Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 117: Justin Upton Update: Still Not Traded

Episode Date: January 11, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss the rejected trade that would have made Justin Upton a Mariner.

funny well that's the intro sound for today good morning and welcome to episode 117 of effectively wild the baseball prospectus daily podcast in new york new york i am Ben Lindbergh and in Long Beach, California, you are Sam Miller. I was reading about all the flu that people are catching these days and I thought of you. Okay. Is that what you have? I don't know. I don't know what I have, but I do know this. I have figured out a way to guarantee that this show does not go too long, which, as you know, is my number one bugaboo in life. You'll just hang up on me.

No, no. Here's my solution. Right now, you're going to hear it. Okay, hang up. That was me taking NyQuil. How long does it take to kick in? Probably 16 to 30 minutes all right so we will you will know when it kicks in okay uh like being sick ben do i like being sick yeah i used to like being a certain level of sick when it when it got me out of things but did not prevent me from enjoying

the things that I could do instead of the things I was supposed to do. Now there's really no benefit to it. No, I know. I love being sick because for 10 years, I worked for a company that would pay you to be sick. When I left the Orange County Register, I still had something like 600 sick hours that I would never be able to cash out. So I was always desperate to be sick.

And I would go – I never get sick. So I would go many years without taking a sick day and it always bummed me out. But I've not yet adjusted to the fact that nobody is now paying me to be sick and that all it is is just me losing money. So I probably – by next winter, I probably will not want to be sick. But right now there's still a certain amount of pleasure. Anyway. Okay.

Okay. Glad you're enjoying yourself. We almost had news to talk about today, but instead we will have to settle for news about something that didn't happen again. Which is better than absolutely nothing, I guess. Yeah, I think this is more interesting than most of the things we've talked about. Yeah, and it's certainly a nice change of pace from Hall of Fame voting. I actually had some Hall of Fame thoughts to share, but maybe we won't get to them. Should we do a corrections and omissions segment on our Sandy Alomar discussion?

I don't think it's a corrections or omissions. We asked for input. It's almost an omission. We asked for input and somebody gave us input. Yeah. Was it Matthew? It was Matthew Trueblood and also Robert Mulligan. Who pointed out that Sandy Alomar was considered to be a near-elite defender

and would have won gold gloves and had his reputation burnished in gold had he not been competing with Ivan Rodriguez. I don't know if Sandy Alomar was a good defender or not. I don't really care because the point was just to find out what people were voting based on. And I accept Matthew Trueblood's posit that they were voting on Sandy Alomar's defensive reputation. And I'm happy with that. Sure. Vote for catchers' defensive reputations.

Catchers are very important. Did you want to do a quick Hall of Fame thing before we do the other thing? No, I don't think so. I think if we hadn't had a better topic, then I might have. So the thing that we have been talking about is the Justin Upton trade, which didn't happen because he declined it. And the trade would have sent him to the Seattle Mariners. He has a partial no trade clause, and apparently they are on it, and he decided not to go there. And it would have been for a package of four players, reportedly.

Two of the Mariners' top five prospects on our recent rankings, Nick Franklin and Tywin Walker, and also Stephen Pryor, who's kind of a major league-ready reliever prospect, and Charlie Furbush. Furbush. Yes. Furbush.

Furbush. Furbush. Furbush. Yes. Furbush. So that didn't happen. So he rejected that trade, and the Rangers are reportedly moving on from Justin Upton also. Although I don't really ever believe that anyone is moving on from Justin Upton rumors ever.

Yeah, but don't you sort of feel like, I mean, you wrote the piece about Justin Upton's place on the trade market earlier this offseason and what it means, but don't you sort of feel like at this point, even if the Diamondbacks were just sort of bluffing or floating ideas or fishing, at this point, don't you sort of feel like now they don't have a choice?

I mean, can they really go into the season with Justin Upton at this point don't you sort of feel like now they don't have a choice i mean can they really go into the season with justin upton at this point i mean yeah i guess they can uh but i mean they had justin upton sort of uh espn the magazine wrote a long piece about justin upton's season um and he was frustrated by a lot of these things and felt like it affected his play somewhat. And so certainly he would be exponentially more frustrated now that he has literally been traded away and then forced back to the team that didn't want him. So in a way, it feels like the Diamondbacks have just, like, maybe... I mean, they haven't lost all leverage.

They have the player everybody wants, and they have, I mean, whatever trade they make, they have the best player in that trade. But they have lost, it seems to me, a lot of leverage. This could not probably have gone a lot worse for them. Yeah, I guess there's some truth to that, definitely. I don't know how much, I mean, certainly he must feel unwanted at this point.

