nothing) or the Reds could have just let you assume his salary for the rest of the year. In the first two cases you are out nothing and in the third case you get Adam Dunn for two months of the season at a prorated cost of his salary (which is pretty reasonable for his production) and then he leaves at the end of the year and you get two draft picks as compensation. Why wouldn't they take the chance?

But no one claimed Dunn until the Diamondbacks (meaning eight teams passed on him). So then, the question becomes whether the package of prospects that Cincinnati received were more valuable than the two compensation picks that they would have received if they had held onto Dunn. The primary player the Reds received was Dallas Buck, who was a third round draft pick in 2006 and was currently pitching at single A after having Tommy John surgery. They will also receive two players to be named later, which could mean that they have either been drafted too recently to be traded at this point or that they compensation will depend on Arizona's results (i.e. if they make the playoffs they get two guys out of group A, if they miss the playoff they get three maple bats and a dozen balls). It will be impossible to evaluate the cache the Reds received until we know who the players to be named later are, but if Buck is the centerpiece, I'd be a little disappointed.

As for the D-Backs, Adam Dunn gives them a huge lift in the middle of their order. Dunn is a monster: he gets on base at a great clip (.373 on the season) and hits for immense power (.528 slugging percentage, 32 home runs on the season). He is undervalued by some that focus on traditional statistics because he strikes out a lot and never hits for a high average (only .233 on the season), but Dunn will immediately step into the cleanup role for the Diamondbacks and will provide a big veteran bat down the stretch to go along with all the talented youngsters already in the lineup.

The cost for Arizona is clearly worth it. They have answered their rival Dodgers' acquisition of Manny Ramirez and given themselves a great chance to make the playoffs. When the cost is three low level prospects, which will be partially replenished by the two compensatory draft picks they should receive when Dunn signs elsewhere in the offseason, it seems clear that they got a great deal.

Daily Links - 8/11/08

There is more from Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) on Albert Pujols after someone irrationally accused him of padding stats by only coming up big when it didn't matter. Apparently said person doesn't watch Albert regularly. I think Joe's method of calculating his new stat is a bit flawed, but give him a break, he's watching synchronized swimming in Beijing.

Here's another article, this one from John Perrotto at Baseball Prospectus, that lists out some players that might move this month before the waiver trading deadline.

Baseball America has a roundup from the Aflac high school all american game.

Miguel Cabrera for MVP? Before the season it would have been eminently reasonable, mid-season it would have seemed impossible and now Sky makes a credible argument for it playing out just that way.

Profile: Vernon Wells

In the winter after the 2006 season Vernon Wells signed a seven year, $126M extension to stay with the Toronto Blue Jays. He turned 28 years old that same winter and was a year away from free agency. He was seen as a perennial fringe MVP candidate that was just entering the prime of his career. In 2006 he put up a .303/.357/.542 line with 32 homeruns and 17 stolen bases and he seemed to be on the verge of superstardom.

Since Wells signed that contract, however, he has played a season and a half of very mediocre baseball. Now the Blue Jays are looking at paying Wells and average of $18M a year for the next five years and he may be the most overpaid player in baseball. So what happened?

The first thing to note is that there were signs before 2006 that Wells might not be the superstar that many thought him to be. He had an MVP caliber season in 2003, putting up a .317/.359/.550 line, which was very similar to his 2006 season, but his other three full major league seasons (2002, 2004 and 2005) weren't nearly as good. He failed to hit better than .275, get on base better than .337 and slug better than .472 in any of those three seasons. Also, prior to 2006 he had never had double digits in steals. So, while he had flashes of brilliance, he had not been consistent in his performance throughout his career.

In fact, this season when he's been healthy (he's only played in 64 games on the year), his numbers have been very comparable to the rest of his career. His line this season is .287/.339/.449, which is right in line with his 'down' years. But his 2007 was an unmitigated disaster. His line was .245/.304/.402 with 16 home runs in 149 games.

Perhaps Wells got lazy because he was making the big bucks, or maybe the put too much pressure on himself to live up to the contract - or maybe he was just unlucky. Wells' BABIP was .265, well below league average and also the lowest of his career and his line drive rate was also the lowest of his career, while his home run per fly ball rate plummeted to 7.3% (his career rate is 12.3%). Regardless of the reason, all of those numbers point to one thing: 2007 is the anamoly in Wells' career.

So, while injuries have hidden it to a certain extent this season because the accumalated numbers aren't there, Wells has returned to his career averages. I am sure that the Blue Jays had hoped that Wells would take a step forward in his 28 year-old season instead of having the worst season of his career, but the truth is that Wells has not performed too far below his established level since signing his big contract. The answer, then, to the question posed above, what happened to Vernon Wells, is: nothing. He hasn't performed like an $18M ballplayer, but there wasn't a real good reason to bet that he would improve to that level in the first place.

My guess is that Wells will get healthy and have a nice season, perhaps even back to the 2006 level, sometime before his contract expires. Given his career to this point it should be expected that he will perform at that level again. He will almost certainly never live up to the huge contract that he signed prior to 2007, but you can't blame Wells for the Blue Jays' willingness to overpay him.

Daily Links - 8/7/08

Well, it was bound to happen and it has: Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) wrote a post dedicated to the best player on my favorite team - Albert Pujols. It is a great post, as always. Today is my lucky day.

Here is a post (with scouting video) about a player that could be drafted three years from now. Wait until you read the superlatives about him before you decide that it is too early to be thinking about the 2011 draft.

Waiver wire intrigue - a mystery team claimed Brian Giles.

Here is a contrary opinion to the near-universal (at least by internet analysts) dislike for Juan Pierre batting leadoff for the Dodgers. As a bonus, the author takes a shot at Joe Sheehan's logic towards the end.

