Make Believe Land

[Stradling]

Would you trade Adell with Albert for virtually nothing if it meant getting rid of Albert and all of the money owed to him?  

I certainly would not, but I am assuming there are a couple of people on here that would consider it.  

[kevinb]

Right now? No probably not. Last year or the year before yep. I would rather the Angels just cut bait and eat the 90 mil.

[wopphil]

No way

[krAbs]

I think this is actually a super interesting question. I think we can essentially consider the Pujols performance part of this equation as negligible - he is essentially a replacement level player at this point, which means we could just grab 'some dude' from the minors and we would get similar production.

So, in a manner of speaking, we are coming Adell's worth to money directly. But, we are doing this in a backwards sense that typically isn't considered. I think it would be a bit easier to do the other side of this, and imagine that we are the other team here.

So, according to Jeff's spreadsheets (sauce: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q7dlNaSqB4vip6QD88MCaahpPjiZrS7dgOam_TrElLg/edit#gid=0 ), we have an AAV of 139.37m (66.63 million below the cap) in 2019, with an actual payroll of 156.77m (given how Fletcher has been talking, I suspect we will not see this number pass 200m). If we were a team without Pujols, we would have an AAV of 115.37m, and an actual payroll of 128.77.

So, here's the scenario. You have a team with Trout, Simmons, Ohtani, Upton, a few injury prone pitchers, and a bunch of crap major leaguers. You have some talent coming up, and about 90 million dollars of cap left before you hit the luxury tax, but you know the owner isn't exactly looking to push up against the luxury tax. Harper, Machado, Corbin, Evoldi, and a few others are kicking around as free agents. In the back of your mind, you are worried about the expiring contract of Mike Trout, and hoping to give him a ring in the next few years to keep him on board. A team walks up to you and offers you a deal. Do you agree to pay them 87 million over the next 3 years for what is probably a top 10 prospect? He isn't projected to hit the majors until next year, but when he does you will likely get 6 cheap years out of him. You could look at it as around 14.5 mil per year, plus arbitration. MLB, a little thrown by the whole deal, decides to place an AAV of 24 million on you if you take this deal - bringing you up to the 139.37m mentioned before. Do you do it? Honestly...I wanna say that Stradling's deal is crazy, but...I have trouble saying that the above would be a good move for us. Honestly, it comes down to asking how good free agents are these days, and I don't have a great answer for that. Also, comes down to how good you think Adell will be for us.

Side note, our payroll is waaaaaay lower than I thought it was. Are my numbers right here? They don't FEEL right...

Edit - I should specify. Part of why I find this interesting is because I wonder why we DON'T see this kind of deal. Say you're the Padres. Your team is shit, but you have a good farm, a small but loyal fan base, and very little payroll. They are doing what they can to build up their fanbase  - which is smart - but it seems like they should also consider just like...straight up buying prospects. The only way that franchise is going to make money is if its suddenly super good, and it seems like it would be wise to invest now in making sure that happens. IDK, maybe this is just the "not my money" of it all talking, but its interesting that we don't see this kind of deal more often.

[ettin]

1 hour ago, Stradling said:

Would you trade Adell with Albert for virtually nothing if it meant getting rid of Albert and all of the money owed to him?  

I certainly would not, but I am assuming there are a couple of people on here that would consider it.  

If another team was stupid enough to do that then yes I think I would do it.

However Albert's contract is a sunk cost now. No team in their right mind would make that deal today. Pujols has so much negative value you'd have to send two Jo Adell's to get a conversation started with any team.

Better to just play him part-time this year and either call it a career at the end of this season or maybe next. It cannot realistically go on much longer in my opinion.

[UndertheHalo]

It’s an interesting (and impossible of course) question.  I probably lean towards doing It.  

[VariousCrap]

Yes.

[arch stanton]

We're operating here assuming that Albert must be on our roster (not true) and that the payroll is written in stone (also not true).

Adell is a potential cost-controlled all star level player with great marketability. Exactly what you want on your team to go with Trout, Ohtani, Simmons, etc. Replacing that potential would be much harder than convincing Arte to bite the bullet on Albert's money if a window opened to compete for the division and WS

I say no

[Docwaukee]

the Halos owe Albert $87m over the next three years plus a 10m personal services contract.  So 97m.  

So the avg $/WAR cost on the free agent market is about 10m per WAR.  Meaning we could use that money for about 9 WAR over the next three years or 3 WAR per year.  

He is obviously the heir apparent to Calhoun a portion of the money you'd need to spend would be on a RF replacement starting in 2020.  Unless you are relying on Marsh.  

There are a lot of permutations but the bottom line is that you are kinda betting on Adell not getting 9 WAR over his six years of club control OR that the 9 WAR you could get is enough to make the difference for this team over the next three years.  

Another way to look at it is could you acquire a 3 WAR  1bman with 3 years of league min control for Adell and have Albert ride the pine or just 'go on the DL'.  Examples of 3 WAR 1bman from last year are Matt Olson, Jesus Aguilar, and Anthony Rizzo.  

My answer would be a big fat no.  

