The Vernon Wells trade elicits a wide variety of reactions, as best shown by the amazingly awesome word clouds created by Sam Miller, but if I were to use just one word to sum up the trade, it would probably be “inexplicable”. This isn’t one of those moves where there are reasonable arguments on both sides of the coin – this is the kind of deal where it is almost unanimous that the Blue Jays took the Angels to the cleaners. No matter how hard you squint to try to find positives in Wells’ game, it’s still just a complete head-scratcher that the Angels would agree to take on a contract that size for a player of his abilities. This deal got me thinking – when was the last time there was this kind of near-unanimous reaction to a trade? In short, is this the most inexplicable deal in recent history?

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By acquiring the $86 million that Vernon Wells has left on his contract while shipping out Juan Rivera ($5.25 million) and Mike Napoli (~$5.8 million or so), the Angels essentially agreed to add $75 million to their books over the next four years. Just for fun, let’s take a look at what they could have bought with $75 million this winter.

Power Hitters.

Adam Dunn ($56 million) and John Buck ($18 million) would have given them a lefty thumper to use as an OF/DH type and allowed them to replace Napoli with another catcher who could hit the ball over the wall. Sure, they would have had to play Bobby Abreu in the field for one more year, but the difference between Dunn’s bat and Wells’ bat would have compensated for the difference, and they wouldn’t have had to start Jeff Mathis at catcher.

Detroit’s off-season

The Tigers acquired Victor Martinez ($50 million), Joaquin Benoit ($16.5 million) and Brad Penny ($3 million) for $5 million less than the Jays just paid to “upgrade” to Vernon Wells.

An entirely new starting rotation

Jorge de la Rosa ($21.5 million), Jake Westbrook ($16.5 million), Carl Pavano ($16.5 million), Hiroki Kuroda ($12 million), and Javier Vazquez ($7 million) signed for a grand total of $73.5 million this winter. This isn’t quite as fair, since it’s almost all 2011 money rather than being spread out over the next four years, but still, the total dollar figure for Vernon Wells is about the same as buying five of the best free agent starting pitchers available this winter.

After fruitlessly hunting around for a three year contract all winter, Carl Pavano finally re-signed with the Minnesota Twins yesterday. The two year, $16.5 million contract he signed is perhaps a bit smaller than expected, given that he was generally considered one of the better free agent pitchers on the market and teams have been pretty casual about throwing cash around all winter. Perhaps more interestingly, it’s also the exact same contract Jake Westbrook signed two months ago.

Heading into the winter, I doubt many of us had Westbrook and Pavano linked as guys who would land similar deals, but a closer inspection reveals that they actually are pretty similar: Pavano is 35, Westbrook is 33. Pavano has thrown 1,500 innings in the majors, Westbrook 1,300. Pavano has a career FIP of 4.15, while Westbrook is at 4.17. Pavano doesn’t get quite as many groundballs as Westbrook, but he makes up for the difference by getting a few more strikeouts and walking slightly fewer. Both of them have fairly recently missed seasons due to injuries, but they also both threw over 200 innings last year and have been effective innings eaters when not on the DL.

So now, I’m trying to figure out why we all thought Pavano was going to get more money than Westbrook to begin with. Pavano did post a slightly lower ERA last year while pitching in the American League, but any team who evaluated him by ERA would also have to be somewhat scared of his 2009 mark. Most true talent evaluations would have them as extremely similar, and the market ended up coming to the same conclusion. And yet, that didn’t seem to be the perception going into the off-season.

For instance, here’s Frankie Piliere’s Top 50 free agents from FanHouse – he had Pavano #12 (between Andy Pettitte and Jorge de la Rosa) while Westbrook came in at #20 (between Adam LaRoche and Jon Garland). Sports Illustrated’s list was even more extreme, as Pavano came in at #12 while Westbrook was #32 (between Ty Wigginton and Pat Burrell this time). Perhaps the most credit should go to Tim Dierkes of MLBTradeRumors, who had them next to each other (#13 and #14) on his version of the list.

In retrospect, Pavano and Westbrook are pretty similar pitchers, and this deal for Pavano seems like a triumph of logic over narrative. While a lot of us (myself included in this) expected Pavano to land a better deal than Westbrook this winter, the underlying facts suggested that they should get similar deals, and they did. Score one for capitalism.

