Dustin Fowler may need to make an adjustment. The 24-year-old outfielder is coming off a rookie campaign that saw him slash an anemic .224/.256/.354, with six home runs, in 203 plate appearances. The Triple-A portion of his season was encouraging — a .310 BA and an .817 OPS — but his performance against big league pitching fell short of expectations. He went into the year ranked as Oakland’s No. 4 prospect.

He’d already made a notable adjustment. Prior to being acquired by the A’s in the 2017 trade deadline deal that sent Sonny Gray to the Yankees, Fowler had lowered his hands at the urging of then hitting coach, P.J. Pilittere. The reason was twofold: the team that drafted Fowler out of a Dexter, Georgia high school felt it would help him tap into his power. Every bit as importantly, his left-handed stroke wasn’t consistently catching up to high-octane heat.

Fowler talked about the 2016 adjustment midway through last season.

———

Dustin Fowler: “I hadn’t had much coaching growing up, so I was very raw. I’d just had small-town coaching — not the big coaching I needed — so going into pro ball was the first time I got some real one-on-ones on how to hit.

“I was very tall in my stance. I was upright, and my hands were over my head. Ever since grabbing a bat, I’d put them up there. My hand-eye coordination was good enough to make it work against pitching that wasn’t as good — slower pitching — but it worked less and less here. There’s a big difference from high school to pro ball. The pitches here harder, and I wasn’t catching up to balls. I was just fouling them off, or making fly-ball outs. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Oakland Athletics.

Batters

From the projections, one can see why the A’s let Jed Lowrie go so easily, despite his legitimate star-level performance in 2017 and ’18. Five Oakland infielders — the starters plus Franklin Barreto — project to be league-average or better. Now, none of them project to reach the level of Lowrie’s 4.9 WAR in 2018, but then again, neither does Lowrie, and mid-30s middle infielders tend to have pretty steep aging curves. And really, if anyone thought Lowrie was going to perform at an All-Star level again in 2019, he likely would have done better than two years and $20 million. Jurickson Profar projects to be a worthy replacement for Lowrie, and his return from literally years of injury and then underperformance is one of my favorite stories in baseball.

Except for catcher and the four-headed chimera in left field — at least, as our depth charts have it figured so far — the A’s project to be average or better, and sometimes significantly so, at every position. Perhaps ZiPS is trying to do penance for missing on the A’s by something like 20 wins in 2018.

Don’t get too excited about the Matt Olson comp; this version is from when Ortiz was still in the “Wait, is that the same guy as David Arias?” portion of his career, before he became Big Papi.

Pitchers

Ok, the highs are not very high. That’s due in large part to the fact that ZiPS is projecting fairly low innings totals for Oakland’s pitchers across the board. The system is aware of the injuries to Sean Manaea and Andrew Triggs in very general terms, so these aren’t theoretical “healthy” projections. As such, Manaea’s projection isn’t unexpected, but Triggs’s was a legitimate surprise to me. But again, I’m going to de-wind your sails a little bit by noting that ZiPS sees the Triggs injury as a generic “shoulder” ailment because I don’t have the data on thoracic outlet syndrome recoveries that I do with those from Tommy John. Regardless, this is an injury that you really don’t want.

The rotation’s highs may not be very high, but ZiPS sees the group as incredibly deep. 18 pitchers project to be worth at least one WAR if playing in the majors, and though a few of them are relievers (Blake Treinen, Lou Trivino, and Joakim Soria) and Brett Anderson is a free agent, that’s still a lot of options.

Bench and Prospects

I hope that someday I can love somebody or something the way ZiPS loves Jesus Luzardo. No, the computer isn’t projecting him to actually have Steve Carlton’s career, but who wouldn’t take that as a top comp? ZiPS already sees Luzardo as the team’s best starting pitcher, a pretty shocking projection for a guy who started the season in A-ball and whose parent club isn’t, say, the Baltimore Orioles.

