Oakland Acquires Oakland-y Player
In a trade that sheds some light on why the Athletics bid on Hishashi Iwakuma, Oakland today shipped out starting pitcher Vin Mazzaro to the Kansas City Royals along with prospect Justin Marks for outfielder David DeJesus.
Oakland’s third round pick in 2005, Mazzaro has spent most of the past two seasons in Oakland’s rotation making 35 total starts, but ended 2010 in the bullpen. Mazzaro will be just 24 next season and with his short amount of service time will be cost controlled and around for five more seasons. The benefits mostly end there. Mazzaro struggles to strike hitters out, is not particularly fond of finding the strike zone and is not a ground ball savant.
In 2010 in fact, Mazzaro’s FIP components (K, BB+HBP and HR rates) were all below average. Vin’s Minor League rates do no herald a much higher ceiling either. He managed to avoid home runs more adeptly there, but his ground ball rates (average to below in the Majors) were not significantly better and neither were his strikeout rates. In short, Mazzaro shows little promise of being any better than he is currently and he’s currently not very good; somewhere north of replacement level but well below league average.
Marks was Oakland’s third round pick in 2009 and has just one real season of professional ball under his belt with a vast majority of that time spent in Low-A ball. Marks was okay-ish there but it’s a ridiculously low level to be extrapolating anything from.
In exchange for those two terribly unexciting pitchers, the Royals shipped over David DeJesus. On the surface that makes sense as DeJesus is exactly the sort of player that the Athletics seem to collect. He doesn’t stand out in any particular way but he has no huge flaws either and plays pretty good defense. The problem is that the A’s already have about seven dozen of these players.
Over the last six seasons, DeJesus has rated at least 1.9 WAR per season, but never more than 3.8. He’s exceedingly likely to be worth his $6 million contract this year, but DeJesus is no giant gain in production and is a free agent after the 2011 season. In fact, Oakland’s primary motivator for acquiring DeJesus might be his looming free agent compensation where he’ll grant at least Type B status.
I loathe “in a nutshell” comments as a crutch for lazy writing, but this trade really fits these two teams’ motifs incredibly well. Oakland trades from a position of perceived strength to acquire actual strength and the Royals fail to properly evaluate talent or leverage their assets. Just another day in baseball.
Matthew Carruth is a software engineer who has been fascinated with baseball statistics since age five. When not dissecting baseball, he is watching hockey or playing soccer.
I see DeJesus getting flipped for Mark Reynolds. We’ll see.
is reynolds really better than kouz? I’m not convinced.
He’s not.
And DeJesus fills a much bigger hole organizationally for the A’s than Reynolds would.
Wasnt DeJesus Beane’s sought after prize that he could not have in moneyball?
It was Erubial Durazo.
That was Youkilis
Youkilis, DeJesus: what’s the difference?
8 year olds, dude
I think you are confusing Youkilis with Pedroia’s brother.
Not as big as you might think, especially from the frame point of 8 years ago: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?playerid2=1825&playerid3=1935&playerid4=&playerid5=
Or were you just referring to their names sounding similarish?
Kansas City is doomed; their front office is terrible. I bet that they will find a way to screw up their great prospects in the minors.
“DeJesus is no giant gain in production”
Actually, the A’s got literally *terrible* production from their corner outfield spots last year, not to mention Ryan Sweeney and Connor Jackson are made of glass.
Davis 1.2 WAR in 556 PAs
Sweeney 0.8 WAR in 331PAs
Jackson 88 OPS+ in 69 PAs
Gross -0.6 WAR in 244 PAs
The list goes on and essentially gets worse.
DeJesus is a significant upgrade.
It gets worse, Oakland used 13 different outfielders last year, Coco Crisp was worth 3.3 WAR and the other twelve COMBINED for 0.1 WAR. Seriously.
DeJesus is just a huge step up for them and isn’t expensive and is playing for a contract and could reach Type A status if he continues his 2010 form. Oakland thoroughly fleeced KC (again) here, they couldn’t have gotten a better player than this for Mazzaro. They are absolutely going to keep him and Crisp but everyone else: watch out.
And they’ll fleece someone in July with the two of them. It seems like Oakland consistently tries to make marginal upgrades, yet never does enough to seriously make a championship run.
