Making a Deal: Twins Trade Gomez for Hardy
Holy crap, folks.
According to a tweet from the Brewers*, the Twins have traded Carlos Gomez to the Brewers for JJ Hardy.
* Confirmed by both Aaron Gleeman and Joe Christensen
I’m going to let that sink in for a second.
Yes, Wild Bill Smith has done some more dealing. He just unloaded one of the last (disappointing) pieces we got from the Mets for Johan Santana … for a promising shortstop entering his prime years (he’ll be 27 in 2010).
Gomez and Hardy are both coming off down years in 2009; before this season, Hardy was widely viewed as an upcoming star in the game, posting WAR totals of +4.5 and +4.9 (All Star caliber totals) before crashing to +1.4 wins in an injury-plagued 2009 season. Gomez, meanwhile, played himself out of the Twins’ outfield by posting a typically terrible offensive line accompanied by a significant step back in terms of his defense.
This move helps the Brewers shed some salary, as Hardy is entering his third year of arbitration and is probably set to make around $6-7M this season. The Twins, moving into their new stadium, are in position to add some payroll, and this is a strong move that does that while helping the team considerably.
The shortstop question is answered, loudly, for 2010 … and there’s no reason the Twins can’t ink Hardy to a long term extension midseason if they like the cut of his jib. Or get draft picks as compensation if he leaves as a free agent — Hardy is probably set to be at least a Type B free agent. A big year would make him a Type A. But given the dearth of quality middle infield options in the upper levels of the Twins’ system, I’d say an extension is more likely.
Meanwhile, the Twins have sacrificed some excellent CF defense by losing Gomez — and, importantly, some excellent corner-OF defense by having to move Span to a permanent position in CF. Span is a mediocre defensive CF and an elite defensive RF; this move promises more playing time to Delmon Young in LF,* and removes elite defense from both Gomez and Span.
* Unless Gardy finally switches Young and Cuddyer now that the baggy is no longer a consideration?
At the same time, the offense is set to look a whole lot better with this acquisition. Hardy is solid defensively, and has the potential to be a top offensive performer from the shortstop position. He doesn’t have much in the way of plate discipline, but does have some good pop in his bat. I can see Gardy sliding him into the 2-hole, where he’d be a better option than everyone but Mauer, or to shore up the bottom of the lineup.
All in all, I think this is a fantastic move for the Twins. It’s definitely a win-now move, too, which presumably will send a message to Joe Mauer and to prospective free agents that the Twins aren’t playing around.
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“2-hole, where he’d be a better option than everyone but Mauer”
I’m having a hard time coming up with a “hole” where Mauer would NOT be the best possible option!
Fair enough … but if we’re going to fight about it I’d say Morneau’s probably better in the 4-hole than Mauer is. Kind of pointless to split that hair, though.
The main point is that Hardy is a huge upgrade over Cabrera, Punto, or Tolbert batting between Span & Mauer.
My first and initial reaction to hearing the deal was “I dont know if I like this and I’m going to need to be convinced this is a good idea.”
Reason being (the main one) you now have moved Span to CF where he is a tad above avg defensively, removing him from either corner spots where he excels defensively and replacing LF w/ what is probably the worst defensive outfielder in the AL. I would think this could cause us to lose more runs than gain in the outfield and overall costing the team “wins” over the course of the year…
Fangraphs is down right now, but during the season last year, with Span in LF and Gomez in CF… the Twins has a top 3 outfield (defensively) in all of baseball.. and those two combined to save around 35+ runs… w/ a Young in LF, Span in CF combo, they combined to save negative runs (can’t recall the exact number, but I think it was around -15… maybe more
Once Fangraphs gets up again, I can check these figures.
Until then, I’m still not convinced this was the correct move for our outfield, with keeping one of the if not THE worst AL player in baseball last season.
Delmon was (one of) the worst player(s) in baseball in 2009 until his late-season surge pushed up his overall numbers. He’s still awful in the field (really, really awful), but he wasn’t close to the worst overall this year.
And I agree that this hurts our OF defense — which is especially a problem given our flyball-heavy staff — but it significantly helps our offense and our infield defense. I’d guess that we’ll come out ahead, runs-wise, because of this move.
Also … I’m guessing that Fangraphs is down right now because every Twins fan is running to compare Gomez and Hardy, and their servers can’t handle it.
But really, any time you can turn your 4th OF into a potential-All-Star SS, you basically have to do it.
I agree to a point, I just think Delmon was our 4th OF and not Gomez….
Delmon started 93 games in 2009, to 86 for Gomez. More telling: Gomez came in as a defensive replacement 46 times … that’s how you treat a 4th OF.
I’m not saying I necessarily disagree, I’m just saying that I think Gardy disagrees.
And it seems that the comments coming out of the Twins today indicate that they were going to keep either Gomez OR Young, and Gardy/Vavra were much higher on Young’s future than Gomez’s.
Right, I’m not arguing how they used Gomez… they obviously gave Young more playing time than Gomez and he was more a defensive replacement… but I dont really agree w/ Gardy’s assessments of players, because he doesn’t look at everything subjectively, he “thinks” and “feels” a certain way and that’s how it goes…
There’s no questions Hardy is needed at SS, as he is a significant upgrade defensively over any other of our options and has shown offensive production in 2 out of the last 3 seasons, so there’s still upside and he’s young enough to turn into an elite player or at least above avg…
I guess my argument is whether it was wise to send Gomez over Young really… solely on the fact that it hinders our OF defense more so than most people think… and thats not suggesting Young would have landed Hardy (he wouldn’t have)
No, Young certainly would not have gotten us Hardy. The Brewers have more than enough sluggers who can barely field the corner positions … and their sluggers actually, you know, “slug.”