It also interests me that ZiPS pegs Sean Murphy as the team’s best catching option. I’m definitely interested to see where he falls on the McDongenhagen prospect list; he ranked sixth last year, but after a .285/.361/.489 year and a finish at Triple-A, I would imagine he’s moved up. Conversely, Oakland cooled on Dustin Fowler and now largely sees him as a fourth outfielder. Overall, ZiPS sees a lot more of interest in the minor league pitchers than the hitters.

One pedantic note for 2019: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth chart playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here at site.

Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors — many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2019. ZiPS is projecting equivalent production — a .240 ZiPS projection may end up being .280 in AAA or .300 in AA, for example. Whether or not a player will play is one of many non-statistical factors one has to take into account when predicting the future.

Players are listed with their most recent teams, unless I have made a mistake. This is very possible, as a lot of minor-league signings go generally unreported in the offseason.

ZiPS’ projections are based on the American League having a 4.29 ERA and the National League having a 4.15 ERA.

Players who are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information, and a computer isn’t the tool that should project the injury status of, for example, a pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

In the first installment of the seventh annual Effectively Wild season preview series, Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Bryce Harper, Scott Boras, team meetings with free agents, the season preview series, the Super Bowl, and mortality, then preview the 2019 Reds (12:11) with The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans, and the 2019 Athletics (47:46) with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser.

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On Thursday, word broke that the Mariners had signed 30-year-old righty Hunter Strickland to a one-year , $1.3 million deal with incentives totaling about the same for games pitched and finished. On Friday afternoon, the Mariners’ division-mates in Oakland announced a deal of their own, for one year and for $4 million, with 35-year-old Marco Estrada. Both pitchers are 2019 bounce-back candidates, and both will spend at least a portion of 2019 in the AL West. Let’s discuss.

Given the terms of his deal, it seems reasonable to assume that the Mariners hope Strickland will be able to step into the ninth-inning role recently vacated by Edwin Díaz, perhaps in concert with Cory Gearren or Anthony Swarzak, or perhaps all by his lonesome, depending on how things shake out in spring training. That kind of uncertainty is the natural consequence of entering 2019 with a bullpen that’s lost Díaz, James Pazos, Juan Nicaso, and Alex Colomé to trade this winter and seems unlikely to welcome free agents Nick Vincent, Zach Duke, and Adam Warren back to Seattle. Seattle had an excellent bullpen in 2018 but doesn’t, in any meaningful sense, have that bullpen any more. Strickland is one of the new guard, here to carry the M’s over the water into the next phase of their rebuild.

Which makes the question of whether Strickland will be any good in 2019 something of an irrelevance to the Mariners’ long-term plans — if he’s good, he can be traded midseason; if he’s bad, it’s “just” $1.3 million — although it presumably remains of considerable importance to Strickland himself. For my money, I’d bet against renewed success in 2019. After routinely sitting in the low triple-digits with his four-fastball during his first three years in the majors (2014-2016), Strickland’s mean velocity on the pitch has dropped to 95.7 miles per hour, and his whiff percentage on the pitch has dropped from its high of 18% in 2015 to 8% last year. Those fundamentals have generated poor results across the board:

It’s hard to know what precisely brought on Strickland’s decline, but given that fastballs don’t usually get faster with age and that Strickland’s particular fastball is already getting beaten up at 95-96 miles per hour, it’s hard to be too sanguine about his future. Then again, given the contract he signed and the Mariners’ current insistence on trading away all their best players, there really is very little downside to this deal for Seattle. Just maybe reinforce the clubhouse doors.

There’s far more reason to be optimistic about the A’s bounce-back candidate, Estrada, despite the fact that his 2018 was if anything even worse than Strickland’s (the 5.64 ERA and 1.82 HR/9 are the figures that jump out at you most immediately). For one thing, Estrada has never really relied on his velocity to generate outs and so last year’s mile-per-hour slide from 90.1 to 89.0 on the fastball isn’t really something to worry about — in fact, it puts him right around where he was in 2016, when he put up a 3.48 ERA over 176 innings for the Blue Jays. For another, Estrada’s game has always been up in the zone and so (a) bad years like 2018 were always going to happen from time to time and (b) you don’t have to wish for too much positive regression on the HR/9 to get him back into a range (say, 2016’s 1.18, or his career 1.41 mark) where you know he can have success.

