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.
No comments:
Post a Comment