But I’m not assuming that the Twins are just saying they like Young’s prospects more than Gomez’s just because that’s who they managed to trade. I think they evaluated where they were at in the interest of solving the “4 outfielders problem,” and decided that they’d rather stick with Young’s potential to turn it around offensively than with Gomez’s. If that’s what happened, and if that’s what they think, I’m fine with it.
As Dave Cameron pointed out this afternoon, the Twins got a guy who could easily be worth $15-20M per season for the next two seasons, and we’ll pay him less than half that. Maybe looking at it this way can work:
Hardy will get paid $5-7M per season and be worth $10-20M. Best case, we’re getting a surplus of $30M. Worst case, we’re getting a surplus of $6-8M. Gomez might have been worth $6-8M to the Twins in 2010-2011, but it wasn’t that likely. There was almost no way Gomez would have been worth $30M … the Twins are coming out way ahead on this deal.
What is the formula used to calculate WAR totals? It’s like the only stat you use here and I’m just wondering what it is.
Sirsean… good points and that’s what I needed to start convincing me otherwise… I probably should focus more on what we got than what we are now stuck with (Young in LF) and let it be… or analyze more after next season?
Do we now give another incentive deal to Crede to cover 3B? what’s plan B for that? I just want to make sure Tolbert never sees the inside of Target Field, unless it’s in the stands….
The reason I use WAR/RAR from Fangraphs is because I think it does the best job of boiling down performance/value into a single number, and it does it for an individual player and for a team. (Check this out.)
Basically, the idea is to remove context-dependent data like batting w/RISP or your BABIP, and to combine defensive data (based on UZR) with adjustments for your position (to accommodate for the fact that it’s harder to play C, SS, or CF than it is to play LF, RF, or 1B, etc). You want to define “replacement level” such that a) a replacement player can easily be found in the minors or as a castoff, and b) a replacement player is worth the major league minimum. The higher above replacement level a player is, the better he is and the more he’s worth.
I personally think it’s the closest anyone’s come to a single number that measures the overall value of a player and his production; it’s not perfect (it doesn’t measure catcher defense and doesn’t include baserunning beyond SB/CS, for two quick examples), but that just means something better will someday come along.
If you want more complicated numbers, this is the link for you. That’ll help you calculate WAR for yourself … though it’s not really necessary thanks to Fangraphs.
An important thing to note about WAR is that there’s only a certain number of “wins above replacement” available across the entire league. It averages out to 2.5 wins per player — which means a 2-2.5 win player is average, and is virtually guaranteed to be so until they either change the number of teams or the number of games played or the size of the roster. That’s why it’s important to remember that having average players is a good thing — very very rarely does a team have zero starters below average.
And it’s really the only stat I use when directly comparing players or attempting to capture “monetary” value (which multiplies WAR by the value of a win on the free agent market in a particular year, which is currently around$4.5-5M per win). There’s considerably more to player evaluation overall than any single number can possibly offer. But it’s easier to compare just one number, I think this is the best one, and outside of the actual gameplay I think it’s important to measure a player’s value based on context-independent data.
WAR = WARP (Wins Above Replacement “player”)
To compute WARP, Baseball Prospectus uses three other proprietary statistics: Batting Runs Above Replacement (BRAR), Fielding Runs Above Replacement (FRAR), and Pitching Runs Above Replacement (PRAR). The three numbers are added and divided by the number of runs per win that season (another proprietary number. In recent years, this number is around 10).
You’ll then have to check each of those 3 stats to see how they compute them…
MarkW: I certainly hope Wild Bill isn’t finished dealing yet, and I think that’s a fairly safe assumption.
And there are plenty of options. I’d hope they chase Chone Figgins for 3B, but if he gets too expensive we can go with Valencia at 3B and pursue Polanco for 2B.
Plenty of stuff to talk about all winter, really.
Right, what Sirsean said!
WAR is from Fangraphs, and WARP is from BP.
I prefer Fangraphs’ calculations, myself, but the numbers are generally pretty similar.
I think Fangraphs does a better job of positional adjustments and defensive calculations.
Figgins/Polanco? U think he’d get that “WILD”? I’m not used to these dealings so quickly and definitely not more than one significant change in the offseason (not sure any of us are)…
I think Figgins would demand more than what we can afford or should afford… I would think Punto’s are starting 2B for this year at least due to the contract, ugh. But I’m all for revamping the INF.
I also think Figgins will be too expensive, but it seems to me that he should be the starting point. (He’d be the clear #2 hitter, pushing Hardy down to like #7.) If we don’t get Figgins, I’m all for giving the 3B job to Valencia, possibly with Harris and/or Punto getting time early in the season to transition Valencia in.
As for 2B, I think Polanco should be affordable for us, and is clearly a better 2B option than Punto or anything else we have available. I’d rather not just give Punto the starting spot now without thinking about an upgrade. There are other 2B options like Hudson, etc, that I think we shouldn’t think about too much unless their price falls way down.
I don’t expect Smith to sign both Figgins and Polanco, or even to address both 3B and 2B. But I think that’s where hope should start. (That and signing a top starter, but I think that’s even more unlikely.)
Does Jason Pridie become the fourth outfielder now? Ben Revere? Seems way to soon to think about Hicks.
I would think its Pridie. He was on the roster in September. I would prefer Ben Revere get regular playing time in the minors than being a bench player in the majors.
I agree re: Pridie, as the 4th OF.
And if anything happens to any of our outfielders, I think Rene Tosoni would get the call to step in and play regularly.
(Tosoni being another guy who should be playing every day right now.)
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