Corey Coleman asked Hue Jackson “why won’t y’all just trade me?” after demotion to second team
August 15, 2018“Why Won’t You Just Trade Me?” : While We’re Waiting
August 15, 2018There was a time not long ago before millennials were listening to the wretched lyricism of Post Malone, and Marvel had not exhausted us with comic book hero movies, it was reasonable to discuss a Major League Baseball transaction without obsessing over player control, cost efficiency, and surplus value. During this time, a transaction could be considered in singularity with a simple query, did this move increase the odds of the Cleveland Indians winning a World Series?
Of course, surplus value and cost efficiencies are important concepts providing greater context for improving short-term and long-term playoff odds, but there is a danger. The danger is that we small market fans become a slave to cost efficiency measures of a transaction over whether the transaction advances a contending team closer to a World Series victory. If there is one evolution in baseball that I find startling, it is the joy fans take in an owners profit margin on a contending team. As if an organization making $85 million net profit instead of $75 million while fielding a slightly less talented team is somehow better.
The implementation of sabermetrics has changed baseball in many positive ways and unlocked a world of fandom that is entirely delightful. Analytics have even empowered players who are willing to use new information to create a competitive advantage. Yet, the analysis of baseball as a heavily regulated, flawed economic market has placed fans in the position where trades and free agent signings are often evaluated in purely economic terms. Is there projected surplus value? Positive arbitrage?
This is not to decry considering whether teams allocate assets efficiently. The author, like many, has written numerous stories centered on the premise of asset efficiency, as impersonal as that sounds and is. Indeed, it is perfectly reasonable to attach yourself to a team allocating its resources efficiently as team success is at the center of fandom. However, it is important on occasion to check the personal inclination to value a team winning a signing based on cost efficiency against whether the team actually improved their chances of winning a World Series in a probabilistic sense.
One of the most compelling cases to interrogate one’s instincts is that regarding the offseason signing of Yonder Alonso rather than Carlos Santana. From a statistical accumulation standpoint, this author expected Alonso to outperform Santana betting on launch angle adjustments.1
Oh, and Yonder Alonso bests Carlos Santana in wRC+ and WAR in 2018.
— Mike Hattery (@snarkyhatman) March 29, 2018
But the trouble over the past month has been the obligatory comparison that looks like the following:
- Yonder Alonso: 2 years $16 million- .759 OPS
- Carlos Santana: 3 years $60 million- .747 OPS
It is in a way illuminating. Alonso is cheaper and has produced well. Santana has been solid but not himself; largely due to an unsustainably low BABIP, which will normalize. Santana is, of course, a Gold-Glove caliber defender and Alonso close to a liability creating a small Santana WAR advantage which is so narrow it could be a counting error. A short inquiry would end with one asserting that the Indians front office won this transactional choice in a big way because they paid less per win than the Phillies did. There is truth to this notion but also deception.
The Indians are trying to win a World Series, and with a division which was projected to be weak but has still managed to be worse than even those weak expectations, the Indians front office was enabled to operate with more division certainty than most teams in the last decade. In essence, it provided a window to be forward-looking, to construct a team tailored to October and not constructed to need merely cost efficient WAR but players who helped them against New York, Houston, and Boston.
Let’s get down to the center of the Alonso and Santana comparison. Projection systems like Santana to be just .013 OPS points better for the remainder and a roughly half WAR cumulative gap for the season. One could assert that the $12 million AAV gap for just half a win is inefficient on the cost per win spectrum.
However, the Indians are trying to win a World Series. In the playoffs, the Indians will likely have to get through New York or Boston both lefty pitching-heavy teams. Houston also has lefty tools which will be levered up in the postseason.
- Yonder Alonso career OPS against LHP: .651 Against RHP: .775
- Carlos Santana career OPS against LHP: .802 Against RHP: .811
Further, the Indians brought back Michael Brantley who, while very productive, can be neutralized by LHP, same for Jason Kipnis for his career in the cumulative, and Jose Ramirez the Indians best hitter is significantly better against RHP than LHP. The Indians will face a heavy dose of matchup lefty plays in the postseason as well as left-handed starters if they see Boston or New York. More, it simply makes the Indians more easy to attack. When you have a No. 5 hitter who can be so easily neutralized as well as a generally attack-able group of lefty hitters, the loss of switch-hitting skills is significant.
Buying additional regular season wins was not as valuable for the Indians as other teams because of their place in relation to regular season competition, thus cheap regular season WAR accrual for a player easily targeted in the playoffs is an empty allocation. Thankfully, the playoffs are variance driven, and a player who is unplayable against lefties normally can go 3-for-5 against Clayton Kershaw in a one-game sample.2
When looking at the postseason you start to view players as chess pieces and how they impact your ability force bad matchups on your opponent. Yonder Alonso has certainly been similar enough production wise to say their cost per win justifies the Alonso deal, but Santana is a far better chess piece. Santana is good on the bases, can hit anywhere, gets on base, plays good defense, and is not neutralized by one split. That is a valuable part.
The Indians can cover up a piece of this gap as Yandy Diaz could get first base reps and make a platoon partner for Alonso. Of course, this would require that the Indians display any sort of trust in Diaz defensively, which they show no signs of doing. Even if employed and successful, the counter only works once by using a pinch hitter and can later be neutralized. Whereas Santana did not have a counter play against him.
Whenever a team removes a player without counters and substitutes a player with counters that team can more easily be forced to face bad matchups.
Is having one less player who can be neutralized by a reliever or starter worth the additional $12 million? Probably not. Would signing Santana have triggered unintended consequences like trading Kipnis, losing a draft pick, and/or wasting less on Melky Cabrera or Rajai Davis types? Likely.
This effort at discussing value is one without a single answer, a reality of life many are accustomed to. However, if one was to write an executive summary it may go a bit like this:
Yonder Alonso on a cost per win basis was a far more efficient expenditure than Carlos Santana; Carlos Santana is a far better piece for a lineup trying to win a World Series.
If I was writing the checks, cost per win would be far more persuasive. Yet, the fans do not write the checks. They root for rings.