Having already added Kenley Jansen and David Herndon to my
bullpen, I decided it was time to go all-in and targeted the best relief
pitcher in baseball – Craig Kimbrel. His
Schaumburg team has recently relocated to Butte County and the new owner
indicated a willingness to make deals. I
started discussions and they quickly grew to include ace starter R.A. Dickey in
addition to Kimbrel.
Initially, I didn’t think I was too interested in Dickey. My rotation was strong enough and Dickey was
unlikely to even make my playoff rotation, but he was quite intriguing due to
his sterling 2012 MLB season for the Mets.
Of course, the question is whether Dickey will be able to maintain his
current MLB pace or if he will tail off and become merely useful as opposed to
dominating.
Our talks quickly focused on my two best minor league
prospects – Miguel Sano and Anthony Rendon, my 2013 first-round pick and a
replacement reliever (Chris Resop).
That’s a lot of future value to surrender in one deal and I wavered for
a couple of days. The real wild card was
Dickey, as I just wasn’t sure how to value him.
If he maintained his first-half production, the deal would be good. However, given the unpredictable nature of
Dickey’s knuckleball, it is possible that he would have an ERA closer to 6.00
than to 3.00 for the remainder of his contract.
The new Butte County owner and I went back-and-forth; with
neither seemingly ready to pull the trigger.
He kept insisting that I include a third top youngster, first baseman
Matt Adams. I was reluctant and decided
that including Adams was simply too much future value when factoring in
Dickey’s unpredictable future. Butte
County refused to budge on Adams and we put the entire deal on hold for another
day or so.
During that time, I started chatting with the California GM
about a number of role players who could help me in the playoffs. California was quite busy at the trade
deadline – acting both as buyer and seller in different deals. We had some good discussions, but didn’t find
a deal that could help me. That was
fine, as the players I was looking for were mostly spare parts, such as a
platoon 1B that would replace the recently departed Jed Lowrie.
It turned out, however, that California was also looking for
a good starter for their playoff run.
Although I didn’t expect much to come of it, I tossed out Dan Haren’s
name. Haren has a very good card for the
current Brassball season and I was counting on him for the playoffs and the
next couple of years. However, once I
really looked at it, I realized I probably could deal Haren, as he was only
slightly better than Kyle Lohse and neither would be likely to make more than a
single start in a playoff series.
California was interested in Haren and we quickly settled on
players that would be involved in a deal.
I would send Haren in exchange for a 2013 #3 pick, prospect Eddie
Rosario and Jerry Sands, who could help me against left-handed pitchers in the
playoffs.
Once California and I agreed on the deal parameters, I
returned to Butte County to see where our Kimbrel/Dickey trade stood. We agreed in principle to a deal as outlined
above and including Matt Adams (from me) and a 2013 #2 pick (to me). Before I pulled the trigger on both trades, I
had to put them together into one transaction so I could weigh the pros and
cons.
Here’s how it looked (with contract savings included):
Metropolis Receives:
Craig Kimbrel
R.A. Dickey
Jerry Sands
Eddie Rosario
2013 #2
2013 #3
$10,000,000
Metropolis Sends:
Dan Haren
Miguel Sano
Anthony Rendon
Matt Adams
Chris Resop
2013 #1
Although dealing Sano and Rendon really hurts, putting the
trades together made it easier to justify.
Adding Rosario helps restock my prospect stable and the $10,000,000 that
I save in moving from Haren to Dickey will give me an even bigger bank account
to use in free agency. Both are signed
to deals expiring after the 2014 Brassball season and Dickey has outpitched
Haren by a wide margin in 2012, so like that swap going forward. The draft picks likely work out in my favor,
too, particularly because I’m hoping my own pick will be near the end of the
first round.
Of course, this all started because I wanted to add Craig
Kimbrel to my bullpen, and he remains the key to these two deals. He is under team control for a very low
salary for five seasons in addition to this one, so I hope to match him with new
Avenger Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman to make my bullpen a real strength
for the next five seasons.
I had assumed I was done after the two trades above, having
added David Herndon, Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel to my bullpen and R.A.
Dickey to my rotation, but I decided to see if I could another lefty to my
pen. In looking at the rosters, I
focused on Boston’s Jeremy Affeldt. He
is extremely tough on left-handed hitters and Boston was willing to move him
for some salary relief ($800,000 for each of the next two seasons). I sent him David Carpenter and we quickly
agreed on the deal.
Finally, I also dealt Fernando Rodriguez to Myrtle Beach, as
I no longer needed his innings. I only
got $100,000 for him, but it helps.
In the end, this is how all my deals shake out. I’ve added the general contract details, to
help get a full picture of the trades.
Metropolis Acquires:
Craig Kimbrel (Under control through 2016 MLB season)
Kenley Jansen (2016)
R.A. Dickey (2013 @ $666,666/year)
Jeremy Affeldt (2013 @ $800,000/year)
Jerry Sands (2016)
David Herndon (Likely cut after this season)
Eddie Rosario (first six MLB seasons)
2013 #2 Pick
2013 #3 Pick
$100,000
Metropolis Trades:
Dan Haren (2013 @$4,022,000/year)
Jed Lowrie (2014)
Matt Adams (2017)
Chris Resop (2016)
Miguel Sano (first six MLB seasons)
Anthony Rendon (first six MLB seasons)
David Carpenter (2017)
Fernando Rodriguez (2016)
2013 #1 Pick
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