Yeah, good point, Omar. The A’s never do anything to seriously make championship runs. Especially when they finished either 1st or 2nd in their division nine times in the last twelve years, WITH A BOTTOM 1/3 PAYROLL, which is pretty much proof of what you’re saying.
I think it’s a good deal for Oakland, but you’re not going to get that much out of DeJesus. He is really slow now and has always been injury-prone. If his developing power on particular pitches plays up there, and is not hurt by the thumb injury, he’ll be a very useful player for them.
Don’t forget that the Royals exercised his option then traded him. They could have just let him walk. Mazzaro > Kevin Pucetas. Call it what you want, Dayton did what he needed to do.
-Sleeping Cobra
The AL West has been filled with garbage for quite sometime. The As, as of late, have been tooling up for a division run but not really for a championship run. Look at last year’s Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox, Rays, and Reds teams…do you honestly think any of the recent As teams are as good as they were? They’re always good enough to compete in a mediocre division, but it’s not like they’ll take the extra step and go the extra mile to be a championship contender.
The 2010 Reds looked like a championship team? News to me. More like, “the NL Central was utter garbage and the Reds rose to the top of it”
Omar – “The AL West has been filled with garbage for quite sometime. ”
Yeah the AL WEST is so terrible that they’ve only been the top division for 9 of the last 12 years – 2000, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 09.
If you’re going to trash talk at least get your facts right.
It is called a rebuild, Omar. The A’s did have championship caliber teams back in the early 2000’s. They’re on their way to having those type of teams again with a great farm system and cheap, young core.
They signed/traded Matt Holliday, Ben Sheets in the last 2 years.
The reality for Oakland is that they must sign “high risk” players that they need to pan out in order to combine with their existing talent to make a run at a division title.
When/If the players/team doesn’t go as they thought, they can trade those pieces for prospects.
What they DON’T do is going sign a bunch of over-priced veteran free agents. Very few teams can (or should) do that.
If Oakland does NOT have a shot at the division, DeJesus will be a decent trade piece near the deadline. He was (seemingly) THE answer for every non-major market team this past year, until he got hurt.
What the A’s get is good bang for their buck with DeJesus. They are a pitching heavy, defensive team. DeJesus is a guy that came at a bargain, that is productive at the plate and in the field … and he doesn’t cost them 15M/y.
Also, teams no longer willing deal their top prospects to the A’s for guys that are due a BIG contract (Tejada, Giambi, Mulder, Zito, etc) or for ready-amde-closers (Street, Koch, etc).
You can’t fleece the same sheep over and over.
Omar, could you enlighten us on how one prepares for a “championship” run when the playoffs are a statistical crap shoot?
See also; 2010 San Fransisco Giants, who were a dramatically underwhelming team in most respects.
Well you can start with having a few elite players. Anyone like: Alex Rodriguez, Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia, Jon Lester, David Price, Evan Longoria, Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols, Joey Votto, Adam Wainwright, etc. The As merely assemble a roster loaded with rock solid players, and quite a few pieces of shit.
NBarnes: The Giants had Tim Lincecum, who is better than anyone on the As staff and Buster Posey, who is better than anyone who plays for the Oakland As. That’s more top end talent than the As have had in years.
Omar, isn’t that a little like assembling a line-up of the world’s best dice throwers for an actual game of craps?
Oakland’s going to trade him for something good in July.
Now that the Mets have demoted you, you have more time to come to Fangraphs and bag the A’s?
“Kansas City is doomed; their front office is terrible. I bet that they will find a way to screw up their great prospects in the minors.”
Alex Gordon and Kila Ka’aihue say hi
I really don’t think you are nearly qualified to infer that Mazzaro does not offer potential to become a much better player. He’s raw with good arm strength and size. He is what he is.
The Royals eliminated 6 mil from the payroll for a solid player coming off injury and acquired 5 years of a raw pitcher. Fleeced? Really? Did you think the Royals were getting Hanson for Dejesus? Context is readily available for even the casual fan to see. Young pitching is trading at a huge premium, and Dejesus has not been particularly good. Solid pick up for both teams.
The knob slobbing of anything Epstein or Beane does on this site is nauseating. Beane is 50-50 on his trades at best, and he is terrible at issuing big contracts. The analysis on this site has devolved to lazy rhetoric.
