jessecrall

Explain the Marte trade to me; his value lies in 2020 and 2021 team options at reasonable costs; since Adell can be reasonably projected to be ready by 2020, it seems like you're giving up a helluva lot for what could amount to 1 year of a 30-year-old coming off a good-not-great season.

We have: Skaggs, Heaney, Shoemaker, Barria, Pena, Ramirez, Meyer, Tropeano, Canning, Suarez & 1-2 likely acquisitions. Maybe Sandoval, as well. Plus Ohtani in 2020. Bridwell if things get really bad. Will Suarez be better than Barria? Or Pena? Maybe. Maybe not. If he can bring in a proven quantity, you look into moving him. If he can't, you don't. Understand, I'm not saying you HAVE to trade any of these people. Just that it doesn't make sense to not consider your options. You talk about depth but prospects move up, guys get picked up from the waiver wire, the front office will surely sign some more utility guys or even a Marwin Gonzalez/Daniel Descalco type. The team will change.

You're absolutely right but what you're saying will always be true. Contracts run out, players get hurt, veterans hit the wall. And the opposite perspective could be: Prospects seldom pan out, they're a gamble, they get hurt, they don't develop, they get to the majors and struggle and lose the value they had etc etc. I should note that I'd be reluctant to part with these guys. I'm not in any way saying we must trade them. Merely that the idea that we reflexively shouldn't is unwise. If the Marlins want a ransom for Realmuto, you hold. If they scare off other teams and their price drops, well...

You look for redundancies. Do we need Adell AND Marsh? Not with Upton and Trout already locked in. Do we need Rengifo AND Jahmai Jones? Nice to have insurance but no. If you sign a legit starter this offseason, can you afford to give up either Canning or Suarez? Sure. Ideally, you hold on to the one with the most upside and let other teams bet on growth. Here's hoping it rolls that way. But it does this team no good to have Rengifo on the bench and Marsh tearing it up in AAA in 2020 while one of their positions on the field is a black hole.

Look, if we sign Murphy, I wish him all the best. i hope he rediscovers his 2017 stroke, is healthy all year, looks like '79 Keith Hernandez at 1st, accepts gay marriage and finds a great parking space every time he goes to Trader Joe's. I just don't see it happening and he's not worth an 8-figure AAV to find out. You're talking about spending ~$40 million next year on two old, banged-up 1B. Descalco is a waaaay better option.

If you're going to jettison Pujols and his contract, why would you then sign a slow, expensive, defensively incapable infielder with knee problems coming off a sub-replacement-level season to replace him?

He hasn't played 3rd for any real length of time since 2015 and he was a little below average per DRS and more than a little via Total Zone Runs and UZR. That was 3 years ago. Unless you sign him to a bargain-basement price to willingly backup Cozart & Fletcher, he just doesn't make any sense to me.

Daniel Murphy's assets are lost on me. He's versatile only in the sense that if you pencil him in at 2B, he'll grab a glove and take the field. But he's brutal over there, 18 runs below average in 71 games last year and -15 in 139 games in 2017. If you play him at second for any length of time, he will cost you wins. So that makes him a 1B essentially spelling Pujols. If he's at 1B and he rediscovers his 2016-2017 stroke, great. But last year, he was 6% better than the league offensively and he turns 34 at the beginning of the season. Does anyone expect him to improve at the plate? Were he some bargain basement flyer, fine, but he's projected to get 2/28. I don't see how that's tenable when Descalco was as good a hitter with better on-base skills, isn't a butcher at 2nd, will cost a fraction as much and is 2 years younger. Or you stick with internal options like Thaiss and spend elsewhere.

Suzuki: 1 year/$5 million Descalco: 1 year/$2 million Kikuchi: 6 years/$42 million per MLB Trade Rumors estimate + $8 million as a posting fee Morton: 2/$32 million Morton was flirting with retirement this year so I feel skeptical that he'll leave Houston. But he's got great stuff, doesn't cost a draft pick and is unlikely to require more than 2 or 3 years. Kikuchi's a gamble but if he's even an average pitcher for most of that contract, he's a bargain. The Boras representation makes me figure his AAV will be higher than what I've got estimated but what the hell, we're just guessing. Descalco's coming off his best offensive season and offers mediocre defense everywhere. That's better than we got from Marte or Valbuena and he's cheap. Suzuki's the fallback assuming Realmuto costs too much; I agree with Jeff Fletcher's assessment of the Angels' overall reluctance to bet big on over-30 catchers. I want to give Fletcher every opportunity to earn a starting spot. He's never drawn great scouting reports and even after last season, he earns more skepticism than praise. But his defense was terrific at 2 positions, he held his own at the plate and he just looks like the kind of smart, instinctive player who's always a touch better than the sum of his parts. Maicer Izturis was like that. Marwin's a more exciting option than Descalco but he's probably going to cost 3/$30 at a minimum and it's entirely possible that he already peaked. Per Fangraphs, Fletcher put up more WAR than Gonzalez in 65 fewer games. I wouldn't bet on that happening again but...I also don't want to spend $10 million a year on the assumption that it wont. Simmons SS Trout CF Ohtani DH Upton LF Pujols/Descalco 1B Cozart 3B Suzuki C Calhoun RF Fletcher 2B Skaggs-Heaney-Morton-Kukuchi-Canning (at some point) with Barria, Shoemaker, Suarez, Pena & Tropeano in the mix. That's a solid team. Not great but solid. If Adell & Jones are ready to click in 2020 and Canning & Suarez prove themselves capable starters, you can make a real run in 2020 without embarrassing yourselves in the interim.

