Red Sox, Padres Win the Miguel Cabrera Trade
In the winter of 2007-2008, the Marlins had a chance to make a big splash. The free agent market lacked a game-changing bat. Teams seeking a significant offensive upgrade turned to the trade market, where the Marlins were dangling Miguel Cabrera, who would be 25 years old in 2008. After doubling payroll from 2006 to 2007, the Marlins clearly had no intentions of raising it again. And so they traded Cabrera, along with Dontrelle Willis, to the Tigers for a package of players that included two first-round picks: Cameron Maybin, No. 10 overall in 2005, and Andrew Miller, No. 6 overall in 2006.
Three years later the trade looks a bit worse for the Marlins. It appears they recognize that, too, as they flipped both Miller and Maybin this past weekend. It couldn’t have been an easy decision. Both players are still relatively young, but the Marlins haven’t seen much production out of them in the past three years. By trading them now, while they still have the “change of scenery candidate” tag attached to them, they’re hedging against both busting completely. In the process they’ve given two teams good opportunities.
For the Red Sox, trading Dustin Richardson for Miller makes complete sense. A fifth-round choice in 2006, Richardson converted to the bullpen after the 2008 season and has had nothing but control problems since. He walked 5.57 per nine in 118 minor relief innings during the last two seasons, and walked more than a batter per inning during his 13-inning MLB stint in 2010. He’s no better than Miller, and is actually a year older. The Marlins, of course, are looking at this from a savings perspective — Miller will make close to $2 million in 2010 despite being a zero-to-three player. The Red Sox view this as a baseball move.
There are certainly concerns about Miller’s delivery and command. When rating Miller the Tigers’ No. 2 prospect before the 2007 season, Baseball America wrote, “Most scouts’ concerns about him center on his arm action, as he has a slight wrap in the back of his delivery that hampers his command.” From what I gather, that still appears to be an issue today. Miller’s walk rate remains high. He also hasn’t adequately developed a changeup, which would act as a swing-and-miss weapon against right handers. Given what we’ve seen from pitchers in the past, it’s unlikely that Miller overcomes these issues. But if he does, the Red Sox will benefit greatly. Even if he doesn’t they can end up as winners; at their current levels Richardson probably isn’t any better than Miller. The Red Sox have once again used their financial resources in a savvy manner.
A day after trading Miller, the Marlins then traded the other significant component of the Cabrera trade, Cameron Maybin, to the Padres in exchange for two relief pitchers, right handers Ryan Webb and Edward Mujica. Webb, 24, had a phenomenal sophomore season, allowing just one home run in 59 innings. Mujica allowed 14 home runs in 69.2 innings, but made up for it by striking out 9.30 per nine, an increase of two per nine from 2009, and walking 0.78 per nine. He will reach arbitration for the first time this year.
The Padres did well in this trade, dealing from a position of strength. Their bullpen was, by many measures, tops in the majors this season. Webb and Mujica played roles in that, but the Padres managed to keep their top three guys: Heath Bell, Mike Adams, and Luke Gregerson. Quality bullpen arms might not be easy to come by, but the Padres do have a history of finding undervalued relievers. They can find ways to replace Webb and Mujica. At the same time, they’ve acquired a young player who, while not as promising as he was two years ago, still has a chance to make an impact in the majors.
Not only is Maybin young, but he is also cost controlled. Heading into the 2010 season he had just 129 service days, and then didn’t spend the entire season on the active roster. There’s a chance he’ll attain Super-Two status after the 2011 season, but that’s no guarantee. If he doesn’t the deal works out even better for San Deigo. They’ll have acquired two very inexpensive years of a talented player, followed by three more expensive, but still cost-controlled, years.
Maybin, of course, brings the Padres no guarantees, as Dave noted earlier. But even if he doesn’t develop, the Padres will have made a worthy gamble. To them, the chance to upgrade at center field is far more important than a couple of bullpen arms, which they seemingly grow on trees anyway.
At the time of the Miguel Cabrera trade, it appeared as though the Marlins did well. They got two exciting young players who had star potential. But in the following three years they were treated to nothing but disappointment. When they cut bait last weekend they did improve their bullpen, but more importantly they provided Boston and San Diego with opportunities. The Red Sox did well, because they traded a regular old fringe reliever for a fringe reliever with potential. The Padres did well, because they dealt two replaceable relievers for a 24-year-old former top-10 prospect with at least one more zero-to-three season. While the Marlins will benefit from a strengthened bullpen, the teams they dealt with could improve even more.
Joe also writes about the Yankees at River Ave. Blues.
This is stupid. Trades should be judged solely on the information available at the time they were made. How they ultimately worked out doesn’t have any bearing on the quality of the trade, nor does it tell us anything useful about the people who made the trade.
I don’t understand articles like this at all.
All the article says is that the Red Sox and Padres did well. It does not chastise the Marlins for the trade. In fact, the first sentence of the last paragraph indicates the opposite.
It was a bad trade for the Marlins. If only they knew then what we know now…
Such is life mon chéri
Llewdor, that doesn’t make any sense. We don’t live in a hypothetical world where what happens after the fact has no bearing on anything. People are judged by results, and very often (almost always) results come from things outside a person’s control. It doesn’t matter what information the parties had at the time — that’s fine for making excuses for a poor trade, but it doesn’t change the fact that a trade was poor.
