Trade Target

Making Sense of The Hanley Rumours

0
9 months ago
by Matt Gwin in ,

Picture Courtesy of AP Photo via Daylife

On Monday after a trade that sent starting pitcher Anibal Sanchez and infielder Omar Infante to Detroit we learned that despite their offseason free agency splurge the Marlins are ready and primed to sell. This morning in a report from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale we heard that the Blue Jays are interested.

With regards to a possible Hanley trade there is a few things we need to get out-of-the-way.

1. Hanley Ramirez can play shortstop
In his MLB career Hanley Ramirez has played 829 games at shortstop and looked to continue playing there until the Marlins signed Jose Reyes this offseason. The subsequent action to the Reyes signing was to move Hanley to third base.

2. Hanley Ramirez should not play shortstop
Despite playing 829 games at shortstop in his career, Hanley is really not a very good shortstop. In fact from the time of his call up until he was moved off of shortstop after the 2011 season Hanley was the second worst shortstop in the league by UZR standards and only moves up to third worst by DRS standards. Beyond that the scouts haven’t exactly been kind to Hanley either.

3. Hanley Ramiez is not a bad hitter
Over the last two years Hanley has produced a .245/.328/.405, which amounts to an even 100 wRC+. However looking at some of Hanley’s more intricate stats this year one can see that his ISO is up ~50 points to .183 or that his batted ball data is back to where it was in the early part of his career. He is replacing ground balls with fly balls while keeping a consistent line drive rate…ultimately it is producing more home runs. He has even pushed his contact rate up above his career average of 82.2%.

The thing that really seems to be hurting Hanley this year is his .271 BABIP, which is 4 points lower than it was last year and still a whole 62 points below his career average. Beyond that one might speculate that the large confines of Marlins Park may be hampering some of his offensive production.

In fact if you look at Hanley’s hits at Marlins Park and overlay them on the Rogers Centre you can see Hanley may even have had a few extra home runs if he was hitting in Toronto.

The dots that are not dark blue would not be home runs at Marlins Park
Picture via Katron

Now getting away from all the technical stuff and towards the trade itself one can see that there are definitely a few logistics that would need to be sorted out. First off the Blue Jays already have a shortstop in Yunel Escobar who is more than capable of staying at the position. Granted Yunel has produced a wRC+ of 75 that currently ranks 14th last among qualified batters and 7th last among qualified shortstops, but Yunel’s pull is his defence at SS…something Hanley somewhat lacks.

Part of what makes this trade complicated is that the Blue Jays would likely have to include Yunel in a deal, which puts Hanley at shortstop for the Blue Jays. Ideally you don’t want to put Hanley at shortstop,  instead you’d like Hechavarria to be able to stick there. In order for that to happen it would require Hanley to move to another new position, second base, something he may not be too inclined to do. I’d speculate what else the Blue Jays would have to give beyond Escobar but to tell you the truth I’m not exactly sure who to include.

The reason being that on one hand Hanley seems to be an undervalued asset at this point with the way he has played and it would appear that the Marlins are selling low…assuming they don’t know anything we don’t. On the other hand despite his struggles Hanley has been the 8th best player in baseball per fWAR between 2006 and 2012. The fact that Hanley has been good in the past is why other teams like Boston, Oakland, Baltimore, and even Toronto are in the supposed bidding.

They see what Hanley can do, but the problem is they all can see it, making it a classic case of supply and demand. The supply of potential superstar players in the MLB is very low and the demand is obviously very high.

This doesn’t seem to be like the Colby Rasmus case as it appeared to the public that no one else was in on Rasmus…no one even knew Rasmus was on the market until the trade happened. With more teams in on Hanley the bidding will get higher and higher and it may come to a point where it is no longer a buy low…and not the ideal Alex Anthopoulos trade.

Beyond that when compared to the other contenders for Hanley, the Blue Jays don’t exactly line up perfectly in terms of what they have to offer.

With what all the logistics amount to a Hanley trade seems like somewhat of a pipe dream, but then again so did acquiring Colby Rasmus…so I guess we will have to wait and see.

As well like any other Blue Jays rumour this could all be hogwash and a month later we may find out that the Blue Jays were never in on Hanley at all…it could just be due diligence. Despite that it’s fun to speculate, so speculate away…just don’t get your expectations up too high and don’t let your speculation get too.

Have safe trade talk everyone…it’s what is best for us all.

