Tanner Talk: Breaking Down the Wells Trade

Hello, I’m starting a new segment on this blog called Tanner Talk. I will be writing this segment every Friday, giving my opinions not only from around the baseball world, but from a specific point of view; I’ll be focusing on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. I will refrain from using the whole name for obvious reasons and I will stick with calling them the Halos or just the Angels.

Now that we’ve have gotten that out of the way, we can start.

January 21, 2011: The Angels acquired Vernon Wells of the Blue Jays, for Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera. Say what you want about this trade, but I’m only going to say two things:

1) This was a knee-jerk reaction to losing out on Carl Crawford.

2) This was a great trade for the Blue Jays

The Jays dumped Wells and his albatross of a contract (4 years 86MM) for a LF and a 1B/C/DH. Then they flipped Napoli to the Rangers for Frank Francisco. This freed up a ton of money for them to extend Jose Bautista long-term. Now enough about the Blue Jays… what about the Angels?

The Angels were looking for a LF upgrade and Carl Crawford seemed to be the guy they were looking at to replace Juan Rivera. They ultimately got out-bidded by the Red sox for the LF. I’m not too sure what was going on through Reagins’ mind but it seemed that he found a replacement as he was talking to Jim Hendry. A supposed deal was Fukudome, Gorzelanny, and Alfosnso Soriano for Scott Kazmir, Mike Napoli, and Juan Rivera. Talks were going on, until the cubs traded Gorzelanny to the Nationals. But talks continued as another deal would’ve been: Soriano and John Grabow to the Angels for Mike Napoli, Juan Rivera, and a minor league reliever. Sources say they were close to a deal and everybody was going to sign off on it, but the GM from Toronto Alex Anthopoulos stepped in and offered Wells. The Angels chose Wells, even though he was more expensive than Soriano, because they knew he was younger, had a better glove and was more of a complete player than Soriano. So that’s what happened, now let’s analyze this trade.

The Angels took on a huge contract, and Wells’ numbers have been heavily influenced by hitting in the AL East bandboxes although he only had 2 seasons in which he hit over 30 homeruns. The Halos gave away two players who were valued higher than what they were acquired for. They could have easily traded Mike Napoli to a team such as the Phillies, Mets, Pirates, Brewers or Astros for a reliever or two. I believe the Angels could’ve sent Rivera and Napoli to the Phillies for Antonio Bastardo, Vance Worley, and a B prospect. The Phillies were looking for an outfielder that was right-handed, and they could’ve used Napoli as an upgrade over Ruiz. Basically saying that Napoli’s value was pretty high after a strong year offensively and could net a starter and a reliever (or 2 relievers) and Rivera could net just a prospect, since he would be the new 4^th outfielder/platoon with Brown. Or they could’ve kept Napoli and just traded away Rivera, leaving the lineup to look something like this:

1) Aybar-SS

2) Kendrick-2B

3) Hunter-RF

4) Trumbo-1B

5) Napoli-DH

6) Callaspo-3B

7) Podsednik-LF

8) Mathis-C (by putting Mathis in this lineup, I’m not supporting that he should be in the lineup)

9) Bourjos-CF

You might have noticed a player or two not on the current roster on that lineup. Those players would be Bobby Abreu and Scott Podsenik. Bobby Abreu would ultimately be the 4th outfielder, limiting his plate appearances so that his 9MM option doesn’t vest. We would sign Podsednik to a 1 year deal so that when his one year is up we can plug Mike Trout into that lineup and have him play LF. Personally, that’s what I wanted during our offseason. But now we have a logjam with Trout, Abreu, and Wells (not to mention Hunter is a FA in 2012). Here are some stats from Napoli, Rivera, and Wells for this year:

Vernon Wells: .208/.241/.373 17 HR, 45 RBI’s, 8 doubles, 15 walks, 65 strikeouts. WAR: -.04

dWAR: -0.4 ~23MM

Mike Napoli- .289/.390/.592 18 HR, 46 RBI’s, 15 doubles, 36 walks, 50 strikeouts. WAR: 3.1

dWAR: 0.5 ~5.8MM

Juan Rivera: .264/.322/.393 8 HR, 41 RBI’s, 17 doubles, 28 walks, 53 strikeouts. WAR: -0.2

dWAR: -0.7 ~5.2MM

The numbers speak for themselves, so the final word is:

What was Tony Reagins thinking when he traded for Vernon Wells?

Thanks for reading, the first segment of: Tanner Talk

See you next Friday!