Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 581: The Mysterious Josh Donaldson Deal

Episode Date: December 1, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss the surprising Josh Donaldson-Brett Lawrie deal between the A’s and the Blue Jays.

Good morning and welcome to episode 581 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, brought to you by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. How are you, Ben? Very well, thank you. Did you have a nice Thanksgiving weekend of play indexing with your family? Yeah, pretty good. Actually with my girlfriend's family.

They're big play indexers. Was there any controversy, you know, Thanksgiving dinner table controversy over, you know, what filters to run or, you know, whether... Yeah, not everyone subscribes to the baseball history started in 1988 viewpoint that you have espoused. Some of them actually like to go back to divisional era or expansion era. Yeah, it can definitely get tense. A lot of disagreement about whether the rookie filter is accurate enough to be worthwhile or not. Yeah, where to set the percent playing time filter. That can get ugly

um anyway uh just a little thanksgiving humor for everybody uh anything to talk about not really i've been traveling and writing while traveling and otherwise not feeling all that plugged in so i haven't collected my usual amount of banter and the submissions for non-revelatory rumors have slowed after our stern warnings about standards so nothing nothing much We got a couple, though. One of which I really wanted to mention, but I'm not seeing it at the moment, so maybe I will. We did get the Yankees are contemplating a move but haven't committed to one. Yes.

Which is a nice one because it's specifically about a player but is not. Yes. As a Nick Cofardo rumor he was talking About a bunch of teams the Cubs very Interested in Leicester the Giants becoming More interested in Leicester and the Yankees contemplating a move But haven't committed to one

I suppose I suppose that qualifies Uh The they're contemplating a move But haven't committed to one I feel like the second half of that is fairly redundant. I think, I think that's what, what sells it. Yeah, you're right. I think if it were simply the Yankees are contemplating a move on Lester, it would be a well-trod territory. Uh, and, uh, you know, interesting because the Yankees, whether the Yankees are involved in a pursuit of a player

is actually news much more than any other team because they move the market. I mean, agents, basically, you get the feeling sometimes are just trying to get the Yankees in it, that sometimes it feels like they're just waiting to avoid signing a deal until they can get the Yankees in the bidding. And so if the Yankees in the bidding. And so if the Yankees did jump into the bidding on Leicester,

it would be big news for the Cubs and for the Red Sox and for everybody. But having committed to one is really the non-revelatory part of that. This is the other one, though. This is from Nokiman, I think, but it might be Nokoman. Probably Nokiman, who think, but it might be Nokoman. Probably Nokiman. Who sent us this one. Told that there have not been any recent trade discussions between Braves and A's.

And that's an out of context classic. Out of context that's perfect. Not just because of the facts themselves. If the tweet were, there have not been any recent trade discussions

between Braves and A's, out of context, that would also be amusing. But to be told that would be especially good. However, there were lots of rumors about trade discussions between the Braves and A's and Justin Upton. And so that's actual journalism,

I would say. Which is funny because some of the replies to this tweet include Gunner saying, wow, now that's journalism. But it is. That's actually journalism. How about this one? This also comes via Cofardo, but it is not a quote, but paraphrasing something that Mark Rogers said. Mark Rogers is Andrew Miller's agent, and he said that Miller is moving closer to a decision. That's something that we hear periodically. Moving closer, I mean, that is assumed. We assume that Andrew Miller will sign somewhere before opening day, and therefore he is, by definition, moving closer to a decision.

Every second brings us closer to a decision. So that doesn't tell us whether he is actually close. So that seems pretty free of information. Yeah, especially because it's irrelevant to anybody like who cares like uh it doesn't say who he's gonna sign for or where and um i guess i i get i mean if i had that i'd tweet it i'm not even a newsbreaker and i'd still tweet it. So I'm tolerant of that one, but you're right. That is, a lot of these non-revelatory rumors are non-revelatory in the phrasing.

