Fun fact, apropos of nothing in particular.
If you add up the WAR of every single player on the New York Mets with positive WAR in 2012, you get 15.6 - or considerably less than the trio of Trout, Pujols, and Hamilton managed just between them.
Yay, baseball!
ESPN calls this a win-now move. Very insightful. Thanks, guys.
Out of a kind of gruesome fascination, I did the same calculation for the Astros and came out with 9.4, which I think is less than Trout by himself. I wonder if there’s any team that does worse on that measure.
Well at least our ace pitcher is willing to sign a more than reasonable extension of 2 years, 26 million. You know what Ryan Dempster just got. Oh right…
Hamilton will presumably be the Angels’ second highest paid player next year behind, of course, Vernon Wells.
You’re not counting the pitchers.
The Hamilton move looks superficially awesome for Anaheim/LA/whatever, but
The Angels have been trying the Add The Expensive Guy thing for years and it still hasn’t worked. Aquiring Vernon Wells was a disaster, and then they added Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson and still weren’t good enough while the cheap-ass A’s won the division and Texas, from whom they nabbed Wilson, made the WC game.
The acquisition of Hamilton merely replaces Torii Hunter, who, it has to be pointed out, played extremely well in 2012;** Hunter was as good or better a player in 2012 than Hamilton was.** I know that sounds very hard to believe, because Hamilton hit a pile of homers, but Hunter is a way, way better defensive player, got on base a little more, and Anaheim’s a hard place to hit. I don’t expect that Hunter, at 36, will keep playing that well, but in terms of how this changes Anaheim from 2012 into 2013, there’s no reason to believe Hamilton in 2013 is an upgrade over Hunter in 2012. He’s not, which leads to point 3…
Hamilton isn’t THAT good a player. I mean, he’s good, but after a humongous 2010, when he batted .359, in 2011-2012 he’s been pretty good but not great. The home runs and RBIs look impressive but Hamilton is hitting in a a terrific hitter’s park and putting up Jim Ricey numbers - lots of RBI but he doesn’t get on base at an elite clip, strikes out a lot, and he is (as anyone who has watched him much can tell you) not a very good defensive outfielder.
Oh, and he’s 32, isn’t fast, gets hurt every year, and is a drug addict.
Oh,and they lost Greinke to the Dodgers.
I realize the Angels have a lot of money but I think they’re no lock to win anything in 2013.
If they’d tried the Call Up Mike Trout thing a month earlier, we might be having a different type of conversation. You’re right that Hamilton may not be a huge upgrade over Hunter this year (I expect he will be in 2014 and 2015), but it’s a very reasonable deal considering how good the guy is. It doesn’t make the Angels a lock to win the division, but they should be better than they were last year and I am not sure that will be the case for Texas and Oakland.
I agree it’s very likely Hamilton will be a better player than Hunter over the next three years. I wouldn’t say it’s a lock - Hunter is in great shape and isn’t a drug fiend - but I’d put my twenty bucks there. I guess.
My point is that it doesn’t make them a better team than the 89-win team they had last year, and yet it costs them a ridiculous fortune. Hamilton was measurably inferior to Hunter last year. If you assume he remains as good as 2012 for the next three years he’s basically a 3.5-4 win player. There’s no reason to think he’ll magically get better at his age. For $25 million, really?
By way of comparison, WAR credits Melky Cabrera as being a better player in both 2011 and 2012, and he’s a third the price. Or if you don’t want a juicer, apparently Denard Span was available. Michael Bourn is a free agent, he can hit, he’s one of the best defensive outfielders in the world, why not get him? Make the Blue Jays an offer for Eddie Encarnacion, they seem to like huge trades. Offers the Rays something for Ben Zobrist. Everyone I’ve mentioned has a higher WAR than Hamilton, and the numbers look fair to me. So why didbn’t the Angels get those guys? Simple; those guys aren’t BIG NAMES. The Angels seem obsessed with getting big names, which is fine and they presumably have the money,but that is a distinctly different thing from getting the best available talent. Hamilton is more or less the absolute perfect definition of an overpaid free agent. This is a financial Titanic waiting to happen.
It now appears R.A. Dickey has been traded to the Blue Jays.
To the Mets: Travis D’Arnaud, Noah Syndergaard, John Buck, and another prospect
To the Blue Jays: R.A. Dickey, Josh Thole, and another prospects.
Toronto then signs Dickey to a two-year, $25 million extension.
I really, really do not like this trade. I don’t believe Dickey is going to be like he was in 2012 again, for obvious reasons, and this leaves Toronto with precisely no catchers who can actually hit a major league pitcher. If it works (meaning, if Dickey is a 3-5 WAR pitcher in 2013) then clearly the team’s likelihood of winning a pennant in 2013 is extremely high; they’ll be very hard to beat. But after that, man, this will be a team with some salary anchors. The Jays are putting al lthe money on their next hand.
