D-Backs didn’t get enough for Justin Upton

看板Diamondbacks作者mittermeyer (真的真的好想休息)時間11年前 (2013/01/29 13:28)推噓3(3推 0噓 9→)

留言12則, 4人參與討論串1/1

http://www.azcentral.com/insiders/nickpiecoro/2013/01/28/d-backs-didnt-get-enough-for-justin-upton/ (可能須付費) In the four days since The Trade was made, thousands of words have been spilled about Justin Upton and Martin Prado, about grittiness and value, about Kevin Towers and Kirk Gibson. I think the best place to start is by linking to some of the better stories I’ve seen written about the deal. They ’ve already explored many of the same thoughts I have and probably have expressed them better than I could. *Yahoo’s Jeff Passan on the Diamondbacks’ willingness to forsake talent for intangibles. *Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal expands on something he wrote way back in July, that the Diamondbacks didn’t view Upton as a winning player. The quote from the unnamed player about the Oregon football team pretty much nails it, I think. *Buster Olney wrote about all the value the Diamondbacks have squandered this off-season. *Jonah Keri writes that the best you can say about the deal from the Diamondbacks’ perspective is that it might not make them significantly worse in 2013. *ESPN’s Keith Law says the Diamondbacks traded Upton for one year of Prado, a fifth starter, two fringe prospects and a non-prospect. *** My opinion on the deal is right in line with the general consensus: The Diamondbacks didn’t get enough. Which, in so many ways, is incredible to me. After close to 2 1/2 years of on-again/off-again trade discussions involving Upton, this is the deal they settle on? After saying time and again that they ’re only going to trade Upton if/when the right package comes along, this is the one they deem the right one? Prado has one year to go before he’s a free agent. The Braves determined in July that Randall Delgado was worth two months of Ryan Dempster. The other prospects in the deal are right-hander Zeke Spruill, whom Baseball America projects as a No. 4 or 5 starter; Nick Ahmed, yet another apparently light-hitting shortstop; and first baseman/third baseman Brandon Drury, who hit .229 with a .603 OPS last season in Low-A Rome. I’m not saying the players the Diamondbacks received aren’t going to pan out; by no means am I lending a scouting opinion here. But one thing I think we can do is identify value based on a number of factors: years of club control, salary, major and minor league performance/track records, what similar players have fetched in trades and the open market. And it just doesn ’t seem like the Diamondbacks got enough to justify making the trade. *It’s exactly what Olney wrote about last week — squandered value. Executives he spoke to said the Diamondbacks got 60 cents on the dollar in the Trevor Bauer trade and less than that in the Upton deal. An argument could be made they didn’t receive equal return for Chris Young in October. Then there’s the money they’ve spent. Like just nearly all major league teams, they have a limited budget, and they chose to spend $13 million over two years on Heath Bell and $26 million over three years on Cody Ross. With Bell, it was more than they should have been willing to commit. With Ross, it was perhaps an unnecessary expenditure. Even if Gregorius turns out to be the next Derek Jeter, his value on Dec. 11 was significantly less than Bauer’s. Just like Prado and the others are less valuable than Upton was on Jan. 24. The Diamondbacks might be filling holes that they believe exist by making these deals, but they are filling them at extraordinary prices. The gap between the good teams and the bad teams isn’t as wide as you might think, and just because these moves might not hurt the Diamondbacks right now doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt them in the long run. You can’t keep getting pennies on the dollar in trades and not have it catch up with you, not without always being right or getting lucky. And it’s not easy to be either of those things consistently in this game. *I actually really like Martin Prado. I’ve always liked Cody Ross, too. They ’re good players. Contributors. But neither is the kind of player you build around, not like Upton can be. Was Upton frustrating? Sure. Everyone would have loved to see him post a .900 OPS year after year after year. But at least he’s done it before (well, .898 and .899, but whatever). Neither Prado nor Ross has ever gotten close to that. And both are at or past what is generally regarded as a player’s peak years. Even if Upton hasn’t put up those type of seasons consistently, the fact is that he has before – more than once – and, at age 25, seems a much better bet of being able to do it again this year and in future years. *But those guys are “gritty,” right? OK, the gritty thing might be getting a little overblown, but there’s a reason for it: The trade doesn’t make sense otherwise. We – media and fans alike – need something tangible, some sort of believable reason/justification for