This one is non-revelatory in the information. Yes. You're right. It reveals nothing of value. And you're right. He is, it's like that, they might be giant song. Do you know that one? We'll have to get it for the, We'll have to get it for the music. But it goes, you're older than you ever were and now you're older still.

You're older than you ever were and now you're older still. You know that song? Older. They Might Be Giants. You're older than you've ever been and now you're older still. So it's basically like that, right? It's also, on the other hand, it's also a lot like that Bob Dylan lyric. Younger than that now.

No, no. He not busy being born, is busy dying. Which sounds very, very deep, but is actually the same thing. All right. So anyway, maybe we've categorized all the non-revelatory rumors. Anyway, are you surprised that Ernesto Freire, proven closer, and I sort of say that mockingly, but also like less than a year ago, he was the closer on a first place ball club.

Are you surprised that he signed for $800,000? Does that seem low to you for a redemption closer? Particularly because he's got a year of he's got two years of service time before he's even a free agent, and so if he turns out to be a steal, you've got him under club control for next year too. Yeah, that does seem low.

I mean, he was quite bad. He didn't just lose his job. He didn't just struggle a little, but he still struck guys out. It wasn't like he was incapable of missing bats anymore, but he wasn't as capable as he'd been before, and he gave up tons of home runs and was just awful generally.

Same X fit, basically, as his career rate although not not a great x fit but uh rj anderson uh like a week ago in his ta basically predicted exactly this move he did not name free uh but said basically you could bet your house on them signing some uh down on his luck closer shortly uh for for next, and they did. So good job, RJ. That's what I'm sure everybody is here to listen to us talk about. So Josh Donaldson.

Yeah. I guess there are all sorts of trades that surprise us. There are moves that surprise us. And we get excited easily, the collective lot of us. We get excited when a player gets traded that we were not expecting to get traded or that we think is pretty good. But Josh Donaldson is, I'm trying to think of any player who combines skill and service time the way that Josh Donaldson does, who has ever been traded.

Like there are, you know, a top prospect will be traded sometimes, although extremely rarely, as I think you showed. When did you show that? That was after the Will Myers trade, I think. Yeah, after the Will Myers trade. But Will Myers was a rookie. He was nothing. He was an unknown quantity. But Josh Donaldson has been one of the three or maybe arguably one of

the three or four best players in baseball over the last two years. Certainly, I would say one of the, I don't know, eight-ish best players in baseball and has four years of club control remaining. It's, to go back to RJ, who wrote this trade up up and this is now up on the website but basically this is like if you've always wondered what a team could get for Andrew McCutcheon or something like that, this is it Josh Donaldson is more or less at that level of play or has been over the last two years

and is going to be under club control for four years it is nearly unprecedented, What is your take? Well, it's definitely atypical for someone like Donaldson to get traded. Donaldson is also not the typical player with between two and three years of service time. He is, even though he lost his rookie eligibility in 2012, he is a week away from turning 29 years old. And he's also a super two player, which means that he is about to be, he is arbitration eligible for the first time. So he's presumably exiting a short and sweet prime at the same time as he is going to start making much more money. So that distinguishes him somewhat from the typical player.

Like when I was writing about him, I compared him to Derek Norris just because Derek Norris is kind of in the same boat in that he broke through with the A's in 2012. Derek Norris is kind of in the same boat in that he broke through with the A's in 2012, but he is 26 years old and he's not arbitration eligible until next year. So not that he's anything like the player that Donaldson has been, but just Donaldson doesn't really fit the profile of a guy who gets traded and he also doesn't fit the profile of of a player with his profile not that that really makes sense but but you know what i mean so those those are the reasons why presumably oakland was willing to surrender him and why they didn't get just an enormous massive haul in return yeah do you you feel like the fact that he was,

so Pocota is, as we've talked about, Pocota has a longer memory than we sometimes do, and will incorporate some aspect of his pre-stardom days in its projections. And those days are pretty recent He was He had basically a good Like month and a half in 2012 But was also Demoted and Was let's see the A's traded for Brandon Inge in his last

Throws yeah he was up and down Twice Sizemore got hurt In spring training and then Donaldson Started with the team but he didn't hit it all He was so bashing in the minor leagues during his time there in at triple a but he wasn't hitting at all until his final call up on mid-august when he just started hitting like like josh donaldson has yeah the last couple years he spent his entire age 25 season in the minors. And so do you think that the fact that his track record is relatively short is as significant as it usually would be?