In Oakland, Estrada will join Mike Fiers, who re-signed with the club in December, and holdovers/questionable starting pitchers Daniel Mengden, Chris Bassitt, and Frankie Montas in an A’s rotation that will be held together by hope and duct tape until Jharel Cotton (Tommy John), A.J. Puk (also Tommy John), and Sean Manaea (shoulder surgery) return to the field at some point mid-season (and maybe Jesús Luzardo comes up at some point). Given the circumstances, and the budget to which the club has decided to hew, Estrada is exactly the kind of guy you’d want to see the A’s sign: healthy (he’s never had an arm injury we know about), inexpensive, and a plausible candidate for solid numbers in 2019. If he’s good in the early going next year, he can slot in at the back end of a rotation that has a reasonable shot at the Wild Card if everything goes right. If he’s terrible, chances are the A’s are too, and — again — it’s just $4 million. Even for the A’s, that’s manageable — their 2018 payroll was $66 million and their commitments for 2019 total just $69 million so far. What could go wrong?

Would MLB actually go so far as to ban the shift? Asked about that conjecture, David Stearns made it clear that he’s no fan of the idea. Not because he’s against change, but rather because change is already a big part of baseball. More specifically — yes, there have been exceptions to the rule — organic charge is already a big part of baseball.

“Teams have evolved,” the Brewers GM said during the Winter Meetings. “Strategies have evolved. Players adjust, and they will on this one as well. If shifts become completely deflating to certain profiles of players, we will value them accordingly. Things will balance themselves out. Look, we’ve been moving fielders around for decades. I would not be in favor of a ban on shifts.”

Ron Gardenhire feels otherwise. He favors an inorganic fix to the perceived (and arguably nonexistent) problem.

“I like two guys on each side,” the Detroit manager stated in equally-stern terms. “I’ve always said that. Or at least keep them all in the dirt rather than in the grass. Ask Victor Martinez. He might have hit .300 this year if they just had them on the infield. Yeah, I am old school in that respect.”

The veteran skipper elaborated on his viewpoint in a manner suggestive of… an organic substance? Going pure Gardy, he name-checked the man erroneously credited with inventing the game, another sport, and a comedy duo from a bygone era. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

We continue our quick look at the 14 players on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot who are certain to fall below the 5% threshold — with most of them being shut out entirely — but are worth remembering just the same.

Placido Polanco

A valuable player who started for five playoff teams, Polanco didn’t pack much punch with his contact-oriented approach at the plate, but he was quite a glove whiz, rangy and sure-handed, at home at both second base and third. In fact, he was just the second player to win Gold Gloves at multiple positions (after Darin Erstad), and his 136 career fielding runs ranks 31st among all infielders.

Born on October 10, 1975 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Polanco came to the U.S. on a student visa, attending Miami Dade Community College. Drafted by the Cardinals in the 19th round in 1994, he began his minor league career as a shortstop, and though he spent all of 1996 and ’97 as a second baseman, played more short than second during his 45-game callup in 1998. He spent most of his five-season tenure in St. Louis as a utilityman, earning an increasing amount of playing time as his offense improved. In 2000, he hit .316/.347/.418 in 350 PA, while in 2001 he upped his playing time to 610 PA while batting .307/.342/.383; he was a combined 23 runs above average at third base (his primary position), second and short, boosting his WAR to 4.5. The Cardinals made the playoffs in both of those seasons.

Read the rest of this entry »

In 2018, I once again had the pleasure of interviewing hundreds of people within baseball. Many of their words were shared in my Sunday Notes column, while others came courtesy of the FanGraphs Q&A series, the Learning and Developing a Pitch series, the Manager’s Perspective series, and a smattering of feature stories. Here is a selection of the best quotes from this year’s conversations.