It's pretty clear that they are trying to trade him actively and have been for some time and are trying harder than ever, apparently. So, yeah, you would think that would maybe affect his motivation to some extent. motivation to some extent clearly he i mean it seems likely that he doesn't have much of a future with the team whether he's traded now or or later it seems inevitable yeah when we talk about players who are um uh i am already blanking on the word the nyquil might be quick kicking uh what do they call that when they kick you traded? Untouchable. Yeah. When we talk about players who are untraceable.

Oh, wait. There is another. Unreachable also. Yes, or unreachable. Part of what might go into that is the idea that you don't put the guy up. You don't even listen to the guy because if the odds are that a trade is not going to happen or even if the possibility is that a trade is not going to happen, you don't want it getting out that you were listening to offers for him. You're sort of positioning yourself – you're kind of like – you're broadcasting your loyalty to the player in a way. you're broadcasting your loyalty to the player in a way.

And so if you're not like sort of eager to trade your top prospect, then you say he's untouchable because you don't want it out there that you're listening to offers on it. And I think this sort of indicates why. I mean it's kind of been a – I don't know if it's been a disaster, but I mean it's been nothing but like like like hypotheses about what the diamondbacks don't like about upton and this has been going on two and a half three years and that's a terror or i guess one and a half two years at least that's a kind of a terrible thing to have going on between you and your franchise player and uh so yeah so it

just got worse today so i guess maybe that's why people broadcast the idea of untouchability, even if it's not technically true. I mean, what's to gain from listening unless you think that there's really a coup out there for you to get? Yeah, that's one of the things that I wrote about in that article is that – I did not read the article. It's out of date now anyway. it's out of date now anyway but I wrote about the fact that Kevin Towers just seems to be

the rare GM who will just always give you a quote about what he's doing or what he's thinking and you don't know that it's necessarily an accurate reflection of what he's doing or thinking but he will say something so if you go to Kevin Towers

and say are you listening to Kevin Towers and say, are you listening to offers on Justin Upton or would you be willing to trade Justin Upton, he will not say no comment or he will not deflect it. He will say something that these days kind of meets the threshold for news that you can then report and say that the Diamondbacks are willing to listen or trade him or some combination of those words. And so that's kind of why it kept coming up over and over and over again, because periodically someone would go to Kevin Towers and

ask if he was thinking about trading Justin Upton. And would admit that it it was something he was considering at least or open to and then we'd have a new round of Upton rumors regardless of whether there was really any fire behind the smoke although clearly now there there is Justin Upton has the most random no trade list ever because most players their no trade list is the teams that they think they're going to get traded because all the no trade clause basically is is is leverage and so you you know if you do get traded to that team you want to be able to use that no trade clause to leverage a lengthy extension or something like that and justin uptins is like the red socks so that fits and thex, so that fits,

and the Cubs, so that fits, and the Mariners, who he just apparently hates. I mean, it was weird because nobody seems to be talking about the possibility that this trade is going to happen at this point. It was like, oh, he rejected it, he hates Seattle. Normally what happens is you reject it, and then there's two days where they negotiate, and then there's a three-year extension

tacked on to the end of his contract. i guess justin upton doesn't want to sign a three-year extension because he hates seattle yeah i don't i read something about how they might try something else or try to change his mind or revisit it or or that there's some chance it could be salvaged i don't know yeah it'd, this would be ideal for Seattle, right? I mean, this is, they can't, apparently, based on what they say, they have trouble signing hitters because of their park and such, and because they're not a very good team. But they have the money to spend.

They desperately want a big offensive bat. And so Upton is both like... They've tried to get every one this winter and have failed so far. Josh Hamilton and Nick Swisher and – Exactly. Yeah. So not only is this – not only is Upton valuable because he's a guy who signed for three years at a below market rate and everybody would love to have Justin Upton at those terms. But like they're the rare team that would actually like want to extend him.

But the thing is like Upton is going to hit free agency at 26 or 27 so he probably does I mean he's probably not really that eager to sign an extension what leverage do you have over him he wants to hit free agency I mean imagine the deal that Upton's going to get if he has any sort of a year in his walk year imagine the deal that he's going to get yeah it's pretty rare for a player to become a free agent when he's just sort of entering his prime, and when that does happen, that's when you see the massive deals. Exactly, and a guy with the pedigree of a

number one overall pick, I mean, basically it hasn't happened since A-Rod. Yeah, and he's got, what, he has three seasons left, and he is 25. So there's basically no leverage that the Mariners have to make this straight happen, so I guess that's why nobody He's got, what, he has three seasons left, and he is 25. So there's basically no leverage that the Mariners have to make this straight happen. So I guess that's why nobody, I mean, like, yeah, Rosenthal mentioned that it could still happen in the original piece,

but it just seems like everybody instantly moved on. There's not like a countdown clock going at MLB Trade Rivers. It's just like, oh, he rejected it, and now the Rangersangers don't have to neither and so now we move on to the brave whatever yeah and the rangers seemed like a good fit and a good match and now maybe they're not yeah yeah so so i wonder whether they will get stuck with him and it will be awkward. Yeah. Well, they won't have trouble moving him. They'll just have trouble moving him for a better package than they almost just got and maybe than they would prefer to get. What do you think about the package? I mean, who would have won this trade?