What’s bizarre, though, is that they could have had Ryan Dempster, who didn’t win the Cy but was a very good pitcher last year and has been a good pitcher every year for a long time, for pretty much the same price as Dickey’s contract extension… and then they would still have D’Arnaud and Syndegaard.
I like the trade, but I am a believer in Dickey and what he can do. Even if he isn’t Cy Young quality again in 2013 he will still be very good and probably for the year after that too. Beyond 2014 its anyone’s guess, but Toronto has a very real window of opportunity here where they aren’t playing in an overpoweringly strong division and I like that they are making the move to win now. At some point AA needs to actually win something with his team or he isn’t going to continue to keep his job no matter how smart and awesome the internet thinks he is.
D’Arnaud was a loss, but Syndergaard is a high upside guy who is a ways away and by no means a sure thing. They could both be fantastic, more likely they will both simply be very good, which is not nothing but by the time they are able to make a genuine impact at the major league level all sorts of other things could have happened in the division.
Take your shot when you have it.
Dickey is a fantastic guy to have on your team even when he isn’t pitching well, which is never, and Josh Thole isn’t a bad catcher. You guys made out like bandits on this one.
I think you are underrating Dickey. Dickey has been really good for the last three years now and knucklers don’t have normal age patterns. He didn’t have a fluke year as much as he learned to pitch better. I don’t see any reason Dickey can’t be a front line starter for the next three years. For 30 million that is a steal.
It was a steep price though, and as a Met fan I have to be satisfied with the haul. (Any thoughts on D’Arnaud? Sounds like he is solid all around, but not spectacular in any area). Dempster may have been better, but who knows if he would have been willing to sign in Toronto and at what price.
In major major baseball news, the Astros sign Rick Ankiel.
Holy crap, Ankiel is 33 years old and has 10 seasons in the majors (not counting the 2 seasons he missed with injuries and the 2 seasons he spent converting to the outfield).
I’m wondering if nobody posted about this today because they just aren’t surprised. Anyway: a Miami newspaper has done a thorough investigation of a clinic that provided HGH, testosterone drugs, and other PEDs to professional athletes. The best known baseball players are Alex Rodriguez, Gio Gonzalez, Nelson Cruz, and Melky Cabrera. A-Rod and Gonzalez have already denied it, but the newspaper actually has documents from the clinic with their names on them - in Rodriguez’s case, documents that say he was using drugs from this clinic from 2009 through 2012. And even after his ‘oh, I quit doping in 2003’ admission he’s been linked to shady characters, some of whom were involved with this clinic. So I would expect suspensions, and there are rumors the Yankees will try to void his contract. I doubt they can do it, but what the hell. If it worked, it would be a gift for them.
The Miami PED scandal is spreading, but it’s not clear what (if anything) is going to happen to the players involved. For starters the newspaper hasn’t decided if it will share its findings with MLB.
Elsewhere, Chris Carpenter’s career is probably over because of continuing nerve problems, and he’s definitely out for 2013. And reports are coming in that the Mariners have agreed to a seven-year, $175 million contract with Felix Hernandez, which is just huge.
Losing Carp will hurt the Cards, but it was hard to expect much from him anyway at this point. He’ll remain a legend in STL for out-pitching Roy Halladay in Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS, and I’ll never forget watching him pitch (and win) Game 3 of the 2006 WS.
And Cardinals games will have far fewer shouted expletives, which I guess is a good thing now that I have a kid.
As to King Felix, I’m not real sure about the whole “buy out a bunch of years of an existing contract to get a bunch more on the end”. It’s actually the same thing the Cardinals did with Carpenter, which hasn’t worked out very well. It’s not like they’re getting a discount here, and they’re taking on a lot more risk.
Any long term contract is a risk, though. This is one of the best pitchers in the league, and he’s still young. They bought out two years where he was already going to get around $20 million per year, so that’s not much of a bump in salary, and on the free agent market I think he would’ve made more than $25 million a year. If all goes well, they will have him for the rest of his prime and won’t be paying this price during his declining years. It’s not a bargain but it looks worthwhile on the surface, and the simple fact that we’re not going to hear any more Felix Hernandez trade rumors may count for something. Carpenter’s last contract with the Cardinals started when he was 32, so he was a bigger injury risk in that regard.
Yeah, the age difference is what makes it palatable. I’m not sure they saved any money, but who knows what the market will look like 2 offseasons from now. Maybe it will look like a bargain.
Story with pictures about pathetic attendance at Marlins Fan Fest
OK, I know that the weather doesn’t really change too much in south Florida, so you don’t have that pent up demand for warm weather and baseball. But, if this is any indication, you’re going to be seeing some very small crowds at Marlins games this year. One year into a new stadium and the Fish might be back to games that draw under 1000 fans again.
I would imagine the Marlins fans were mostly at the Blue Jays events this winter.