Yeah, one of the advantages of Realmuto is that he's under team control and thus trading for him would still allow for the financial flexibility to make additional moves. Ramos looks like a 3/$36 signing and Grandal's been tagged at 3/$45-51 plus a 2nd round pick over at Fangraphs. You're not getting much more than a decent rotation guy after that.

Oh, I would absolutely hold Adell and would be very, very reluctant to part with Canning.

The Angels were a ~.500 last year in the standings and via their pythag. If Calhoun and Cozart are merely average in 2019, that's a 3 game swing. If they get a solid starter, Canning makes some kind of positive contribution and they get reasonably full seasons from Skaggs & Heaney, that's another 5 wins. Add in Realmuto and you've got a 90 win team. None of this stuff is certain, Trout could get hurt, Ohtani could be on the shelf longer than desired, Pujols could play 150 very bad games etc etc. But it's not crazy to see them as a solid WC contender in 2019. Houston's losing free agents, Verlander's old, Altuve & Springer probably peaked, their front office just lost a top analytics guy...they're not going to be a powerhouse for much longer. I'm not saying they SHOULD get Realmuto, particularly if the Marlins are trying to fleece teams, just that there are moving parts beyond Realmuto that can get the Angels into a playoff spot over the next couple of years.

Marsh is blocked so he's exactly the kind of top-100, high upside prospect you'd be okay with losing. Canning would sting immediately, Jones would probably sting in 2021 when he's developed into a plus 2B who can hit while Realmuto is either gone or here on the wrong side of 30 making $18 mil a year from an extension. Marsh, Suarez & Rengifo would be the ideal package but I think the Marlins will get better offers.

Mike Trout is unlikely to be a great player at the tail end of a, say, 14-year extension because time is undefeated and injuries are common. But it's hardly a sure thing that a $40 million AAV would be a problem by the late 2020s. Consider: There have only really been 4 players that compare to Trout in terms of skill set and success at so young an age: Mays, Mantle, Bonds & Griffey. Maybe Frank Robinson and Henry Aaron but the former didn't reach Trout's heights and the latter didn't have his speed (though he was an excellent baserunner who did, consequently, age exceptionally well). Let's start with Mays. He doesn't appear on Trout's statistical comps yet because he missed most of his age 21 and 22 seasons due to military service before breaking out with a 10-WAR season at 23. Mays is basically a smaller Trout. Swap some plate discipline for defense and they're even. Mays arguably peaked between the ages of 31 and 34, played at an MVP level at 35 and put up a 6-WAR season at 40. He's the gold standard for players aging. He stayed healthy throughout his career which required a measure of luck we can't expect from anyone. But he also shows that it's not impossible to remain extremely productive for 20 years. Mantle is an even closer physical comp (though Trout still has ~30 pounds on him) and is essentially Trout's equal in all skill sets (he even gave an interview at the very end of his career admiring Mays' aggressive defense and lamenting his own tendency to play balls in front of him tentatively. That's Trout. His biggest weakness on defense involved coming in on balls, which he seemed to rectify a bit this season.) Mantle peaked at 23-26, had a 10-WAR season at 29 and then saw injuries and defensive degeneration sap his overall value. He remained an excellent hitter through the end of his career, managing a a 143 OPS+ in his age-36 and final season. Had he played today, he probably could have held on a few more years as a 2-3 WAR DH. So Mantle wouldn't be a great pattern to follow; you can put a guy like that at the top-3rd of your lineup but at $40 mil a year, you're not getting a value surplus. At the same time, Mantle suffered from osteomyelitis, a series of serious leg injuries and a fondness for...extracurricular pursuits that didn't do his body any favours. Trout has no lingering health issues and appears to be a hard-working fitness fanatic throughout the year. Barry Bonds comes with an obvious asterisk but his 20-something seasons look at a lot like Trout's. Power, speed, walks, good average, plus defensive value...exempting the strike-shortened 94 and 95, Bonds put up 8 WAR every season between his age 24 year and his age 33 season, supposedly his last clean year. So Bonds played at an MVP-level through 33 and could have been expected to age well considering his broad skill-set and no sign of any decline (though he was hurt and comparatively unproductive in 1999, his first roid year). Would you take 7 more 8-10 WAR seasons from Trout at $40 mil before decline sets in? I would. Griffey's the worst-case scenario. He took a step back at 28 and hit the wall at 31. Injuries, weight gain and the accompanying decline in his skills both in the field and at the plate rendered the second half of his career more unproductive than Pujols'. He made about $12 mil/year through it and didn't play in a single playoff game with the Reds. So you've got two examples of guys whose value would exceed even a $400-450 million contract, one guy with a particularly bad injury history who would fall short but still remain productive enough to warrant playing time and one guy who represents a complete washout. None of this means Trout WILL age spectacularly or crash and burn and all these guys had different personalities, training habits, styles and luck. But if you factor in Trout's value as a franchise player (which didn't really exist with Pujols or Griffey doing their biggest damage with another team), extending him for 12-14 years is a bet I'd absolutely make. Not just to appease fans or win in 2021 but to potentially have a great player well into his 30s. Time is undefeated but if anyone in baseball today can go 12 rounds, it's Trout.