Speaking as a Sox fan, I’d rather have Cabrera.
Regarding the title of the article, I would point out that the Tigers are pretty pleased with the result of this trade as well. How often do you pick up a perennial MVP candidate for a bunch of prospects who don’t pan out, even if you take on a bad contract? And remember, what was really terrible for the Tigers was the extension they gave Willis, not trading for him in the first place.
I agree with all of this.
Agreed. Kind of funny that the Tigers, who clearly won the trade, were an aside in this discussion. I recall how in some circles Dombrowski was absolutely ripped for giving up great prospects and extending Cabrera. Almost completely useless service time valuations were used by some to cast him as a buffoon who might possibly be experiencing early senility.
I suggest we start using a simple valuation method, so as to eliminate nonsense (aka “projections”) from what were once upon a time reasonable observations, to wit: Superstar player = $1. Everybody else = $0. In this case, Dave Dombrowski was Ben Bernanke before Ben Bernanke was Ben Bernanke. He created money from thin air. That’s a pretty good GM.
I don’t see how the Red Sox did well at all. Miller is a horrible, horrible pitcher who makes more than the minimum. His velocity is sitting around 90, a far cry from the mid-high 90’s he was supposed to be throwing in, and his control has actually gotten worse. I’m not sure if Miller was coached to throw with less velocity and can still let it rip when he feels like it, but I see no redeemable qualities from him other than being a stud prospect who was rushed and declined steadily.
Miller has serious mechanical issues in his delivery which may not be correctable. Unless the Red Sox have some secret pitching guru to fix those issues, trading for Miller is nothing more than an expensive flier.
Pat, Miller has long been thought to have a great upside, even if it hasn’t shown results and there are mechanical issues. They didn’t do horribly because they gave up the same player, possibly a worse player – a tall lefty with command issues – for Miller, and I think that taking the outside chance that that upside shows up is worth trading away a player with similar issues and less historic upside, especially for the Sox, who can afford Miller’s contract.
How will the Sox use Miller? They can’t afford to put him in their rotation, will he just be a long reliever? Boston does need bullpen arms badly so maybe he can work things out there but I won’t be holding my breath.
Yeah, the title’s kind of misleading. You’d think that the Tigers didn’t win the trade, which they did. Spinning a couple of over-rated prospects for Cabrera (ok, and admittedly for Dontrelle Willis) was a great trade. For the Red Sox and Padres to “win” this trade, everything has to go right. For the Tigers, Miguel Cabrera’s already put up a few super-star caliber seasons.
My goodness. While it is mildly interesting that the Marlins cut bait with these two almost concurrently, isn’t it obvious that the Tigers won the trade, decisively?
I think that it is obvious, but I also think people are getting hung up on the title of the article which is just trying to be witty.
Change the word “win” in the title to “wind up as winners”, and read the article like that.
It was just a wierd coincidence that Marlins traded both cogs from the Cabrera trade within 48 hours, and the title of the article is just trying to play off of that.
No one who reads Fangraphs needs an article about why it was a win to trade for Miguel Cabrera. It’s a given.
Not if you start with the priori that the Tigers have a dumb front office.
Sometimes ya read stuff here, and just wonder what the heck is going on.
As for Miller … good luck straightening out issues at the highest level of competition. Odds are long against him. Chalk him up as another LHP that “coulda been”.
Maybin is a toolsy guy that’s learning that baseball is primarily a skill sport. If he hasn’t gotten it by now, he probably never will.
The reality is that BOS and SD probably aren’t the last teams to float a chance on Miller and Maybin. Their natural ability is rare. Some teams will keep hoping that they are the ones to “figure it out”.
Re Tigers winning, sure Cabrera is great, but the Tigers are paying him top dollar for it, $153 million / 8 years. They did get him for the first two years at a relatively cheap price, $11 million / $14 million. But they paid Willis $30 million for 22 starts and 100 innings of 6.86 ERA ball, which I imagine nullifies any value from the 2 cheap years of Cabrera. So I would think they just about broke even.
A couple of things …
[1] Look at the whole picture.
Cabrera has produced 88M worth of WAR over his 4 years in DET. He has cost DET $45M. DET is up 43M bucks.
Have the marlins received 10M in value from Miller and Maybin?
I realize things may not translate specifically this way, but it is the metrics we’re using. You just left out the part that showed the big value the Tigers got out of it … even at a big price, Cabrera produces more than he earns.
DET owes MC ~20M/y for the next 5 years. In order to “break even”, he needs to have 4 WAR seasons. He averages 5.5-6.0 WAR per season … AND he’s entering his “prime years” of 28-32.
Really, FLA was the BIG loser because they got rid of a guy that was giving 25M of value per year for less than 5M/y salary. Of course, they were not willing/able to pay him, so the point is moot.
Had DET not been able to trade for Cabrera, they may not have been able to sign him at all.
I’m not sure whether one ought to include the extensions signed after the fact. Willis was a bit overpriced at the time of the trade, but the trade had little to do with DD’s need to bid against himself for Willis’ future, which of course turned out to be nil.
no game changing bat?? wasn’t Arod a FA the same year?