Or is there like no doubt? Well, I guess it could be significant in two ways. One is you could, you know, want to regret some and say, well, I don't know, even though it's two full seasons, we're not quite sure. And the other is just to say, well, you know, maybe this is his peak. Maybe he's a late bloomer. Maybe he flames out early. You know, there's always the Ryan Ludwig precedent in my mind.

Anytime somebody explodes as a kind of late bloomer who arrives in the majors really late, arrives in the majors really late. I guess how certain are you that Donaldson as a 29-year-old and 30-year-old and 31-year-old is basically going to be as good as he was at 27 and 28? Pretty confident. I don't know. There's nothing about what he's done that really makes me all that scared. Like I would, I might feel a little bit better about it if, if he had been a top ranked prospect and had been good right from the start. Although obviously, he was, he was, he was, yeah, I mean, he was, he, a 40-something overall pick in the 2007 draft. He was, you know, he was a prospect. He was a player, but he didn't make any lists or anything, did he?

He wasn't highly touted. So, I mean, if all along scouts had projected stardom and his stats had suggested stardom maybe i'd feel a bit more confident in him of course if that had been the case then he wouldn't be 29 and in his entering his fourth season in the majors basically except for that quick little call up in 2010 or whenever it was so i i don't know i nothing about him screams decline candidate to me he is your mythical i don't know if he's mythical but he is your example of the guy who changed his swing mechanics yeah and then became yes and and he based them on jose batista who was an earlier example of that i'm looking up pakoda is very bullish on him he is the eighth best player in

baseball this year according to pakoda in a virtual tie with longoria mccutchen and batista they're essentially they're all tied for fifth, along with Buster Posey, at about five wins. So they're behind Trout, Stanton, Cano, Cabrera. And then those five are basically all tied for the fifth best player in baseball. Seem right? Yeah, sure.

So even with Pakoda's long memory, it doesn't really downgrade him. Exactly. Yeah, I was kind of expecting. I was hoping for better. Or worse. Yeah, I was hoping for a more compelling projection, but that's kind of just what's expected.

And so then I guess the question is, why would the ace trade him? And it's sort of interesting because on the one hand, some of the response to this trade has been that it really shows how prospects are much harder to get out of teams these days. You would think 10 years ago, for instance, if you were trading a player of Josh Donaldson's stature, if Billy Bean were trading a player of Josh Donaldson's stature, if Billy Bean were trading a player of Josh Donaldson's stature, you would expect him to get a package

of high-level prospect talent, elite guys, top 10 type prospects, or at least one to carry the deal, and then a number of guys. I mean, a real, like the Dan Heron package, right? And so the fact that Billy Bean didn't is a sign that prospects are hard to get out of teams, that they're just not that willing to trade them, even for a player like Donaldson. And yet, five months ago, Billy Bean traded Addison Russell, who might be the best prospect in baseball right now. And so I can't quite get a handle on whether Billy Bean thinks that prospects are, I guess they both fit into the idea that prospects are just, maybe it's just that Billy Bean hates prospects. Maybe the common thread is that in both cases billy bean does not like them prefers

the cost-controlled young player who has major league experience to the prospect in both cases so maybe that's what it is but if that's well if that's what it is what is the motivation behind this move uh well he uh he gets he gets laurie you mean la Laurie, yeah. He gets Laurie instead of a prospect, I guess. Yeah, right. Because he trades Donaldson, but not for prospects. But then, I don't know. It's really hard to tie this into any kind of consistent philosophy, which maybe we just shouldn't bother doing.

