Saturday, November 23, 2013

Who wins the Bourjos – Freese Trade

The Cardinals.  Barely need to analyze this.  3 years of Bourjos for 2 years of Freese (both under arbitration control) and a throw-in on either side.  Bourjos is more valuable than Freese and lower-paid. 

Going fully through the framework laid out yesterday, we can project Bourjos’ value as a CF.  Having possibly the best defensive outfielder in baseball, that can also hold his own with the bat, that’s a good thing to have.

Year
Hitting
Defense
Running
RAR
WAR
Value
Salary
Net
2014
-4
11
2
26
2.7
14.9
1.1
13.8
2015
-5
11
2
25
2.6
15.1
4
11.1
2016
-6
11
2
24
2.5
15.2
7
8.2

Vs. Freese as a 3B (assuming he recovers from his back injury and can play 3B decently again)

Year
Hitting
Defense
Running
RAR
WAR
Value
Salary
Net
2014
6
0
-2
24
2.5
13.9
4.4
9.5
2015
3
0
-2
21
2.2
13.0
7
6.0

Freese was actually good at third base before his back (presumably) made him terrible last year.  I’m giving him credit for getting back to average.  If he gets back to good, that’s another $5M of value over the next 2 years.

Salas, I’m thinking is good for about 55 innings of league average performance.  Average is around 25% better than replacement level, so that’s good for a fraction of a win, and he’s only going to get paid $700k-$2M for the next 3 years, so he’s probably getting fairly paid.

Grichuk is probably not making it to the majors until 2015, and may never rise beyond a part-time role.  He has decent power and a good arm.   But again, his salary under control for the 1st 6 years of service time makes him a fairly strong organizational asset as well.  Evaluating the financial value of controlling a prospect is hard because there’s no financial downside.  If they don’t turn out to be valuable, you never pay them.  There was some cost to get them into your system, but that’s sunk.  So they all look like great assets even accounting for the probability that they never pan out. 

The missing point there is probably about the finite # of roster spots and playing time on a team, the win target and $ budget of a team, and what options they would really choose to pursue instead.  Nonetheless, Grichuk looks like a decent add – something like a Jeff Francoeur type, and that is worth something.  For purposes of this exercise, I’ll say he’s a slightly valuable 4th OF beginning sincerely in 2016.

The Cardinals have the upside of Grichuk while the Angels have the upside of Freese.  Bourjos & Salas are pretty known commodities. Health is always the wild card, but I already dinged Bourjos for that in the projected playing time I gave him.  Bourjos & Freese are pretty well-matched in terms of value next year and the year after.  But Freese is a year-ahead in the salary arbitration timeline, which besides meaning the Angels pay more, also means the Cardinals get a third year of Bourjos, and talked the Angels into Grichuk on top somehow (I guess they just HAD to have Salas??) and that makes it a no-brainer.

Cardinals Get
Cardinals Pay
Cardinals Net
Angels Get
Angels Pay
Angels Net
2014
14.9
1.2
$13.7
14.9
5.1
$9.8
2015
18.4
4.3
$14.1
13.5
8.0
$5.5
2016
21.7
7.6
$14.1
0.1
1.5
-$1.4
2017
7.2
0.7
$6.5
2018
7.9
1.3
$6.6
2019
8.4
2.0
$6.4
2020
8.3
5.0
$3.3
NPV
$52.5
$13.6


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