———

“My slider will come out and it will be spinning, spinning, spinning, and then as soon as it catches, it picks up speed and shoots the other way. Whoosh! It’s like when you bowl. You throw the ball, and then as soon as it catches, it shoots with more speed and power. Right? “ — Sergio Romo, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher, January 2018

“One of the biggest lessons we learn is that iron sharpens iron. That is 100% how we try to do things with the Rockies — hiring people that are smarter than we are, and more skilled, and have different skills that can complement, and train people to be better at their jobs than I am at my job. That’s how you advance an organization.” — Jeff Bridich, Colorado Rockies GM, January 2018

“We could split hairs and say, ‘Hey, you’re playing in front of a thousand drunk Australians instead of 40,000 drunk Bostonians, and you’re living with a host family instead of at a five-star hotel.’ But The Show is The Show, and in Australia the ABL is The Show.” — Lars Anderson, baseball nomad, January 2018

“Baseball is heaven. Until our closer blows the game.” — Michael Hill, Miami Marlins president of baseball operations, January 2018 Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday’s column led with J.D. Martinez, whose non-quantifiable impact on the Red Sox lineup was widely lauded. Deeply enmeshed in hitting mechanics and theory, the veteran slugger was both a sounding board and lead-by-example influence on several of his teammates. That didn’t go unnoticed by people around the game.

“J.D. rightfully so got credit for doing that,” said Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell, one of three managers I broached the subject with at the Winter Meetings. “It’s an important part of being a teammate — being connected and sharing. A player’s eyes are probably on each other more than they are on the coaches. They have a way to help each other, just as much as coaches do. You want to foster that environment. It’s something all teams should try to do.”

Asked for an example of a positive influence on his own team, Counsell cited Ryan Braun. Responding to that same question, Oakland manager Bob Melvin named a player who may or may not be wearing an A’s uniform next year.

“Jed was the guy last year for us,” Melvin said of now-free-agent Jed Lowrie. “(He) understands mechanics. He understands launch angles and exit velocities. (He) was a nice kind of player/coach for us to help out Bushy (hitting coach Darren Bush) with some of our younger guys.” Read the rest of this entry »

J.D. Martinez received a lot of props this year for how he helped his Red Sox teammates approach at bats. A direct correlation between the cerebral slugger’s arrival in Boston and the increased offensive production from the likes of Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts is impossible to prove, but there’s no disputing his influence. Few hitters hone their craft as studiously — and pass on their knowledge as effectively — as does Martinez.

A question about his mindset jump-started a conversation this summer. I asked the outfielder/DH if he processes information in much the same manner on both sides of the ball. In other words, does he approach defense — 83% of his career games have been in the outfield — like he approaches offense.

“That’s kind of a weird question,” opined Martinez. “I think I evaluate them the same, but you’re not going to be as analytical with your defense, because there’s not nearly as much data to help you go about it.”

I countered that a lot of work goes into defense, including how to position opposing hitters against certain pitchers, and in different counts. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday morning’s three-team, nine-piece trade, which was headlined by Oakland’s acquisition of Jurickson Profar, has obvious implications for the AL West, as a playoff team just added a 25-year-old who posted 2.9 WAR this past season and can play all over the field. But this deal is also a case study in talent churning, and forces us to consider if there’s more eligible international talent out there than we realize. Here’s a rundown of the trade:

Oakland gets:

• Jurickson Profar, INF (from Texas)

Texas gets:

• Brock Burke, LHP (from Tampa Bay)
• Kyle Bird, LHP (from Tampa Bay)
• Yoel Espinal, RHP (from Tampa Bay)
• Eli White, INF (from Oakland)
• $750,000 International Amateur Pool Space (from Oakland)

Tampa Bay gets:

• Emilio Pagan, RHP (from Oakland)
• 2019 Draft Competitive Balance Round A selection, currently pick No. 38 overall (from Oakland)
• Rollie Lacy, RHP (from Texas)

There are so many moving parts in this deal that it might be best to evaluate how the deal balances by looking at additions and subtractions team-by-team, starting with Oakland.