Because, I mean, coming on the heels of a season in which they traded a bunch of prospects for veterans and then made the playoffs and then signed Billy Butler to just like immediately after that trade. I can't figure any of it out anymore. Like they really don't like no, no move they make matches philosophically the next move they make. The only thing, and I guess that, like, we shouldn't be so aggressive in trying to force a philosophy on each GM and each team. And if the players are good, which they basically have been, then I don't know why we think that they need to be forced into a little

box of the type of moves they can make. So it's good that he's not making the same move over and over. But none of these moves make sense next to the one after them. They all look like a different GM making them. Maybe he's going for the sort of, I don't know, polymathic GM strategy. It's just like, we'll do anything, we will excel in every kind of player acquisition. But it does, I don't know. So Samarja's going to get traded, probably, right? Yeah.

And it just, I know that they got Samarja because they needed him last year. It was four last year. So the fact that they trade him now, it's not quite fair to compare what return they get for what they gave up. But there's no way they're going to get anything like the package they gave up, right? Probably not. What would be? If they got Mookie Betts for Samarja?

That would be pretty good. That would be great, I think. Marja? That would be pretty good. That would be great, I think. So is that the line, like anything short of Mookie Betts is going to be a disappointment? I don't know what they're going to get. They might get four players with two years of service time who none of them

are very good, but all of them are contributors. It's very hard to say. I don't know they're not gonna they're not gonna get an addison russell back or anything close to that but as you said that as you said it's it's i mean that was a 2014 move in large part and so maybe it's it's not fair to to compare packages but i don't know it's they are they're packages. But I don't know. They are a confusing team. I mean, they've always been kind of a confusing team,

or at least they have been ever since they evolved away from the original Moneyball book strategy. And we followed them from one roster construction philosophy to the next and always try to attach some over just every move that is make we try to cram into some kind of philosophy whereas we don't normally do that with most teams there's always this sense that every move the a's make must be part of this master plan. And if we could just identify something, whether it's fly ball hitters or platoon guys or depth or multi-position players or whatever it is, then that will just unlock the key to what they are doing. Maybe sometimes it does. I don't know if it does this time. I mean, there's always a temptation to classify teams as rebuilding or contending,

even though we acknowledge that it's more complicated than that. You can often say which side of that spectrum a team is leaning toward. And with the A's, it's really hard to say right now because Billy Bean had some comments about how they weren't going to catch the Angels or maybe the Mariners with the group that they had. So they needed to do something different. And he mentioned that they wanted to get younger, that he didn't want the roster to deteriorate. And that seems like a valid concern because as we talked about, as you play indexed several weeks ago, the A's had a historically low number of plate appearances from rookies or plate appearances and combined batters faced from rookies. system has been somewhat depleted by the moves that they've made over the past year so it's hard

to sustain success with without young players and without a farm system and so they just maybe are gonna zigzag back and forth maybe you you trade your young guys for veterans and try to win one year and if that doesn't work out so well then you trade the veterans that you traded for and get prospects back although like you lose some you lose something in the exchange there it's not it's not a perfect exchange because you're you're gonna lose some prospect value but that seems to be the case like i wouldn't rule out the a's being a contending team this year because they just traded their best player. I mean, they got Laurie back.

Maybe Laurie stays healthy for once, in which case he's not that much worse than Donaldson. Maybe he's a couple wins worth, like a healthy full season of Laurie. And then they'll make other moves, who knows what. They'll get a shortstop. They'll do something. so i wouldn't be shocked if they were a contending team despite the fact that they just traded their best player so it's really hard to say i don't know on the on the face of it it doesn't seem like an overwhelming

return but you can imagine it working out in such a way that the A's ultimately win, much like the Rich Harden trade that yielded Donaldson in the first place was criticized at the time. And in the end, if you add up the wins that they gave up and the wins that they got, thanks to Donaldson, it probably comes out in their favor. So maybe Laurie has a good few years. He's entering his prime as Donaldson exits his prime.

