AL Scout on A-Rod: I can't believe anyone would be interested

In Commentary And Analysis, Major League Baseball, Projections by dmick8980 Comments

Every single year we hear about this. Player makes lots of money. Same player isn't worth what he's paid. Not even close. People say this player can't be traded. Every. Single. Year.

Yet every single year these players are traded. Carlos Zambrano was traded last year. The Red Sox traded a bunch of untradeables earlier this year. Milton Bradley was traded. Alfonso Soriano was on his way to the Giants before he declined to accept the trade.

The question isn't whether somebody is tradeable. It's how much money the team will have to send and what can they get in return. Alex Rodriguez is tradeable. It's absurd to suggest he isn't. Here's what A-Rod has done over the last four3 years.

  • 2009: 3.9 rWAR, 4.4 fWAR, 5 WARP
  • 2010: 3.9 rWAR, 3.8 fWAR, 4.9 WARP
  • 2011: 3.7 rWAR, 4.2 fWAR, 2.8 WARP
  • 2012: 2.0 rWAR, 2.2 fWAR, 1.2 WARP

Not surprisingly, he hasn't gotten worse over those years, but he's also probably better than he was in 2012 and even if he wasn't, that's still roughly league average production. There are a lot of teams who would like to add league average production at 3rd base.

Considering his wrist injury, the Yankees would probably have to throw in more money than they otherwise would have to, but they could still easily trade A-Rod.

Let's say A-Rod is only a 2.5 WAR player next year and gets worse by .5 per year. So that's 2.5, 2.0, 1.5, 1.0 and 0.5 WAR over the next 5 years. A-Rod will pass 660 home runs next year so he will get some or all of the marketing bonuses. I'm not sure how that's set up. It's hard to imagine he'd get $30 million just for hitting 660 home runs when he's still a long way from the record set by Barry Bonds. If I had to guess, this is what I'd estimate.

  • 660: $5 million
  • 700: $5 million
  • 750: $5 million
  • 762: $5 million
  • 763: $10 million

Unless he's injured he'll hit 660 next year. There's a decent change he never gets to 700. At the most I'd say there's $10 million in marketing bonuses so let's go ahead and add that in for fun. He's owed roughly $124 million over these 5 years and that includes the bonuses.

$124 million over 5 years would buy you a player that would provide about 20 WAR. We have A-Rod projected to provide just 7.5. That's about $45 million in value, which means the Yankees would have to throw in the remainder of the $124 million ($79 million) and they'd get nothing in return. If they wanted a prospect they'd probably  have to throw in a total of about $85 million leaving close to $40 million for the other team.

I don't know if these numbers are all that accurate, but you get the point. A-Rod is tradeable and it's silly to suggest otherwise.

Share this Post

Comments

  3. Rizzo the Rat

    Heh, BaPro did a subscriber-only piece on immovable players: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=18700

    They even acknowledged that some of the players have been traded (e.g., Carl Crawford). But there’s no way in hell they’ll be traded again.

    Carl Crawford’s contract was tradeable two months ago, but the nouveau riche Dodgers may have been the only team that would take on $102.5 million owed over five seasons to a 31-year-old outfielder who’s been worth a total of 0.6 WARP over the past two years and underwent Tommy John surgery in August. Now that they have him, he’s likely in LA to stay.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  5. mb21

    There’s a shitload that I don’t know about baseball, but I can guarantee two things.

    1. There is no such thing as an untouchable player
    2. There is no such thing as an untradeable player

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  7. mb21

    @ Berselius:
    If you find the Yardbarker widget on the sidebar you’ll see an article about why the Cubs should give Barney a multi-year contract. I read the first couple paragraphs and then gave up. While I might be a bigger Barney fan than anyone here, I’m not sure signing him to an extension makes a lot of sense. If defense wasn’t underrated then I’d agree, but he’s probably going to get less through arbitration than an offensively minded player of the same value.

    For fun awhile back I ran the numbers and came out with something like 5 years and $10-12 million. If the Cubs do that I’ll be happy, but I wouldn’t spend a lot of time trying to get to get it done. Barney is quite valuable and probably will be the Cubs 2nd baseman for the next 4 years or so, but it’s a big risk and not worth it.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  9. mb21

    There’s also an article from Rant Sports on the YB widget: It’s official: the Cubs are a second-rate organization.

    Wasn’t this made official like 4 decades ago?

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  16. akabari

    So we’re going to use the word “untouchable” multiple times in one thread and no one has made a Koyie Hill joke yet? You guys are slacking.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  27. mb21

    josh wrote:

    I have to admit I’m skeptical. But HOF is more about long term sustained success and [intangibles].

    I’m skeptical of anybody that age reaching the HOF. There are just so many things that can go wrong.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  45. SVB

    Tim McCarver on Giants bullpen: Just goes to show you how hard it is to replace a closer. (dying laughing) (dying laughing) (dying laughing). Let’s see: Rafael Soriano (to his credit, he did say Soriano was an exception, but forgot that Soriano was the 3rd string closer), Fernando Rodney for god’s sake, Aroldis Chapman, Wilton Lopez (HOU), Kenley Jansen, Steve Chisek (MIA), Tyler Clippard for much of the season, Ernesto Frieri, etc. etc.

    I guess the only good thing about Tim McC being the analyst is that it keeps Joe Morgan out of the chair.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  49. SVB

    I’m thinking it’s too bad Josh’s FOR MEN forum post is missing now. The Giants could stand reviewing the suggestions there.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  54. SVB

    @ Berselius:
    Well, if I cared about NFL, I’d root for Detroit. They are the Cubs of the NFL after all. I don’t have other Chicago allegiances in pro sports, being from Michigan and Ohio.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  56. SVB

    @ GBTS:
    If it makes you feel any better, when I first picked an NFL team to root for, I picked Denver, because Craig Morton got splattered all over the field by Dallas in whatever Superbowl that was. Apparently the Broncos didn’t have an O-line.

    What I remember is that I admired a guy who could take that kind of abuse and still get up, and that the new orange shag carpet my folks put in the basement was pretty comfy, but smelled funny.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  57. Suburban kid

    I listened to the first few innings on the radio – and I didn’t even mind hearing Jon Miller’s breathless play by play. Evil was stopped for one more day.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  58. WaLi

    So I guess Lance Armstrong was stripped of his 7 Tour de France titles (again? I thought this happened already) despite having not failed a drug test*. Seems that the evidence against him are all witness testimonies.

    *I do think he took PEDs based on what someone said here: If everyone else in cycling is cheating, then the only way for Armstrong to compete is to cheat.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  73. mikeakaleroy

    @ Rice Cube:
    @ GBTS:
    My pic was a grab from someone elses house. When I used to do it (and I did), it looked more like GBTS’s picture..It was a decent 19″ tv with cable split to a 9″ tv. Play Madden on one, watch football on the other.

    /cool story bro’d

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  75. WaLi

    @ mikeakaleroy:
    I used to have the same setup. My friend was living with me for a little bit and he had a TV and I had a TV, so I set up two TV’s in the living room, one to whatever football game was on TV and the other streaming a football game from the laptop, then the laptop streaming whatever else was on, football or basball. It was nice.

    Then a buffalo wild wings opened up a block away so it became unecessary. The food sucks, but it is a fun place to watch a game if it is the only option in town.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0

Leave a Comment