Trade Target: Jon Niese

0
1 year ago
by Matt Gwin in ,
Courtesy of slgckgc licensed by Creative Commons

Recently it was reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post that the New York Mets are getting offers on pitcher Jonathan Niese with the Blue Jays among the teams interested. Niese is a 25 year old starter whose repertoire consists of a 90 mph fastball with solid command, a dominant curveball and a solid cutter and changeup. Niese’s traditional stats suggest he is somewhat of a mid to back of the rotation starter with a career 4.39 ERA and 22-23 record, but the peripheral stats suggest he is much better. Above all of this what I find particularly interesting is he seems to be Ricky Romero’s statistical twin. They are both southpaws who have similar service times (Niese at 2.107, Romero at 3.000), but there is a lot more.

For starters both Romero and Niese have the exact same career strikeout rate at 19.2% and are similar in their walk rates at 7.5% and 9.4% for Niese and Romero respectively. Beyond that Niese and Romero are also very similar in their batted ball profiles with Niese’s career numbers at a 20.5 LD%, a 49.1 GB%, and a 30.3 FB%, while Romero’s numbers are at a 17.2 LD%, a 54.7 GB%, and a 28.2 FB%. To top it off both Romero and Niese have similar home run rates at 11.8 HR/FB% and 10.7 HR/FB% in their careers.

Not only are Romero and Niese statistical twins, but Niese’s actual rate stats as well as his adjusted ERAs suggest that he is much better than he has shown, which makes him a prime trade target. Over his career Niese has consistently outperformed his ERA with a career ERA at 4.39, but with a career FIP at 3.77 and a career xFIP at 3.64. Most particularly notable is Niese’s xFIP from this past season which was at 3.28 and 1.12 points lower than his 4.40 ERA. Niese’s career low xFIP if qualified would have ranked 14th in the league between Anibal Sanchez and Dan Haren. Some of the xFIP is probably derived from Citi Field, but taking in to account that Niese is mainoly a groundball pitcher means that Citi shouldn’t affect his numbers too much.

All of this Niese hyping is nice, but really doesn’t meaning anything if he doesn’t come for the right price. On the Getting Blanked Podcast they suggested Snider plus something else, because Snider alone probably isn’t enough. I would suggest something along the lines of Travis Snider and Deck McGuire, Snider an outfielder which is something that the Mets could use and a pitching prospect who projects as a mid rotation starter. It is a steep price to pay and it could leave you with having to play Thames in LF for 2012, but for a guy who is right now an easy #3 in the AL East with his groundball style and one who could easily become a Romero 2.0, which is a very valuable commodity. Romero made the adjustments as a 25 and 26 year old pitcher, why can’t Niese?

What are your thoughts?
Be sure to post a comment and participate in the poll
Follow me on Twitter @HouseOfTheBB
Do you want the Jays to trade for Niese?
Yes No   
pollcode.com free polls 

Why Votto, but not Fielder

4
1 year ago
by Matt Gwin in , ,
Photo’s by OlympianX and Keith Allison both licensed under Creative Commons
Since the what seems like forever Jays fans have wanted Toronto born first basemen Joey Votto on his hometown team the Blue Jays, but it is only recently that rumors have really started to “heat up” if you can really even call it that. Buster Olney said on Twitter, “Rival executives getting signals that the Reds won’t shop Joey Votto — but that they are fully prepared to listen to offers.”. This was encouraging, but then in an interview with Reds beat writer Mark Sheldon,  Reds GM Walt Jocketty said on the subject of trading Votto, “We haven’t talked about it. I wish that people would stop writing it, why would we trade one of the best players in the game? We’re trying to win.” 

Obviously those are some pretty strong comments that should be taken into consideration when going after Votto. Though despite that strongly worded quote from Walt Jocketty, it doesn’t mean that Votto in a Jays uni is completely impossible, but I’m guessing that because of those comments Jocketty will probably take the same route Kevin Towers took with Justin Upton last year. Essentially meaning that he will listen to offers, but that you would have to blow away the Reds to obtain Votto. In the end it should also be the same outcome of the Justin Upton rumors, with no trade happening. Votto may be traded, but probably not this offseason, even if his value is at its peak.