The best is perhaps still ahead of him. And then if that's the case, then you only really need one of the other guys to really hit to make up the difference. So you can construct a scenario where it all comes out in the A's favor in the end. It's really incredible how much this team has been built on trades. And it's also incredible how many different trades, how many different teams have been traded with. I sort of have joked in the past about how it seems like they trade with the Nationals every couple weeks or so.

But if you just look at the roster as it it's as it's been they've got you know norris from the nationals with a trade it's 20 i added it up earlier today it's 22 of the players on their 40 men were acquired that's incredible it's amazing yeah it's like it's like 14 out of their presumptive 25 right now, plus, I guess, Jared Parker, who would be starting the season on the DL. So yeah, I took a cursory look at the other teams. I'm going to go back and take a more in-depth look to see if anyone is even close to that.

I know the Astros are like 19 out of 39 right now. And of course, the Astros have been the worst team in baseball over the last couple of years, while the A's have been the worst team in baseball over the last couple years well the A's have been second best in terms of wins so yeah it's amazing to put a team together in such an extreme way and have it work as well as it has so uh Nationals Astros Red Sox Cubs Rangers Angels Mariners Rays Twins White Sox, Padres, Rockies, and Diamondbacks. At least, those are at least the teams that they have traded with for this roster. There might be more.

Interesting thing is they have not made a trade with the Giants. I don't know if that's like a Bay Area rivalry thing or whether it just happens to be the case, but they haven't made a trade since 1990, other than I think there was a 2004 case where some marginal guy was purchased from the Giants, but they haven't made an actual trade in almost 25 years. Well, I was actually wondering, that's what got me sort of thinking about how many teams it was. Originally, what I was thinking about was how it seemed like they always trade with other

stat head teams other than maybe other than the Nationals. And I know that all teams are stat head teams now, but specifically the managers. I mean, you know, we have an idea of which managers, not managers, GMs themselves are kind of more of this type. are kind of more of this type. And so, you know, the Astros, Red Sox, Cubs, Rangers, Angels, Rays, Padres of late have all been those teams. And so I was sort of thinking that there's a trend there, and it's interesting that they haven't traded with the Giants or with the Dodgers

or before the Tommy Malone deal with the Twins or a number of other teams. But I think that once I went through the whole list, that turned out to be nothing at all. That would be interesting because I wonder whether it's easier to trade with a team that sort of evaluates players the way that you do so that you're not completely far apart. But on the other hand, you'd think that the best opportunities would come with teams that maybe aren't looking at the same things that you are, and therefore you could find guys that they're undervaluing or that you think they're undervaluing. It seemed interesting to me for that reason, too. You would think that he would be out there trying to find the sucker. the sucker. I mean, the teams that he's been trading with are basically GMs who we think of as his rivals, as intellectual peers. And so you would think that he'd be out there trying to find the fish at the table. And so then you might then further hypothesize

that after 15 years, there are maybe teams that are just, they realize that they're not going to get anywhere trading with Billy Bean, that it's never going to work out for them. I doubt that's the case, but you might hypothesize that. But then maybe it just comes down to the fact that the teams that are most like Billy Bean in player assessment are most likely to have players that Billy Bean likes, right? There's a reason that those players,

those types of players might end up in those types of organizations. No Phillies on that list. There's very little Braves, right? No Braves. Yeah, I don't think there are any Braves on that list.

