R.A. Dickey trade a good deal for both teams

Earlier today, the Toronto Blue Jays agreed on a contract extension of two years and $25 million for R.A. Dickey. In order for Dickey to be traded to the Blue Jays, Toronto needed to agree to extend his contract, something he had requested from the Mets many times during this off-season.

The entire trade goes like this: Dickey and catchers Josh Thole and Mike Nickeas will go to the Jays in exchange for catcher John Buck, minor-league outfielder Wuilmer Becerra, pitching prospect Noah Syndergaard, and elite catching prospect Travis d'Arnaud. 

Some people are comparing this trade to the one the Royals and Rays made last week, but I don't think this is nearly as one-sided. On the surface, this trade does seem similar because one of the best hitting prospects in the game (d'Arnaud) and a solid pitching prospect (Syndergaard) are being traded for an above-average major league pitcher (Dickey)*. The big difference is that the Blue Jays are much closer to contention than the Royals.

*Thole and Buck are basically the same player, so they cancel out, in my mind, like Wade Davis and the Royals' non-Will Myers prospects that were sent to Tampa Bay in last week's big trade.

Unlike the Royals, who still have many holes in their roster even with the acquisition of James Shields, the Blue Jays have an playoff-looking team on paper. We all remember the blockbuster trade Toronto made with the Marlins about a month ago, acquiring Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Emilio Bonifacio, and the trade-magnet John Buck. Reyes, Johnson, and Buehrle could be worth a combined 10 WAR next season if they stay healthy and perform like they have in the past. Even if these three don't perform up to that level, they should still be an upgrade from what the Blue Jays had in those spots last year.

Toronto should also expect some improvement from several of the players on their roster last season. Jose Bautista only played 92 games last year due to injury. Brandon Morrow also missed a bunch time because he was hurt. Ricky Romero went from a +3 to +4 win pitcher his first three seasons to barely above replacement level last season. Brett Lawrie, Colby Rasmus, and J.P. Arencibia are all young and talented but were average to below-average last season. This team probably would have won around 80 games had they merely avoided those major injuries to Bautista and Morrow (among many other players who suffered injuries last season). Better years from Romero and those three young position players might have propelled them into playoff contention.

If these key players can stay healthy and perform better than they did last year – along with significant contributions from their new acquisitions – this team could be scary in 2013. In fact, Toronto looked like a fringe contender even before this trade for Dickey was finalized. Given all the pieces the Blue Jays had, they could have realistically said that they were one or two players away from being a legitimate playoff contender.
                                                                                                              
This is why I’m fine with this trade from Toronto’s side. They have a very real shot at making the playoffs this year, unlike the Royals who will need a ton of things to go right in order to contend. Sure, giving up d’Arnaud and Syndergaard (Toronto's #1 and #3 prospects, respectively, according to Baseball America) is a steep price to pay but those players most likely wouldn’t have made the impact in 2013 that Dickey will.

Dickey, by the way, has been an excellent pitcher for three straight seasons , not just 2012. He is fairly old (38) but he’s also a knuckleball pitcher, and knuckleballers have proven to be both durable and effective well into their forties (as guys like Tim Wakefield and Phil Niekro have shown). Dickey’s a pretty safe bet to continue to be a good pitcher.

The Mets, meanwhile, made a very smart move given the state of their franchise. Giving up a fan-favorite who just won the Cy Young Award is not an easy decision but given the prospects the Jays offered in exchange for Dickey, it was a no-brainer.

The Mets finished fourth in the NL East last season while getting a Cy Young-winning season out of Dickey and an MVP-caliber season out of David Wright. This shows the lack of depth the Mets had among the rest of their roster, and I’m sure the front office took this into account when they decided to shop Dickey instead of giving him an extension. The Mets knew their team wasn’t on the verge of World Series contention and decided to try to build up their farm system.

They have some very talented young players, too. 23 year-old pitcher Matt Harvey was excellent in the 59.1 innings he threw for the Mets last year after his mid-season call-up and looks like a potential top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher. Zach Wheeler (22 years old) is one of the best pitching prospects in baseball and will probably see the big leagues in 2013. Ruben Tejada (23) is a promising young shortstop and first baseman Ike Davis (25) – who does strike out a lot – is a very powerful hitter who can get on base. Now with d’Arnaud (23) and Syndergaard (20), the Mets have a promising core of young players to go along with their superstar, Wright (who’s only 29).

The Mets are getting the better end of the deal just because d’Arnaud and Syndergaard are such promising prospects, but the Blue Jays certainly didn’t get robbed. Even if Dickey massively disappoints, Toronto should still be happy they made this trade. Playoffs are not an unreasonable expectation and Dickey was one of the more risk-free players on the market. If you’re going to go all in for one or two seasons, this is the way to do it.

Josh Hamilton signs with Los Angeles' second-richest team

Josh Hamilton signed a 5-year, $125 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels earlier today. This not only has important implications for the Angels (who lost Zach Greinke to the Dodgers a few days ago)but also on their division rivals, the Texas Rangers. Hamilton was one of the Rangers' best hitters last year and he'll now be contributing to a team Texas will almost certainly be battling with for the division title or a Wild Card spot next season.