What would we be saying if this traded out? Well, I would be passing the buck to our prospect people, partially, too. No. Yeah, well, I was trying to think of, I don't know, comparing it to previous deals this offseason. I mean, I guess it seems like a decent deal. I mean, when people were saying that the Mariners were talking to the Marlins about Stanton, they were saying that maybe there would be three of their top five prospects or whatever,

and this is two of their top five prospects plus a couple of useful pieces that are ready right now. pieces that are ready right now. And that seems pretty good for a guy who, I mean, he's signed at a reasonable rate, certainly, especially in 2013, but not a tremendous amount of surplus value after that, I guess. He'll be making 14 and a quarter, 14 and a half the next two years after that. And I don't know, he's been up and down and inconsistent and there is all the stuff that we don't really know about why Arizona might want to trade him. So it seems like a pretty good package to get back, I would think. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. For what it's worth, I would, I mean, I'd rather have, I don't know if it's always right to use this as the comparison,

but I would rather have Upton with his current contract status than Shields in his current contract status. And I would rather have the package that the Rays got than the package that the Diamondbacks would have got. So I don't know if that's saying that I like the deal. It's saying I like the deal more than a deal that we agreed we didn't like. But, I mean, Walker is a pitching prospect, and those are cool. One of the very best there is.

One of the very best there is. But, I mean, it's three years of upton that's not insubstantial um and i don't know i mean yeah i i to be honest the idea so somebody i think rosenthal tweeted that that some anonymous guy some anonymous man in baseball said that that uh upton just saved Jack Z's job. And I don't feel like if I were the Mariners owner, I would be dissatisfied by this move. I think this move would have fit what the Mariners need.

It would have traded from depth. I'm not a big Nick Franklin fan personally. And if you trade two relievers and one pitching prospect who hasn't – I mean Walker is awesome. I love Walker. But for Upton, for three years of Upton, sure. I'd have taken it. To me, this is not a move I would have hated at all. Yeah, me neither. So should we look at what Mariners fans think because Sullivan, Jeff Sullivan has a poll.

All right. So first though, we need to decide how to correct for hometown bias. So normally what I find is that hometown fans think that every trade that you propose is less favorable to their team than it actually is. But every trade that actually happens is more favorable to their team than it actually is. But every trade that actually happens is more favorable to their team than it actually is. So what do we consider this? It is a trade that was proposed and happened, but then unhappened. Yeah, maybe it's a fair assessment then. I don't know.

I mean, hometown fans tend to overrate their own prospects because they've been reading about how great they're going to be for years. Yeah, they also, I think, overrate their own team's needs, especially vis-a-vis dingers. Dingers being a very emotional subject. All right, so we'll just call it a wash. We'll say that the Mariners fan reaction is an accurate reflection of the fairness of this trade. All right, so I'm clicking now.

858 total votes. 14% very pleased. 10% very displeased. So that's a slight edge on the extremes. 37% somewhat pleased and 22% somewhat displeased. So that's a slight edge on the extremes 37 somewhat pleased and 22 somewhat displeased so that's a fairly large edge and 15 neutral so apparently this would have been a moderately but decisively good move for the mariners had it happened or a popular move at least for them yeah i think it would have been, especially if you consider the

fact that, I mean, if you look at it from the perspective that they know Upton has the no trade clause, they know Upton's going to want to negotiate something, and they probably want to negotiate something. Like if they have to give him five years more and a hundred million dollars more, even three years into the future, I bet they'd be thrilled with that. That would be great for them, right? I mean, to get up for eight years and $130 million would probably be swell. So they probably were thinking that that was the outcome if this were to happen. And so I think that would have been good for Seattle.

I would have liked that. And then, you know, who knows? I mean, I think that they have an artificially low payroll right now. So then maybe they take the money that they still have inside Michael Bourne and that's a pretty good team. Yeah. He'd be a good fit for them. Um, and it's interesting that the anonymous baseball person said that thing about Jack C because I've heard, uh, or I've read the same sort of thing about how there's pressure on him to win now. And I guess we even maybe talked about how there's pressure on him to win now. And presumably adding Upton would have made it more likely that they would win now. And maybe

that could have saved his job. Who knows? I don't actually know that his job is in that much jeopardy, but if it is, I guess that would have helped. I quit. Yeah? Done. Okay. Well, we made it before you passed out. So you will rest and recuperate over the weekend,

and we will come back at full strength on Monday. Email us your questions at podcast at baseballperspectives.com.