You one dimensional “sabers” need to learn something about pitching. Pitching is an art. Pitching skills/talents do not develop linearly. In addition to the artistic nature of the craft, you have the unavoidable variance in human performance in everything we do. We are random, emotional and subjective creatures, completely dependent on a highly complex biosystem that is constantly evolving.
No matter how much you try to control or project human development, you are vulnerable to far more variables than the minds on this site are capable of incorporating with even the slightest degree of accuracy. All we (Dayton Moore) can do, is gamble with extremely limited indicators.
The indicators offered by Mazzaro so far, are a tiny fraction of the drivers that will drive the outcomes he produces. Even if you pretended to invest any effort to accurately account for the basic variables to evaluate this trade (your write up doesn’t even qualify as pretending), you would still be working with a range of accuracy that would render any definitive conclusions comical, and that’s being kind.
Based on the extremely limited data that’s available, both Moore and Beane are working well within the spectrum of market value in this deal. Each are now dependent on the forces of nature. Given that those that manage these multi-million dollar franchises have accepted their limitations, perhaps you “basement GMs” can learn to do the same, because an accurate representation of the events in this game would be quite refreshing.
You could save a good amount of breath next time if you say:
a. pitchers don’t pitch in a vaccuum
b. traders don’t trade in a vaccuum
You are way overestimating the constituency.
Finding a balance on these boards is almost impossible as we’re in church. That said, I agree with you totally. Mazzaro is a better pitcher than the numbers here imply and I expect him to be KC’s 4th starter.
Also, DeJesus is rehabbing again. And his upcoming performance is far from predictable except that he will probably get hurt. I think Johnny Damon’s season in oaktown is a good example of what happens to decent hitters there. I put this in the Ben Sheets category of Beane move.
I liked this comment until you got mean at the end – keep your cool man.
I think you make a good counterargument, it might not be the worst deal for KC. Kinda depends on what their plan is 2010 (rebuild? Try to compete?)
It’s particularly important for a team with less resources to constantly balance long and short term goals. They got 5 years of a young arm with good velocity and size for 1 year of a slightly above average player at 6 million dollars. This is in additon to Marks, who admittedly, I don’t know anything about.
Mazzaro is a major league ready arm at the cusp of his development. At the cost of Dejesus, he’s a nice mid-term investment for a mid-term team. The Royals have a slew of prospects that are projected to be in the majors over the next 5 years. Mazzaro is under team control over this period, whereas Dejesus is not. It’s a very basic deal and consistent with what we’ve seen of the market for young pitching.
This is not to say I favor the Royals side. The As got a talented player with experience, who has one year left to earn a big pay day. They also obtain the rights to trade him and potentially obtain draft picks. It’s a such a simple trade. Each are simply shifting resources and changing time horizons given their circumstances, which is what trades are designed to do.
I’m frustrated because I have a fading hope that the internet revolution will introduce objectivity and accuracy to baseball analysis. So far, all I see is the same rhetorical story telling that was produced by pre-internet dynosaurs who believed in easter bunnies, a “winning attitude” and magical messiahs that walk on water. Stupid is contagious, and these guys have a pretty large audience.
Not that I disagree your commentary, but the tone was objectionable. I do think this deal is more balanced than was lead to believe.
But hey, at least you being productive while being an a-hole, which is an upgrade from the past few days…
I agree with your comment. If the players went the other way, the writers would temper their evaluations to fit the meme. It’s a trade. Money dump, mistake, fleecing, or an even trade, it’s two teams exchanging players. I’m sure that if Beane acquired these same 2 pitchers, the analysis would be all about their upside. As he deals them, it’s about how much they suck.
In a nutshell.
Wow this is just not true at all. Beane gets criticized routinely here for the stupid personnel moves he pulls. Go back and look at the Ben Sheets signing last year. Or any other of his weird moves. Beane hasn’t been a great gm for several years now and the analysis reflects that. And yes on this particular trade Beane won, Mazzaro is good at none of the controllable aspects of pitching.
“The analysis on this site has devolved to lazy rhetoric.”
Then stop coming around and posting.
This site is my last hope for objective analysis on baseball. Hardball Times has become too artsy, MLBTR is run by 12 year olds, SB Nation sites are too stupid (altho Lookout Landing is at least funny), Baseball America is like the “Inquirer” of baseball, and Baseball Prospectus is a pay site full of content that isn’t worth paying for.