When the Twins acquired Matt Capps last summer, one of the selling points was that they weren’t just getting him for 2010; as a player with less than five years of service time, they had him under team control for 2011 as well. What they didn’t mention was that, as an arbitration eligible closer with fancy save numbers, he was going to cost them $7.1 million in salary for 2011, the number they agreed to give him today.

Matt Capps is a pretty good reliever, to be sure – his career K/BB ratio is 3.99, and he’s made a successful transition away from being an extreme flyball guy, helping get his home runs under control as well. However, even in this inflated market, $7 million for a not-quite-elite bullpen arm is a pretty good sized expense, and illustrates the point that we can’t simply look at “years of team control” and assume that they’re all of significant value to a team.

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After picking up Matt Garza from Tampa Bay, the Cubs were widely expected to trade Tom Gorzelanny in order to free up a spot in the rotation for their newly acquired starter. Today, that expectation became reality, as they shipped Gorzelanny to the Nationals for a trio of prospects. What are the Nationals getting in Gorzelanny?

To be honest, I have no idea. He’s one of the most confusing pitchers in the game.

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Over the last decade or so, the A’s have traditionally been out in front of the undervalued asset markets. They were buying on base percentage before it was cool, then transitioned to putting good defensive teams on the field once the market’s focus shifted too heavily to hitting. Oakland was also one of the first teams to do the Rent-a-Type-A strategy, making moves for guys with one year left on their contract in order to collect the draft picks when they walked. Given the moves that Billy Beane and company have made over the last few days, should we assume that relief pitchers are the new market inefficiency?

Last week, the A’s gave Grant Balfour a two year, $8 million contract, and because he was a Type A free agent, the A’s surrendered their second round pick in order to sign him. Yesterday, they agreed to terms with Brian Fuentes on a two year, $10 million contract, and the combination of moves gives the team a pair of new setup men to bridge the gap to closer Andrew Bailey. Given that they have also signed Rich Harden and Brandon McCarthy earlier this winter, stating that one or both could end up in the bullpen if they don’t make rotation, and the A’s have brought in a hefty dose of relief pitching this winter despite the fact that they already had a strong, deep bullpen.

Returning to the team from last year’s group are Bailey, Brad Ziegler, Craig Breslow, Michael Wuertz, and Jerry Blevins. Those five already offered the A’s a strong bullpen, including a quality closer and two good setup men from each side. In fact, it’s hard to distinguish between Breslow and Fuentes, as they essentially have the same skillset – extreme flyball lefties with mediocre command who miss enough bats to strand a bunch of runners. Fuentes duplicates what they already had, and Balfour is pretty similar to Wuertz as well.

So, what’s the deal? Why are the A’s spending so much time and energy on their bullpen?

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And the winner of the award for Best Free Agent Signing Of The Winter goes to… Dayton Moore? Wait, seriously? Who counted these votes?

January 14th, 2011 – the day that up became down, right became left, and FanGraphs writes that Moore got the best deal of the winter in free agency. But, here we are – the Royals just signed Jeff Francis to a one year contract for 2011 that will pay him just $2 million, and if he stays healthy and pitches well, could earn him up to a whopping $4 million. To put it in other terms, he just signed for the same amount of guaranteed money as Melvin Mora, and if he hits enough incentives, he might end up making as much as Bill Hall. This is, quite simply, a steal for Kansas City.

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Earlier this week, Cardinals owner Bill Dewitt told Jon Paul Morosi that he was “hopeful” that his team would be able to come to terms on a contract extension with Albert Pujols, who is scheduled to become The Free Agent To End All Free Agents next winter. The obvious question that looms over everything is just what kind of contract is fair for one of the best hitters to ever live.

It is easy to forget just how great Pujols is, but to put it in perspective, he’s on an entirely different plane than the rest of the league. For instance, the Red Sox gave up a significant chunk of their farm system for the right to pay Adrian Gonzalez about $150 million dollars (whenever that deal becomes official, anyway), and yet, Gonzalez’s best year is only marginally better than Pujols’ worst year. I think this graph kind of tells the story.

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