 

[Docwaukee]

3 minutes ago, arch stanton said:

We're operating here assuming that Albert must be on our roster (not true) and that the payroll is written in stone (also not true).

Adell is a potential cost-controlled all star level player with great marketability. Exactly what you want on your team to go with Trout, Ohtani, Simmons, etc. Replacing that potential would be much harder than convincing Arte to bite the bullet on Albert's money if a window opened to compete for the division and WS

I say no

that's a pretty safe assumption though, don't you think?  There's really no  chance of them cutting Albert and there's very little chance that we extend payroll beyond the level Arte has stated he's willing to spend.  

Arte wouldn't even go over his threshold to make up for the Hamilton debacle before the 2016 season and we ended up with Nava and Gentry in LF which turned into Ortega.  Turns out it wouldn't have mattered considering that our pitching got run over by a tractor, but that's post hoc.  

Even knowing that Albert is pretty much guaranteed to be given a shot, I still wouldn't do it.  

[arch stanton]

5 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

that's a pretty safe assumption though, don't you think?  There's really no  chance of them cutting Albert and there's very little chance that we extend payroll beyond the level Arte has stated he's willing to spend.  

Arte wouldn't even go over his threshold to make up for the Hamilton debacle before the 2016 season and we ended up with Nava and Gentry in LF which turned into Ortega.  Turns out it wouldn't have mattered considering that our pitching got run over by a tractor, but that's post hoc.  

Even knowing that Albert is pretty much guaranteed to be given a shot, I still wouldn't do it.  

The whole thing is a fantasy anyway. Getting Albert to waive his no-trade, getting a team to bite, ... so there's as least as much chance that he'd bite the bullet for a winning team full of young stars that pack the house and move merchandise

[Tank]

here's why it won't happen:

[UndertheHalo]

1 hour ago, Tank said:

here's why it won't happen:

What are you guys going to make fun of when Arte switches a green yacht ?

also known as a sail boat. 

[ksangel]

Yes and then sign Harper which means you also jettison Calhoun and at least part of his salary. Thaiss replaces Albert at 1st and Harper, a sure thing in RF, replaces an unknown  Adell.

[arch stanton]

[Blarg]

When you look at posting fees and bidding for a Japanese player and then think of Adell on the market with future value in mind, the money seems to be equivilant for the same risk/reward.

That is how another team would have to look at aquiring Pujols' contract to get Joe Adell. They are buying 6 years of MLB service time for a fee from what should be an All Star caliber young ball player. 

Is it equitable for both sides? I think from the Angels standpoint it is a loss. They loses team control for 6 years because they don't want to wait out three. The money they would save on Pujols contract probably won't pay for equivilant value in player(s) over that three/six year term. Sure, you can get more players, fill a couple more holes but long term you don't have Trout and Adell in the same outfield which may be epic. 

My feeling, and this is entirely fan based, is Adell has a future value equivilant or greater than Pujols' contract value. He will be a guy worth $25-30 million a year but won't cost that for the first 4 years until a contract extension buying out arbitration years is made. And at that his AAV will probably be near what Pujols is taking in payroll now. 

In short, if I'm the GM of a team with payroll flexibility and one year out from really competing, I look into buying up that kind of future value. Give Pujols his last year to play but unless he has a dead cat bounce he is a DFA at the end of the season.

 

 

[T.G.]

I sincerely hope Adell is half as good as some of you think he's going to be. 

I have very high hopes, but he has lots to do and prove still.

I certainly would not trade him, but I know he may not live up to the lofty expectations we all have. He's worth the risk....

 

[Jay]

Yeah the Adell hype is pretty strong.

My question on this imaginary scenario is, what's in it for Albert? Why on Earth would he want to move?

 

[Stradling]

6 minutes ago, Jay said:

Yeah the Adell hype is pretty strong.

My question on this imaginary scenario is, what's in it for Albert? Why on Earth would he want to move?

 

In make believe land we don’t give a shit about why Albert would want to move.  

[Lou]

7 hours ago, ksangel said:

Yes and then sign Harper which means you also jettison Calhoun and at least part of his salary. Thaiss replaces Albert at 1st and Harper, a sure thing in RF, replaces an unknown  Adell.

so, in this land of make believe, Harper doesn't have a say in where he signs?

[Blarg]

Yes and also he is only getting an 8 year contract at $20 million per year. Because it's make believe land. 

[Lou]

in that case, go ahead and make the deal. I would love to discuss this further, but Emmanuel Chriqui is in my kitchen making my breakfast, wearing only a pair of my socks.

[floplag]

Interesting thought, but no i would not.  Unless we are so poor we had to make such a move to get out from under that money, i see no benefit in losing our top prospect.  IF i was to trade him it would have to be for an established ML superstar.  

[ten ocho recon scout]

8 hours ago, UndertheHalo said:

What are you guys going to make fun of when Arte switches a green yacht ?

also known as a sail boat. 

Wind

[Troll Daddy]

In make believe land AP puts up 7 WAR over his last three seasons as a Angel.

My answer is NO