You’re right, I probably need to just give up.
it really is a burden being so much smarter than everyone else, isn’t it??
Yes. Ignorance is bliss.
this guy:
Start your own site then. It really isn’t that difficult. People who bitch about things and do absolutely nothing to change the thing they are railing against are no better than the subject of their rants. You are a part of the (perceived) problem until you do something about it.
I’ll half agree with you on this. There is a little value in bitching, which is the potential for the authors to get more out of their talents and present us with a better product. They are clearly intelligent enough to do that.
Your comments would be more compelling if you actually justified your thesis that Mazzaro offers the potential to become a better player. Thus far, all I see is empty rhetoric about the failings of Fangraphs and how pitching is an “art.”
Ever think about starting your own blog? If you feel the market is missing something specific, then there should be an opportunity for you to fill that gap.
I’ve thought about it, but I’m too lazy. I bitch here because I want to motivate them to fill the gap. Some of them are pretty good writers. Problem is they are doing the minimum to meet demand, rather than trying to take over the space.
Makes sense. At least it puts your criticisms in perspective. And yeah, I hear you – hard work is tough.
“I’ve thought about it, but I’m too lazy.”
Maybe you could start simply. Most of these sites, I’m sure, would be happy to have you submit one or two articles a week. Then everybody wins.
Hell on a site like beyondtheboxscore, you can make your posts on a whim as a fanpost or fanshot, and if it is any good, they’ll just promote it to the main blog [not sure how frequently they actually do that– they did it for one of mine :)]– that way you don’t even have to feel committed to a couple thousand words a week.
After Ollie Perez and Luis Castillo cost him his job, Omar is trying to learn sabermetrics by hanging out on FanGraphs.
Don’t worry, Omar – you’ll get to be a GM again soon.
Dayton Moore will get fired, and you’ll get the Royals GM job.
I honestly don’t know what the rush was for KC here. Why wouldn’t you wait for competition from teams figuring out that they’re not getting Crawford or Werth or how much money they can spend after arbitration deals get done or that they have to trade one of their own OFers to get that pitcher?
Despite the DeJesus love expressed on these pages over the years, he just isn’t worth that much. This is not a great deal for the Royals, but they exercised his option then traded him, and got two useful pitchers for him. If either of those guys is on their 25 man roster in five years, with all the talent they have coming, it’s a huge win for the Royals. If they fill space until the big-time prospects come on, while making the league minimum, it’s still a win. DeJesus was not part of their future, and they may very well get the same production out of David Lough next year, who is a DeJesus clone.
My fantasy team thanks you for the intro to David Lough. I like.
I agree. I can’t help but think that KC could’ve gotten more for a 3.5 win player than Vin Mazzaro. He’s not even worth the trade. They’d probably have been better off keeping DeJesus and taking the draft pick.
But he ISN’t a 3.5 win player. He’s a 31 year old 2.5 win player coming off a major injury. And he costs $6 million.
I don’t know what the big hubbub is about KC getting fleeced… DeJesus is a 2.5-3.5 WAR guy next year, depending on how he comes back from injury, being paid like a 1.5 WAR guy. That’s 1-2 surplus WAR. He also probably won’t qualify for Type A status with the injury, so he should be a Type B, which means they’ll get a nice, but not superb, pick.
Mazzaro is making minimum this year, then likely will be a four-year arb guy as a Super Two. Still, that alone likely means that the Royals will receive more long-term surplus value out of Mazzaro. And Marks basically compensates for next year’s Comp Round pick.
Seems like a fair deal that fits the needs of both teams, really. The A’s get a bat they sorely need for this year, and the Royals get someone they can control through the years that their big prospects are coming through the ranks. Win-win.
Agreed. But I think this is one of those classic player that people will be split on. I think your valuation is correct, half the readers on this site will think it’s absurdly low.
I’d just ask this question: DeJesus would have been a nice piece for the Yankees. Who thinks they would have given up Nova for him? If they would have done Nova straight up, the Royals absolutely did get fleeced here.
The Yankees have 3 outfielders that are all better than DeJesus. Aside from his local roots, how is he fit?
Steve: That’s exactly the point. He’s a fourth OFer on a championship team in their position where they can move a few guys through DH. Gives more versatility than Marcus Thames. That’s why they just got Vin Mazzaro for him, and why the Yanks would just go sign any number of similar guys instead of trading a good young pitcher like Nova for him.