If there are, they're from way back. Tim Hudson. Right, yeah. yeah no they traded with the braves a long time ago but these are all other than the diamondbacks these are basically all trades that have come in the last like 24 months that i think um so that might be interesting could be interesting yeah maybe you're right about that yeah uh all right and so the Blue Jays, are they really good? Yeah, it's funny. When I was writing about this trade, I barely wrote about the Blue Jays, and now we barely talked about the Blue Jays,

even though they're the team that got the best player in this deal and got better in the short term. So I don't know. I mean, it seems almost silly to analyze this move right now because it seems like the precursor to subsequent transactions on both sides, just like the Red Sox signings did. So I don't know. The Blue Jays have clearly gotten better with this trade just as they got better with the Russell Martin signing. They have most of a lineup that looks Like it could be a playoff caliber lineup

I mean Donaldson and Martin Combined with Batista and Encarnacion and Reyes And I guess his tourists will be Back and then there's some young guys So I mean sort of And the pitching Still looks kind of thin

But if you're Going to upgrade The pitching without actual Pitchers the best way to do that Is probably signing Russell Martin and Josh Donaldson To play defense for you So that makes them better but I mean They still have some pretty gaping

Holes which I think Alex Anthopoulos Has acknowledged They still don't really have a Second baseman I mean Maybe Asturias is back but But and they don't really have a second baseman i mean maybe as tourist is back but but and they don't really have a left fielder they've got like andy dirks out there is at the top of the depth chart and then they're counting on dalton pompey and centerfield so there are a lot of question marks there still but i'm sure they are a long way away from being finished. So I can envision an end to the offseason where they are realistic playoff contenders.

I don't know whether they are at this moment. I forgot to mention the Orioles, but the Orioles are another team that they traded with last spring. That's interesting. I would have maybe thought that the Blue J, to me, I might have, uh, gone the exact opposite conclusion that right now they look like they could very easily win that division. But by the end of the off season, I'm not sure they will like that. There's just too much time for the Red Sox to, to do a lot more is kind of what I'm worried about from that perspective. to do a lot more is kind of what I'm worried about from that perspective. I can certainly see that happening. But I mean, the Blue Jays, if the season started right now, I might take the Orioles over the Blue Jays as currently constructed. If the season started now, you might take the Orioles over the Blue Jays.

Yeah, without really diving into it, I wouldn't have any way of dividing those three teams, really. They'd be all close enough that I would just wait for some forecasting system to tell me which one was best. No trades with the Mets, interestingly enough. It's kind of interesting, right? Yeah, you'd think Alderson and Bean. You would think. Let's think about it.

For a long time, let's just sit here and think you want to end this show more than I do I could get plenty of work done all right I'll fold first is there anything else to say about this trade well probably not

does this trade alone pass Matthew Trueblood's Jason Hayward day question you remember that one whether there'd be a bigger day This offseason or how many there'd be No I don't think so

This is a more interesting trade than the Hayward trade though right Yes but the Hayward trade also Came on the Russell Martin signing day And this Stanton contract Becoming official day Yes But it's a fun one And it's a perplexing one.

Even after I've written about it and we've talked about it, I don't feel like I have a complete picture or handle on the plan. Yeah, I don't either. I, uh, I don't either. And I don't think that, I don't know. I believe that there is a consistency to all these and that it is to the ace front office's credit that it is not deducible bias. To me, it's impressive.

I mean, I know that there is a logical consistency to them all. The fact that it's not obvious is cool. Somebody will crack cool. Yeah. Somebody will crack it. Okay. So that is enough for today. Hey, wait, though. Real quick.

Not enough for today? Do you like this trade for the A's? I mean, assuming, like, not necessarily should they have done it. I mean, they know what they needed to do. They had to do it. Fine. Okay. For whatever reason, let's just trust they had to do it. Do you like it for them?

Not particularly. I don't either. Just so that we're clear on that, I don't particularly like it. I don't totally hate it. I don't hate it. In fact, I will say I don't hate it. I definitely don't hate it. But I am underwhelmed. Yeah.

That's all. I trust him, but I'm underwhelmed. I agree. Okay. So next time we talk to you will be the listener email show, so send us some at podcast at baseballprospectus.com. Join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. Rate and review us on iTunes and support our sponsor by going to baseballre facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild rate and review us on iTunes and

support our sponsor by going to baseball reference.com subscribing to the play index and using the coupon code BP for a discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription we'll be back later this week