Atlanta Signs Basically Tommy La Stella
About two weeks ago, the Atlanta Baseball Club traded second baseman Tommy La Stella away to the Chicago Cubs for a small collection of international bonus slots and also right-hander Arodys Vizcaino. The move provided clues as to Atlanta’s dollar valuation of the aforementioned bonus slots relative to baseball’s free-agent market. What else it did was to create a vacancy at second base — a vacancy that prospect Jose Peraza is expected to fill eventually but also not immediately. None of the other options on Atlanta’s 40-man roster — Phil Gosselin, Ramiro Pena, Tyler Pastornicky, nor Elmer Reyes –are projected to produce a 1.0 WAR or greater per 550 plate appearances in 2015.
Atlanta went some way, it seems, to addressing their second-base depth earlier this week by signing former Yankees prospect Corban Joseph to a minor-league deal — and Joseph, it seems, is basically Tommy La Stella.
Consider, their projections for 2015, pro-rated to 550 plate appearances:
| Name | Age | Pos | PA | BB% | K% | HR | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corban Joseph | 26 | “2B” | 550 | 7.8% | 14.3% | 13 | .258 | .320 | .399 | 101 | 0.4 | -0.5 | 1.9 |
| Tommy La Stella | 26 | “2B” | 550 | 9.2% | 10.3% | 5 | .273 | .343 | .366 | 99 | -1.9 | -2.1 | 1.4 |
Like La Stella, Joseph enters his age-26 season. Like La Stella, his second-base defense is probably some combination of below-average but passable. And even though they profile differently in terms of walk-strikeout differential (where La Stella is better) and home-run power (where Joseph is), both are candidates to produce league-average batting lines — and candidates to do so, it should be noted, somewhat contrary to expectations.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
If those are realistic expectations for Corban Joseph, then it raises the question: Why the heck didn’t the Yankees try Joseph at 2B last year in favor of that disaster? Is it because the Yankees seem to be allergic to the fan reaction of failing with some cheap, young player, as opposed to failing with a proven, but aging, veteran? The latter is a much more expensive way to fail…
I wish Kiley McDaniel could weigh in on Joseph for us to tell us if his scout’s eyes give any reasons that the projections for him are overly optimistic.
Ask Kiley at his next chat
I’m not sure I see the point here? They’re both 26 y/o stop-gaps with nearly the same projected WAR… past that they seem to have much different approaches?
Point is the Braves were able to dump a guy for bonus prospect who was very highly regarded at one time and bonus money, then were able to pick up a very comparable replacement for next to nothing.
The point is that they made this deal for relatively little money and was able to trade La Stella to get someone they like for the future. So basically they kept exactly what they had with La stella and got a pitcher to boot.
Not to mention the international bonus slots