Overall, I like this move by the Angels. Maybe it's because we saw two 10-year, $200+ million contracts get dished out last year (one of them by the Angels), but this and the Greinke deal seem very reasonable.

The main thing I like with this Hamilton contract is the length of the deal. Hamilton will be 37 by the end of this contract, which will definitely be past his prime but not so late in career that we should expect him to be at or below replacement level. Will he be the 4+ win player we've seen him be every full season he's had so far in his career? Probably not, but if I'm the Angels, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make as long as he provides a very productive first two to three years of the contract.

Even if he completely falls off the cliff, this won't be like the Alex Rodriguez contract with seemingly no end in sight.

Hamilton also fills a need. Torii Hunter left the Angels for the Tigers earlier in the off-season, leaving the Angels with some less-than-ideal options for two of the three outfield positions.

Currently, the Angels' depth chart has Mike Trout in left field, Peter Bourjos in center, and Mark Trumbo moving from third base to right field. Trout would be in center on almost any other MLB team but Bourjos is maybe the only player in the majors who's better defensively in center than Trout. The problem is, Bourjos is not a very good hitter, so he'd be giving back a lot of his defensive value with his poor hitting and on-base skills.

Trumbo is the opposite of Bourjos, a very powerful (albeit impatient and inconsistent) hitter who is not good defensively. Moving him from third base to right or left field wouldn't mask his defensive deficiencies.

The switch-hitting Alberto Callaspo is not a bad hitter and is better suited to play third base than Trumbo, although the Angels would probably rather platoon him with Trumbo at third and Howard Kendrick at second than play him at third every day.

Vernon Wells is also an option to start in one of the corner outfield spots, but the Angels don't want to get into a situation where Vernon Wells starts in one of the corner outfield sports. He's Vernon Wells.

So Hamilton makes everything look much less troublesome for manager Mike Scioscia. It's still not going to be easy for him to decide what to do with Bourjos, Trumbo, and Callaspo, but this is a good problem to have. An outfield with Trout, Hamilton, and Trumbo would be fearsome offensively, although pretty average defensively. The same outfield with Bourjos instead of Trumbo would still be good offensively and elite defensively. Scioscia can't really go wrong.

And I haven't even mentioned how good Hamilton is, yet. His worst OPS in any of the last three seasons was .882 (in 2011) and his 2010 MVP season was incredible. He doesn't walk a ton and he strikes out a lot (career 19.7% strikeout rate), but he hits dingers. Lots and lots of them.

Now, he is going from one of the best home ballparks for hitters in the AL to one of the worst, so he probably won't hit as many home runs in LA but that doesn't mean he'll only hit 20. Prince Fielder went from a good hitters' ballpark to a bad one last year and still hit 30 homers. Adrian Gonzalez hit 30-40 dingers basically every year he played in San Diego. Poor hitters' ballparks don't always mean that certain players won't hit a bunch of home runs.

This isn't a cheap deal, by any means, but the Angels are getting an excellent hitter for what looks to be the rest of his most productive years. Hamilton's contract is half as big as the one Pujols signed last year, so if Hamilton does stop performing, the Angels won't be stuck paying him for a ridiculous amount of time.

The key factor is injuries. If Hamilton misses huge chunks of the next five seasons, this deal will look horrendous, but if he can avoid the big injuries and play at least 120 games per year, the Angels will be glad they signed him.

Youkilis signs a one-year deal with the Yankees

Yesterday, former Red Sox and White Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis made a verbal agreement to join the New York Yankees on a one-year, $12 million deal. The Greek God of Walks is coming off by far his worst season in the majors, hitting .235/.336/.409 with 1.3 WAR.

Some may think Youkilis is done being the productive player he was in his prime years in Boston but I expect him to have a rebound season in 2013, although I think his numbers will look more like his 2011 stats (.258/.373/.459, 3.7 WAR) than his they did in his 2008-2009 seasons.

Youkilis has played six full seasons in his career (I'm including his injury-shortened 2010 season), and the lowest WAR he had in the five years before 2012 was 2.6 in 2006, which was still a very good season from the plate. For a player who isn't too old (33 right now), last season seems much more like a fluke than a sign of progressing regression. I feel much more confident projecting Youkilis based off of five previous good seasons than one bad one.

Youkilis will probably never again perform like he did in 2008-2009, but if the Yankees get close to the 2011 version of Youkilis, this deal is a theft. However, even if Youkilis performs like he did last year, this is still a good deal by the Yanks.

Before signing Youkilis, the only third baseman on the Yankees' roster was Alex Rodriguez, who is going to be out 4-6 months after he gets hip surgery in January. Eric Chavez was a solid fill-in for A-Rod when he was hurt/slumping last season, but Chavez signed with Arizona about a week ago. So Youkilis is not only a historically good player, he also fills a huge need in the Yankees' roster.

His defense at third base has been declining the last few seasons but A-Rod hasn't been a Gold Glover at the hot corner, either, and as we saw with the Tigers this past season, a terrible defender at third base doesn't always kill a team.