This is a really interesting study about ranking baseball's ethical transgressions and a link to allow you to rank them. Also, the Hardball Times continues its series of projecting the rest of the season by taking on the Cardinals.

Daily Links - 8/6/08

This is one of the best running bits around: Baseball Prospectus' transaction roundup. Christina Kahrl does a great job of providing analysis to all the moves made around the league.

The ongoing mess that was Jose Vidro's performance as Mariner's DH has finally come to an end. He has been terrible this season and it was borderline lunacy to continue to play him everyday as the DH.

Joba is going to see Dr. Andrews. That's not a good sign. It seems to me (and I haven't don't any research on this, so it's just a baseless impression) that shoulder woes are more difficult than elbow problems. If it's an elbow problem they just do Tommy John surgery and the pitcher comes back in 18 months, better than ever. But shoulder problems seem to linger and the pitcher is never quite the same again (see: Mark Mulder). Hopefully Joba doesn't have any serious issues with his shoulder.

I haven't delved into this too much, but if Sky says that there is a stat that is better than VORP for valuing a player in-season, then it is worth looking into. Note that the team rankings at the end have the Cardinals #1 (which makes me somewhat skeptical of the stat since they have given far too many at bats to guys like Cesar Izturis and Chris Duncan this year).

More speculation about Mark Cuban and the Cubs here. There is a valid point in this about the anti-trust exemption. If the exemption were repealed it would change the landscape of professional baseball. It would be a shrewd move for Cuban to threaten it as a way to strongarm the other owners into approving the sale of the Cubs to him.

Trade: 2005 Shortstop Carousel

Watching the Blue Jays game yesterday and seeing David Eckstein play second base for Toronto reminded me of one of the more intriguing player movements in recent history. After the 2004 season, three teams switched starting shortstops. The Red Sox signed Edgar Renteria, who had been with the Cardinals, to a four year/$40M contract. The Angels signed Orlando Cabrera, who had been with the Red Sox, to a four year/$32M contract. And, after the Angels waived him, the Cardinals signed David Eckstein to a three year/$10.25M contract.

It was a unique situation because all three played the same position, all three were the same age (30 years old at the time), and all signed brand new contracts. These factors make the comparisons pretty straightforward.

Renteria and Cabrera are now in the last year of their contracts, and Eckstein's expired after last season. One telling fact to start with is that neither Reteria or Cabrera stayed with the team that signed them through the life of the contract, while Eckstein did. Renteria lasted only one year in Boston before he was traded to Atlanta for two years and then traded to Detroit before this season. Cabrera lasted three full seasons with the Angels before getting traded to the White Sox before this season.

I am going to use WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player, described here) as a way to compare these three players and determine which team got the best of their deals. I like WARP for this purpose because it takes fielding into account.

Here are the cumulative WARP totals for the 2005-2007 seasons:

Eckstein - 15.6
Cabrera - 17.4
Renteria - 15.8

Based on raw numbers, Cabrera was the best of the three, followed by Renteria and then Eckstein. But let's add the salary component. For Cabrera and Renteria we will just consider the pro-rated portion of their salary, since the contracts actually continue through 2008. With that in mind, here is how many dollars each of their teams paid for each win added (according to the WARP system):

Eckstein - $657,051
Cabrera - $1,379,310
Renteria - $1,898,734

From this perspective, Eckstein was clearly the better value. Of course, if the marginal difference between Eckstein and Cabrera or Renteria was the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs, the calculation of value might be different. But, in 2005 all three players made the playoffs with their teams, in 2006 Eckstein's team made the playoffs while Renteria's and Cabrera's did not (so clearly the extra expense was not worth it that year) and in 2007 Cabrera's team made the playoffs while Eckstein and Renteria's did not. The Angels won their division in 2007 by six games. Cabrera had a WARP that season of 7.3 while Eckstein's was 3.8, a difference of 3.5 games. So, if Eckstein had played for the Angels instead of Cabrera they still would have won their division by 2.5 games.

Of course, real life doesn't exactly work that way. You can't just take one player off of a team and swap statistics in from another player and assume that everything would have fallen exactly the way it did otherwise. But by almost any calculation you can come up with, David Eckstein was clearly the best value of the three shortstops that changed addresses before the 2005 season.

Daily Links - 8/5/08

Baseball Prospectus gives us the weekly quotes from around the league.

The esteemed Hef (not the guy with the mansion and all the half-naked women lying around - well, actually I've never seen his place, so he could have the same set up as Hugh Hefner, for all I know) breaks down the effect that the deadline trades will have on the playoff races.

Now that the Dodgers have Manny Ramirez, they have five outfielders that have been starters for most of their career (I had to write that carefully to avoid saying that they were all good enough to start). Joe Torre has said that Juan Pierre will continue to start and play center field while Andre Ethier sits - so just how bad is that decision?

This article argues that the Red Sox are better with Jason Bay than Manny Ramirez (and it also includes some nice scouting video of Bay's swing). This is an argument that resonates with me. I've always liked Jason Bay and I tend to think that playing in Feway and in a big media market like Boston, will make him a super star. Also, the Hardball Times continues its series by looking at the Brewers outlook for the rest of the year.

This article is an interesting look into the sale of the Chicago Cubs and the staggering price tag that will be attached. If my favorite team were for sale and it looked like Mark Cuban was the favorite to buy it, I would be excited. He can sometimes come off as a bit of a clown (like running on the court at NBA games and the whole Dairy Queen stunt), but the man is passionate about his team, is involved in team and league management and he puts his money where his mouth is (which takes quite a bit of money in his case). He would certainly bring a fresh face to the stogy 'old school' owners in the MLB, which is probably overdue.