Don’t get me wrong, DeJesus would obviously be incredible to have in that role. I just think he is a huge luxury that probably doesn’t make sense for the Yankees. He’d cost $6M and their assumed 6th starter (who will probably get a fair amount of innings this year).
Sure, would love to have him, but it probably makes more sense for the Yankees to just pick up a cheaper (and admittedly inferior) bench player from the FA market, or make a less ambitious trade. All of their OFers are young, healthy, and relatively cheap, they have bigger needs that probably would take priority competing for what is left of their (gigantic, but mostly accounted for) budget dollars.
He also holds down the fort for a year or so to give the quality arms on the farm a little more development time.
Mazzaro is a guy who, over 213 major league innings, has struck out fewer than 6 batters per 9 while walking nearly 4 batters per 9. His GB rate is 41.2%. While in the minors, only twice did he strike out even as many as 7 batters per 9 innings and that was over just 33 innings in AAA in 2008 and just 37 innings in AAA in 2010. He is just 24 but over his 213 major league innings has accumulated just 0.7 WAR. He is a 1 – 1.5 win pitcher over his next 5 years. Yes, he probably will accumulate more WAR for the Royals than DeJesus will for the A’s but at what cost? His salary will rise with arbitration and, worse, he will be taking a rotation spot from someone whose upside is unquestionably higher.
Acquiring Mazzaro for DeJesus is a waste of a valuable resource. 3-4 WAR OFs don’t grow on trees (particularly those signed for the equivalent of less than 1.5 WAR) and they should have been able to leverage that resource into something better than a just-barely-better-than replacement level pitcher. Mazzaro has little upside. The Royals should have gotten something better, even if that meant they couldn’t automatically plug him into next year’s rotation.
I think there’s a tendency to over-estimate the value of players in their walk year, and at the trading deadline. Sure, there are cases where a team will over-pay to win now (and there are trade-sign situations, which are different) but these are exceptions to the general pattern. This trade is five years for one year, and that’s not just incidental.
Since the Royals came within inches of trading DeJesus in July before he got hurt, I imagine they have a darn good idea of what they were going to be able to get for him. But hey, it’s Dayton Moore, so FanGraphs (and lots of other folks) are predisposed to automatically state that it’s unequivocally stupid without actually applying something that amounts to, you know, objectivity.
This is a good point.
But maybe the Royals should have waited until Werth and Crawford signed to see if any of the losers in those sweepstakes would be interested in an attractive stopgap??
Also a good point. Moore has kicked off the trade season for three years running now. A little more patience is warranted.
Not agreed at all on waiting. Bird in the hand. He got what the player is worth and what he needs. End of story.
Agreed. He saw 5 years in a pitcher with specs he likes and another young arm and made it happen. He knows Beane is working the wire and didn’t want to miss out on a player they like.
I think Mazzaro has potential be a #2, and will become at least a #4. You could explain his underdevelopment by the fact that he’s from Jersey, where he isn’t able to pitch year round. He’s got good pitching tools.
Does this trade lead to Greinke or Soria being moved? Why else would the Royals add pitching? They need a catcher, middle infielder, and now another outfielder. If they can move ZG and Soria and fill those spots with quality prospects this team becomes a favorite in the central for 2012-2015.
I’d say Greinke, for sure. It’s pretty clear that DM is punting 2011 and 2012…and Greinke is gone after that.
How does this trade have anything to do with the other two? Grienke and Soria are star players on any team, DeJesus netted a couple useful guys after they picked up his option instead of letting him walk. In the context of their team, there is no difference between him and Mitch Maier.
They are not going to be offered what they think Grienke and Soria are worth, so there’s no reason to trade them. I predict that as he has been working on his no-trade list it has occurred to Zack that being in KC for two more years might not be so bad. Soria likes it there. They have no salary concerns. They will need to be absolutely blown away to deal either one, because with all that talent coming, they will be favorites to win the division beginning in 2013 without dealing either guy.
I can’t wait for the whining from the East Coast about how the Royals over-value both players and should just give them away to one of those teams.
“with all that talent coming, they will be favorites to win the division beginning in 2013 without dealing either guy.”
