Trade Review: Cowhide and Bily Chapel

Cowhide Joyride receives:
3B Alex Rodriguez NYY
1B/OF Kendrys Morales LAA
SP Ian Kennedy ARI

Billy Chapel receives:
OF Josh Reddick OAK
3B Chase Headley SD
RP Jason Motte STL

This one is a head scratcher, or perhaps a head slamming against the waller... whatever you want to do to your head, this one is clearly a win for Dave. The crux of the issue here is at what point in the season do you officially pass judgment on a player?

 This varies wildly depending on the owner. Some, like Pierce  and Chris, make very few moves and are quite methodical about it all – never getting too hyped or too down, opting instead to stick with their initial inclination when they drafted.  There may be an element of relative apathy depending on the person, but nonetheless, the styles differ greatly from others, like myself who go through all my transactions eventually. At some point, you either believe in the player or you don’t.

So, is one-third of a major league baseball season enough to pass judgement? If so, Troy wins here because all of the guys he is acquiring are ranked higher than their counterparts. But if this deal was made before the 2012 draft, there would have been riots. The names just don’t line up. On one side is historical results, on the other side is a collection of upstarts. It’s hard to ignore the names.

It all comes down to what you think of Josh Reddick. Perhaps, with most of us very familiar with the AL East, we have a negative view of him because before May of 2012, he was just a former prospect who never amounted to much other than a decent fill-in in 2011, who was shipped off to Oakland to be part of a platoon in a very weak lineup. But he is not without a bit of pedigree. As recently as 2010, he was Baseball America’s #3 prospect in the Red Sox system – ahead of guys like Kalish, Fuentes, Rizzo, Iglesias, and just behind Kelly and Westmoreland. So there’s an element of expectations that had been unfulfilled until recently – at the spacious O.co Coliseum no less.  Take the current rate of production and extend it out 600 abs and you get a line of 96R, 38HR, 79RBI, 16STL, .333OBP – quite a line and certainly keepe- worthy. Realistic? Not really, but what if he gets close and ARod is 38 next season, Morales never recovers (a possibility), and Kennedy reverts back to what he was pre-2011 (many expected significant digression this year)? In which case, Reddick is the only keeper in the bunch.

I don’t think it will happen. Reddick’s one-time prospect status was, in large part, due to his athletic prowess and rifle arm. He never projected big power numbers and I doubt it will continue this season – 90/25/80/15, sure that could happen. Headley could probably could do that too (maybe 20 hrs though). Motte is really useless for Troy at this point I think, but he could serve as trade bait later.

With ARod, Morales, and Kennedy, Dave is buying low on all three and I like it. Morales I like the least just because of playing time ($13M man VWells will be back eventually and Trumbo can’t be sat) and production thus far (though somehow he not only got eligibility at 1B but is also available as an OF option). The thing with ARod, whose the biggest name here, is just the age. It doesn’t matter how much juice he has rolling through his veins, at some point players just fall off. He’ll be 37 next month and only played 99 games last season. Might be this season, might be next, but regardless, it’s coming. And right now, given his decent and not great production so far, the name has more value than the player at this point. Kennedy was almost a keeper for me, so I certainly had faith last year’s numbers were not a fluke. His last two outings have been very good and he reportedly made some adjustments, so he could come back and have a year similar to 2011, when he was a top 10 pitcher. That said, he surprised many last year and advanced statistics indicated some luck was involved and regression was expected, though most experts certainly felt he was a top 20 SP. So far, he has not been.

If I had to rank keepers involved here, it’d be 1: Kennedy, 2: ARod, 3: Reddick, 4: Morales (UTIL only next year), 5: Headley. If you look at the overall ranks based on current statistics of the players Dave gave up, he lost out big time. But I think most of us will agree the threesome he received will ultimately prove to be more valuable this year and next.