the deal. And since literally everyone I’ve talked to in the industry says the Braves got the best of this deal, we have to dig deeper to find other possible motivations from the Diamondbacks’ perspective. In their defense, they’re not going to be fielding nine David Ecksteins. They could have fairly good statistical performers at just about every position. But do we even know if gritty is better than non-gritty? Does gritty win games? Or does talent? Do the Diamondbacks really want everyone playing with a football mentality? It seems reasonable to assume players might wear down more easily that way, and the Diamondbacks’ own manager might serve as an example of that. Gibson averaged 124 games a year from ages 26-33. *I think getting a contract extension done with Prado changes the deal somewhat, although maybe not as much as others (including apparently the Diamondbacks) might think. Generally, if you’re trading an established star who has three years to go before free agency, you should probably get back potential star-quality young players who will be under club control (i.e., cheap) for at least as many years as the player you’re trading away. Yes, they got several young players back in the deal, but if the scouting community is to be believed, they don’ t have near the ceiling that we’re talking about here. (And if you can’t get that kind of return, you might as well just keep Upton.) With Prado being only one year away from free agency, he’s not going to be inclined to take any kind of discount, not after Shane Victorino, coming off a down year, gets a $39 million guarantee. If I’m Prado, I’d be thinking I could get just as much even if I have a mediocre 2013. The fact that he plays so many positions should only increase the number of possible suitors. And if he has another good year? He could get even more. Plus, Prado knows the Diamondbacks are in a tough situation, eager to make the deal look better by signing him long-term. That might make them more likely to overpay, which might mean he’ll get close to market value despite being a year away from free agency. And if the Diamondbacks do pay him free-agent type dollars in an extension, you have to wonder why they didn’t just take their chances on trying to sign him a year from now without trading Upton. *There seem to be a lot of folks using Prado’s WAR as a justification of the deal. He was worth 4.9 wins in 2010, 1.8 in 2011 and 5.4 in 2012, per Baseball Reference. That’s 12.1 wins over the past three seasons. Upton was worth 1.4, 5.7 and 2.1 in the same three years, a total of 9.2. This does tell us something – it confirms Prado’s value – but it’s leaving out an important piece of information: Age. Prado posted those numbers in his ages 26-28 seasons. Upton did all that between ages 22-24. Upton still might be several years from his peak. Also interesting is that we’re making such a big deal out of Upton’s “down ” year, but no one mentions Prado’s from 2011. I know it’s a year further removed and he’s already bounced back from it, but when Prado had a down year, he posted a .687 OPS and an 87 OPS+. Upton’s down year was a .785 OPS and a 107 OPS+. *This whole off-season seems like a huge overreaction, something Towers said in early December he didn’t feel any pressure to do. This is from a story I wrote just before the winter meetings: “Even though last year was a disappointing year,” Towers said, “I still think that same ball club, given maybe a different year and a different set of circumstances and doing some of the little things that are hard to measure better and smarter, that we can be a much better ball club. “I know everybody thinks you have to tweak it here and tweak it there and there are some years you have to, but I still look at my club and am a little dumbfounded (at the results). I think we were a better ball club.” He mentioned the number of highly regarded prospects in his farm system. He brought up the fact that the organization has no bad contracts. He said his roster has flexibility. “I really like the state we’re in,” Towers said, “and I don’t want to do something drastic just because we finished .500 last year.” It seems he’s done exactly that. The Diamondbacks’ biggest problem in 2012 was, coincidentally, their greatest strength in 2011: hitting in close and late situations. Listening to his press conference last week, it sounded as if Towers thinks more contact hitters in his lineup will help make his offense better. I guess we’ll see, but there’s no evidence that line of thinking is true, something Jeff Sullivan touched on in a Fan Graphs story last week. What generally does seem to be true is that the best and most talented teams win. Not necessarily the ones who are the most hard-nosed or make the most contact. The Diamondbacks might still be a good team in 2013. They absolutely have the talent to contend in the National League West. But they’re worse off today than they were four days ago. == 翻譯後補 -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 120.127.47.220