Greinke’s contract is up in 2012. We’re not competing in 2012 and we’re not paying him anywhere near fair market in 2013 as a free agent or extension. Therefore the pruduent, if devastating, thing to do is to trade him.
Blue – I agree that the prudent thing to do would be to trade him IF 1) they really need to re-stock a depleted farm system; 2) they could get anything close to fair value for him; and 3) they needed to clear salary space. None of those things is true. Plus, Grienke likes it there, even though he is tired of losing. He’s not looking to go anywhere he can get the biggest payday. You simply will not see a Johan Santana to the Mets deal here.
If you can’t get at least one prospect who is higher rated than the prospects they already have, what’s the point? Since they have 2 of the top 5 lefty prospects in MiLB and 3 of the top 5 bas, that’s going to be hard for some team that is not a large market to pull off. So what we’re looking at here is Teheren to start. If you’re the Angels, Trout is not off limits or just hang up the phone.
@paul – prospects regularly fail, so there is value in quantitiy. maybe KC has great prospects all around the diamond, but some will bust. makes sense to to ZG into a few guys with upside down the road.
Brendan – You absolutely do not trade a top 10 at their position MLB player for depth unless there is a gun to your head. If a big market East Coast team did that, they’d get roasted. My point is it’s expected of small market teams. I hope Dayton holds out through all the crappy offers he will receive and I will defend him as the big market media slams him.
They have added depth to their system by paying record bonuses to third round picks, re-asserting themselves internationally, etc. The Grienke situation is one of the rare ones where they legitimately have all the leverage.
Royals released Brian Bannister yesterday. Gil Meche’s shoulder is spaghetti, so can’t start any more and is now a bullpen guy. Young guys in the minors not really ready yet, so starting pitching is needed.
Plus you can never have too much pitching anyway.
Seriously doubt that Greinke is traded this offseason. The Royals haven’t said anything about it that is anything different from what they said last year: “We’ll listen to offers on all our players.” It’s gotten overblown due to an interview with Greinke where he said he doesn’t think the Royals will be a winning team before his contract is up. Suddenly it’s become “Royals are shopping Greinke” and “Greinke has demanded a trade.” Neither of these statements is true.
The first of those statements is true, actually.
P.S. I assume Wil Myers will end up playing corner outfield.
The comment about building a team to contend for a championship and not a division is ignorant and absurd. You get to the Playoffs and from there it’s a series of crapshoots. The Giants JUST won it all and they barely made the Playoffs. Time and time again we’ve seen teams “made to win in the Playoffs” lose in the first round.
I’m surprised by this deal, actually. I always liked Mazzaro and I’m surprised that the A’s gave up on him so quickly to get Dejesus, who has no power at all, basically.
I know the A’s think slugging is overpriced now, or whatever, but can’t they at least trade for 1 PLAYER who slugs over .400? I mean, it’s getting ridiculous.
agree. I thought mazarro still has potential (very good recent numbers at AAA, good FB velocity). and many years of control vs. 1 yr of dejesus. I don’t hate the deal, but I am surprised by it.
I am not surprised they shipped him because of the talent in their rotation currently, plus Outman coming off Tommy John for next year and the Japanese starter they’re after to go along with Anderson, Cahill, Gonzalez, (i think braden is a poor man’s Buehrle, but that just means that you can’t locate as well and get hit very hard when not locating properly and should be traded for anything this year) Mazz’s 93ish fastball has good movement and he really needed to spend these last two season in the minors learning control and 2nd and 3rd pitches which he has but they aren’t very good.
I heard that Dejesus guy they just traded for has a .427 slugging %
He won’t in Oakland….
Why not? Kauffman stadium is all that much kinder to batted balls than Oakland.
Steve: He’ll still put up a better wOBA than any other OF in the A’s organization is projected to be in 2011.
(not factoring in Jack Cust, but he’s the DH, not an OF).
BX, agreed. Please excuse my pithy remark, I was being a bit of a smartass.
Funny, I’ve always liked DeJesus. I really wanted the Giants to make a trade for him last year before he went down with the thumb injury.
What in the world makes some of you so angry at things that you have to automatically assume the worst about everyone else? What makes those of you believe that all FanGraphs authors are pushing some sort of agenda? What would even be the point? What would we have to gain?