Youkilis had a bad offensive season in 2012 but he still did the two most important things a hitter can do (at a reasonably high level): got on base and hit home runs. His OBP was .101 points higher than his batting average at an above league average .336 and he hit 19 home runs combined between his time with both Sox teams. He's always going to draw walks (hence is nickname), which is always a valuable commodity for a team.

All Youkilis has to do is be decent during A-Rod's absence. The Yankees have a very good lineup regardless of who plays at third base, so as long as he's not terrible, he'll provide value.

Also, one year deals are always good investments. This is more true of a team who doesn't have loads of money like the Yankees, but the same principle applies to rich teams. Regardless of how Youkilis performs, the Yankees won't regret signing him.

The Royals traded potential long-term greatness for a short-term chance to win 80 games

A few weeks ago, Dave Cameron from FanGraphs wrote an article about the Royals possibly trading super-prospect Wil Myers for pitching help. Cameron argued that making such a trade would fill the large hole in the Royals' weak pitching rotation but would only give them another significant hole in an outfield where Jeff Francoeur played 148 games and had 603 plate appearances last season.

I couldn't have agreed more with that article, as you can see from a little comment I made in this blog's first post written a couple of days ago.

Well, the Royals obviously don't care what Cameron or I think, trading Myers, another top prospect in Jake Odorizzi, and two other prospects for James Shields and Wade Davis.

The issues I have with this deal aren't with who Kansas City got in return. Shields has been one of the most consistent pitchers since his first full season in 2007, pitching 200+ innings each season and being worth 3.7 Wins Above Replacement every year other than 2010. His strikeouts per 9 innings have significantly increased since his first few years and his xFIP has almost consistently gotten better each season. Shields is practically a lock to pitch 200+ innings and be worth 3-4 wins for the Royals in 2013.

Davis was a mediocre starting pitcher with the Rays in his two full seasons in 2010 and 2011, but he was very good in the 70.1 innings he pitched out of the bullpen last year, so he can provide some value for the Royals. Plus, he's only 27 years old.

These two players were worth about 5 WAR last season, which is very good value, but Myers is one of those players who many expect to be worth more than 5 WAR every season for many seasons to come. He's that good. Keith Law had him 13th on his Top 100 Prospects list going into last season but only four of the players in front of him didn't end up going to the big leagues last year. He's hit at every minor league level he's been to, for both average and power. He's not a prospect that comes around very often.

But even Myers' huge potential isn't the main problem with this deal for Kansas City. The problem is that the Royals were a bad team last year on basically every level. Sure, their hitting wasn't awful, but of the major holes in their lineup, center and right field were the Chicxulub and Sudbury craters*. Myers is an outfielder who could have a massively disappointing rookie year and still be more valuable than Francoeur or Lorenzo Cain.

*Full disclosure: I Googled "largest craters on Earth" before writing that sentence.

This brings me back to the main point of Cameron's article: picking up a solid pitcher or pitchers (Shields and Davis) while giving up a good outfielder (Myers) fills one important hole while leaving another one wide open. The Royals weren't a pitcher away from contending last year; they were an entire starting pitching rotation and multiple hitters away from contending. Picking up one and a half good pitchers is not going to turn them into a juggernaut, even if players like Eric Hosmer start playing up to their potential.

Royals defenders might say that they'd rather have Shields because he is much more reliable than some player who has never seen a major league pitch, which is sort of fair because Myers might end up being a bust. Although, by that same logic, the New Orleans Hornets should have traded Anthony Davis for Rajon Rondo before the season because they needed a point guard. Young players are unpredictable but when you have a special talent like Myers, the potential is too good to pass up.

They're also a small-market team. The Royals probably can't afford to keep Shields past 2014 (he has a club option in 2014) but Myers would have been theirs for at least six years. They'd be saving money and very likely be getting more per-year and long-term value out of Myers than of Shields.

And through all of this attention to the Royals, the Rays continue to smartly build their franchise. They now don't have to worry about spending a bunch of money on Shields or letting him walk without getting anything in return.

If you're wondering why the Rays have been one of the best franchises over the past five years and why the Royals have been among the worst, just look at trades like this. The team that should be rebuilding went for a short-term solution that probably won't even get them into the playoffs, whereas the perennial 90-win team got a little worse (theoretically, at least) this season in order to save some money and be very good for many years to come.

New blog

Baseball is the best sport in the world, in my mind. I love basketball, football is always enjoyable to follow, hockey is fun when they're actually, you know, playing hockey, golf is my favorite sport to play, and so on, but I'd take baseball over all of them.

We're currently in the offseason, so there isn't a ton going on but it's still exciting to see all of the free agent signings, trades, rumors, etc. and project how the moves will affect next season.

My goal is to provide some smart analysis of the happenings in the baseball universe and make a joke or two about stupid things done by stupid teams. Something like the Royals trading Wil Myers would help make me reach both of these goals.

If people read this blog, great, but I'm going to enjoy writing here regardless of how many page views I get. I just need to have a place to write about baseball and this blog will more than help satisfy my desires.