Oakland

In: Jurickson Profar
Out: Emilio Pagan, Eli White, an early draft pick, a pretty large chunk of international pool space

Profar was once an upper echelon prospect, a hyper-advanced wunderkind who looked already looked comfortable and performed against upper-level minor leaguers when he was 17. He was lauded not because he had elite physical skills and was destined for superstardom, but because he was so polished, mature, safe, and competent in every facet of baseball, and he seemed likely to race through the minors and be an above-average big leaguer for a decade or more. He debuted with Texas at age 19, then spent a half decade in prospect limbo due to a myriad of injuries (most significantly, shoulder injuries that caused him to miss almost all of 2013 and 2014), and because Texas’ infield was full of Adrian Beltre, Elvis Andrus and Rougned Odor.

When Profar finally got healthy, he languished in the upper minors and became a vocal malcontent, especially when Texas neglected to call him up in September of 2017, after he had wrapped up a strong 2017 season at Triple-A. It was a transparent manipulation of Profar’s service time.

I collected updated thoughts on Profar in February and the reports were down a bit compared to where they were when he was a proper prospect. Of course, teams were aware of the context of his situation and thought some of the depressed reports were the result of him being aloof and frustrated with his organization, leaving open the possibility that he might break out if given a change of scenery. Instead, 2018 injuries opened up a spot on Texas’ infield, meaning Profar finally got regular big league at-bats, and broke out. He hit .253/.334/.458 with 20 homers, 35 doubles and 10 steals while playing all over the field. He tallied 2.9 WAR.

This Jay Jaffe post provides an exhaustive look at how Profar performed last year, though I think it’s worth adding that there’s a pretty significant disparity between what Baseball Savant expected Profar to slug based on his 2018 batted ball profile (xSLG of .393) and what xStats expected (.430), even though they’re setting out to measure the same thing. Barring a swing change that takes advantage of his bat-to-ball skills, it seems reasonable to expect a little bit of regression from Profar’s power output next year, but he’s still clearly a productive hitter and a versatile, if unspectacular, defender with two years of team control remaining. He’ll replace Jed Lowrie in Oakland and hit the open market in 2021. (Profar projects to be half a win better than Lowrie next year and is not an age-based risk to decline like Lowrie is.) Profar will be 28 when he starts his next contract.

In exchange, Oakland moved four years of control in a middle relief piece (Pagan) and a near-ready bench/utility type (Eli White), and two non-player assets in the draft pick and International pool space. The Brewers traded a similar pick in their deal for reliever Alex Claudio, which will likely result in a prospect who we’d evaluate as a 45 or 40+ FV player. White’s FV is similar. He’s a plus runner who can play all over the field and he has some bat to ball skills, but he probably lacks the power to profile as a true everyday player.

Texas

In: Brock Burke, Eli White, Kyle Bird, Yoel Espinal, $750,000 of International Pool Space
Out: Profar, Rollie Lacy

The Rangers are undergoing a full-scale rebuild and seems unlikely to be competitive during either of Profar’s two remaining arbitration years. Plus, the way they handled him in 2017 may have strained their relationship, making it less likely that he would re-sign with them. They’re also arguably selling high on a player who most of the industry seemed a bit down on before the season, has had injury issues, and whose power output might regress next year. In return they get back a package of quantity more than quality, with Burke and White as the de facto headliners.

Burke had a breakout 2018 (which really may have started in 2017) that ended with a dynamite month and a half at Double-A Montgomery, during which he struck out 71 hitters in 55 innings. He has a plus fastball that sits 91-95 and touches 96 but plays up because Burke creates huge, down-mound extension and has an uncommonly vertical arm slot. Changeup development likely played a role in his breakout, as the pitch was much different last year (82-85mph, at times with cut) than in 2017 (78-80mph), and it’s fair to speculate that something like a grip change took place here. Burke has two breaking balls that are both about average, though he uses the curveball pretty sparingly. He profiles as a No. 4 or 5 starter.