I don’t dislike the trade for KC because they’re KC. I dislike it because I looked at Vin Mazzaro and concluded that he’s rather mediocre with little to no room for improvement and that David DeJesus is much better than him.
That’s it. Why is that hard to believe?
As a Royals fan, I really wish someone would tell me that there’s something to look forward to in either of these pitchers. You can make a very good case that David Dejesus was the best player on the Royals team for the last several years. I think you can make a case that as a center fielder (which he plays average) that he’d be a 4 WAR guy. 4 WAR guys don’t show up everyday. And Dejesus has been incredibly consistent over his career. It’s hard to get excited about losing your best position player for the last 5 years for a number 4 starter. I guess if Bill James’ predictions are right, though, maybe it’ll all work out. Bill expects David’s SLG to drop… And Mazarro’s k rate to rise…
I’d be lots happier if someone would tell me that Mazarro is better than Sean O’Sullivan. It’d be sad if we got a better haul for Callaspo than we did for Dejesus. And I felt like we lost in the Callaspo deal. (Although both O’Sullivan and Callaspo struggled after the trade).
And for those Yankees fans that say that Dejesus would just be their 4th outfielder… Let him DH then. Dejesus outproduced the Yankees designated hitters this year. (wOBA of .363 compared to .354). As for the Yankees outfield… .348; David is a starter for any team in the league.
As for the post about David Lough being able to step up to the production of Dejesus… I doubt that’s happening. The Royals don’t have any current minor league outfielders who project to be better than Dejesus.
If the Royals want to contend in the future, they should have extended Dejesus. Winning teams keep good players, and also aquire other teams good players. The Royals need not only to acquire more talent through the draft, but they need to keep the talent they have. In 2013, Dejesus would still be under 35 and likely still the best option at any outfield position they’ll have. They should have tried to sign him for 5 years and 8 million dollars/per. And they should have let the press know if he refused to sign for that. Not keeping Dejesus means losing more games in the future. Sure, we might get a 2 win outfielder to replace him, but that’s still 0.5-1.5 wins that we won’t have in 2013-2015 when we should be trying to win.
It’s a shame the Royals didn’t trade him to the Yankees or Tampa Bay. Then I would have reason to root for another team…. Even better. They should have packaged up Greinke, Soria, and Dejesus so I would have perfect reason to root for the new team. St Louis would be a good destination for all three. But Oakland….
I’ve compared Vin’s stats to some other pitchers…. Surely there had to be better offers…
This is definitely necessary, every year the A’s start the year with 4-5 potential starting outfielders and at least 2 will end up on the 60 day DL. Even though they have a good supply of corner outfielders, DeJesus will fit in great with an outfield of centerfielders in Crisp and Sweeney.
I don’t think that there is any shortage of players in Oakland. There are a number of players who can replace any one in the team.
It’s really good article ,I fully read this ,its very interesting. thanks for posting it.!
all the information i got from this site is very interesting,thanks for posting it..!
I have no interest in the games,infact i don’t play any type of game…!
the story of this article is really very nice,I feel great when i read this..!
Hello, I love reading through your coaster blog! I wanted to leave a little comment to support you. Wishing you the best of luck for nice blog…!
http://walkfit-platinum-reviews.com
This is still the best title ever for an article
Simply want to say your article is as surprising. The clarity on your put up is simply nice and i can assume you’re a professional on this subject. Well with your permission let me to seize your RSS feed to keep updated with approaching post. Thank you 1,000,000 and please continue the rewarding work.
I simply want to agree! The article was as surprising! I don’t think your put up could have been any clearer! Well are there any approaching posts? Thank you 1,000,001!
Magnificent beat ! I wish to apprentice while you amend your site, how can i subscribe for a blog site? The account aided me a acceptable deal. I had been a little bit acquainted of this your broadcast offered vivid clear idea
There might be few questions rising in your thoughts regarding machinery. Where I should buy this machinery? The right way to get the most effective inexpensive prices? How to test the standard of the machinery? Sure, these questions are apparent and you will get the answers as effectively in this article.
This thread is pretty funny
the brilliant Beane paid more for DeJesus (who stunk) than the idiot Moore paid for Melky (pretty good year) and Frenchy (pretty good year) combined
Plus the idiot moore was able to trade melky for a #3 starter, still has frenchy, while the brilliant Beane has no major league OFers (or DHs) on his roster