What I want to know is why exactly do we want to trade for Votto, when there is a better option on the free agent market in Prince Fielder. Votto obviously includes the plus of being able to play first base at an above average level and the fact that he is Canadian definitely doesn’t hurt, but Prince Fielder, with the right contract, is clearly the better option. He is younger, he is only a marginally worse hitter , and most of all he won’t cost the Blue Jays anything other than cash (which can easily be spent if Anthonpolous feels it is warranted) and a 1st round draft pick, which the Blue Jays have two of in 2012.

Starting off on the value aspect, here are the stats of the two players on the past three years.

Prince Fielder
Year Age G PA R H HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB
2009 25 162 719 103 177 46 141 2 3 110 138 .299 .412 .602 1.014 166 356
2010 26 161 714 94 151 32 83 1 0 114 138 .261 .401 .471 .871 135 272
2011 27 162 692 95 170 38 120 1 1 107 106 .299 .415 .566 .981 164 322
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 10/21/2011.


Joey Votto

Year Age G PA R H HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB
2009 25 131 544 82 151 25 84 4 1 70 106 .322 .414 .567 .981 156 266
2010 26 150 648 106 177 37 113 16 5 91 125 .324 .424 .600 1.024 171 328
2011 27 161 719 101 185 29 103 8 6 110 129 .309 .416 .531 .947 156 318
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 10/21/2011.

Prince Fielder’s fWAR has been an average of 5.1 and Votto’s has been a better, but not otherworldly better at 6.3 fWAR. Though once you take fielding completely out of the equation the gap closes a bit as Fielders average offensive contribution to his fWAR over the past three years is 4.5 wins and Votto’s is 4.7 wins. When you consider that if on the Jays Fielder will be most likely be DHing quite a bit, it seems reasonable to assume that there wouldn’t be a giant value gap between Fielder and Votto. Either would be a huge upgrade over both Encarnacion and Lind, but for what it would take to acquire the two, it easily gives Fielder the edge.

To acquire Joey Votto would be a monstrous task. First he’s obviously not a free agent nor is he an obvious trade candidate with two years still left on his contract, so a trade for him could take a lot. Some people were suggesting that the Jays should trade something along the lines of Anthony Gose, Travis d’Arnaud, Drew Hutchison, Deck McGuire, and then some of the high end arms in the lower minors like Noah Syndergaard and Justin Nicolino. If the Jays could get Votto for this, then I would go right ahead, but I along with others can easily see that this isn’t an adequate package for a guy who is a year removed from an MVP season in which he had 7.3 fWAR. 

A more accurate representation of what it would take to acquire the former MVP would be something along the lines of Brett Lawrie and Ricky Romero. It may look nice to have that hometown hero, but is it really worth it to give up Lawrie and Romero to do so. First off Lawrie has some of that same patriotic appeal that Votto has as well as the fact that he is cost controlled and is projected to be a future star. Then to add on Ricky Romero who is the unquestioned leader of the pitching staff  and the only guy who is a lock to throw 200 innings, it becomes way too much to give up.

Besides by adding Votto to the 2012 roster you really aren’t gaining much if anything at all in terms of added value if what you are giving up is Brett Lawrie and Ricky Romero. This year Votto had a 6.9 WAR season and it is quite reasonable to expect him to reach those heights again. But Lawrie and Romero combined this year put up 5.6 WAR and it isn’t unprecedented to expect even more value next year out of Lawrie and Romero than out of Votto. Sure some of Lawrie and Romero’s value would be added in other ways, but if you assume you get Snider/Thames replacing Lawrie’s production and one of the young pitchers replacing Ricky’s production it would be exceedingly close to the value added with Votto over Encarnacion. Combined Lawrie and Romero provide probably an extra 5 wins over their replacements, but Votto over Encarnacion is only 5.5-6 wins added, so unless Lawrie completely tanks next season Votto doesn’t add much to the Jays. 

Despite the obvious marketing positives of having the best Canadian player in the MLB on the only Canadian team, giving up what it would take to acquire Votto is too much. If the Blue Jays truly want a first basemen now then Fielder is the only option. He’s only 27 and if you can get him for less than 7 years, then I’d say jump on it. It doesn’t matter even if the Jays pay Fielder upwards of 22.5 million a year, the real issue with him is the long term sustainability. Plus Fielder adds that big bat that the Jays supposedly need, without taking away the prodigy himself Brett Lawrie. In the end I don’t think it will be failure whether or not the Blue Jays get a big middle of the order bat this offseason or not, but if they do want to acquire someone, why not Fielder.
Go to Top