After doing very little in pro ball, White also had a breakout 2018 (albeit at age 24), and hit .306/.388/.450 at Double-A Midland. He then went to the Arizona Fall League, where he was heavily scrutinized by the entire industry. White had only really played shortstop until this year when he began seeing time at second and third base. He fits best at second but is fine at all three spots, and his plus speed might enable him to one day run down balls in the outfield as well. He’s a near-ready, multi-positional utility man who should provide the kind of defensive flexibility teams are starting to prioritize.

Bird is a lefty spin rate monster with four pitches. Last year, his low-80s slider averaged about 2650 rpm, his curveball about 2800, with both marks way above big league average. He sits 90-92 and has below-average command. He’s 25 and projects in middle relief. Espinal throws hard (94-95), and has a weird sinker/power changeup offspeed pitch in the 89-91 range. He doesn’t always clear his front side properly, which causes some of his fastballs to sail on him, but he can also dump his mid-80s slider into the strike zone. He’s 26 and also projects in middle relief, though teams are more certain about Bird’s prospects than Espinal’s because they’re more confident in Bird’s strike-throwing. From a Future Value standpoint, both Burke and White will both be in the 45/40+ area when we write up Texas’ system this offseason (likely slotting them in the 10-15 range of players in that farm), while Bird and Espinal will be in the 40/35+ area, at the back of the list.

It’s hard to say what Texas will do with an extra $750,000 in pool space. There have now been two trades involving pool space in the last week, the other being the Ivan Nova deal. Most big name individual international prospects have signed, but $750,000 is a pretty big chunk of change, and inspired me and colleague Kiley McDaniel to ask around baseball if there’s a player who is either eligible to sign right now or who teams speculate will be eligible before this IFA signing period ends in June. The consensus is that there is not, and that it’s more likely that Texas will spread this bonus money out among several $100,000 – $300,000 talents over the next couple of months.

Tampa Bay

In: Oakland’s Competitive Balance pick, Emilio Pagan, Rollie Lacy
Out: Burke, Bird, Espinal

Tampa Bay is reckoning with the same issue that other teams with deep farm systems have had to deal with: they need to consolidate their overflow of decent upper-level prospects or risk losing them for nothing when they hit minor league free agency or are Rule 5 eligible. Both Bird and Espinal are in their mid-20s, so turning them over into similarly valued assets that they’re not at risk of losing for a while makes a ton of sense. Burke is pretty good but for us, slots behind Brent Honeywell, Brendan McKay, a healthy Jose DeLeon and Anthony Banda, to say nothing of the pitchers already on the Rays big league roster. Essentially flipping him for a pick that should result in a prospect whose FV mirror’s Burke’s (as I posit in the Claudio article linked above) makes sense.

Pagan, now on his third org in three years after he was sent to Oakland in the Ryon Healy trade, immediately steps into the Rays bullpen as a traditional four-seam/slider middle reliever, and Lacy (who Texas acquired from the Cubs in the Cole Hamels deal) is the kind of strike-throwing, changeup arm Tampa Bay likes to horde as they attempt to build another Ryan Yarbrough. He has an upper-80s fastball and scouts have him as a up and down arm, but guys with good changeups like Lacy often outperform scout expectations.

Asset value calculations are tough to do precisely in a situation like this because $/WAR values are not linear, and the 2.5 WAR Profar is projected to generate next year means way more to a competitive team like Oakland than it does to a rebuilding Texas. Craig Edwards has Profar’s surplus value calculated at a combined $37 million over the next two years (his arbitration salary is likely to be low due to a relative lack of playing time, with MLB Trade Rumors projecting him to make $3.4 million), while Oakland gave up about $12 million worth of assets (White at $4 million, a Draft pick at $5 million, Pagan at $2 million, and IFA space of $1.5 mil) to acquire him based on Craig’s methodology. That seems like highway robbery for Oakland, but again, Profar wasn’t generating that kind of revenue on a bad Texas team. This makes it a common sense deal for the Rangers based on where they are on the competitive spectrum, even if it’s painful to part with a good everyday player the organization has been attached to for nearly a decade.