Friday, December 13, 2013

Annual 'Trade Billy' Post



I think I’ve written a ‘Trade Billy Butler’ post every year for the last three years, which might indicate that I don’t like Butler as a player. The truth is I am a Butler fan. I think he’s a very good hitter. Not a great hitter, but a very good hitter. He’s smart, gets on base, hits for some power, and despite some oddly uninformed narratives, hits very well with runners on base.
                                                               
But playing fantasy general manager, which is what the off-season and indeed fan blogging, is really all about, means trying to understand a player’s true value relative to other players’ value and the team’s success.

That’s why I write a ‘Trade Billy Butler’ post every off-season, and that’s why I’m writing another right now. Really, this post gives two trade scenarios. One is more a long-shot fantasy, but the other is, in my mind, a plausible scenario, one that requires sacrifice on both ends.

This scenario isn’t complete speculation either. Recent reports indicate that the Royals are talking with the Blue Jays about trading Butler for something. Some say Butler and prospects to the Blue Jays. Some say Butler to the Blue Jays for some prospects and something. Let me first state that the Royals will not trade Butler unless they get a Major League return, a player who can help them in the majors in 2014 as a starter.

So, here are two trade scenarios that I think the Royals should pull the trigger on if it gets to that point:

      1)   Butler for Adam Lind and Marcus Stroman/Daniel Norris/Mitch Nay  
      2)   Butler and (any two of) Orlando Calixte/Cheslor Cuthbert/Miguel Almonte/Elier Hernandez/Jason Adam for Jose Bautista

The first scenario is much more reasonable than the second (especially now that the Royals gave Omar Infante money). So, I’ll touch on it first.

The Blue Jays have a decent farm system, not stellar, but decent. They have three players on MLB’s 2013 Top-100 Prospects list. Stroman and Norris are at the back end of that list. Nay isn’t on it. But let’s look at the major league components first.

Butler is clearly better than Lind, mostly because he’s more consistent, more reliable. Lind has had one really good year and one pretty good year. He’s also had three pretty bad years, sometimes due to injury, sometimes do to ineffectiveness, sometimes both. Butler has never really had a “bad” year offensively. He’s had some down years, but even his down years are good years (except for maybe 2008). He’s had a wRC+ over 100 since 2008, and actually every one of those has been 116 or higher. He’s also played in at least 158 games since 2008.

But if Butler is better than Lind, why would the Royals make the trade? Especially if they’re trying to win now? Well, that’s more complicated. Start with this: Butler is better offensively, and better overall, but he’s not THAT much better overall because DH’s have no defensive value and Butler has a very negative base running value. Lind isn’t fast and has a negative base running value as well, but it’s not as bad as Butler’s, probably because Lind doesn’t hit into as many double plays (Lind hits left-handed. I’m guessing this helps). In fact, the yearly WAR numbers for both Lind and Butler aren’t much different if you look at Lind’s healthy years. Lind was worth 1.8 fWAR last year. Butler was worth 1.4. In his down years, Lind has been worth as low as -1.0 fWAR. In his best year, he was worth 3.4. In Butler’s best year, he was worth 2.9. All these numbers are in the way of saying there isn’t as big a difference between the two as one might think unless Lind has the worst year of his career and Butler has the best.

Of course, the Royals can do their best to put Lind in a position to succeed. Lind’s biggest issue is usually health, but other than health, he has a wicked platoon split. Over his career, he hits lefties at a .219/.261/.342 slash line, while he crushes righties, .286/.343/.508. The Royals happen to have a catcher who could occasionally use a day off playing DH, and he just happens to crush lefties. The Royals also have a fourth outfielder (Justin Maxwell) who hits lefties very well over the course of his career. Let Lind hit the righties and Maxwell and Salvador Perez hit the lefties. Simple.

But the main reason the Royals are considering and probably should trade Butler is position flexibility and position value. Even if Butler is gone, the Royals might still be able to get the same value out of the DH spot with a combination of players. This will allow them to rest players like Perez but keep their bats in the lineup. It will also allow them to mix and match the DH position with less expensive players. Oddly, they seem to be evolving in their thinking to realize that it might not be the best idea to pay a player $12 million just to play offense and hurt you on the bases, to put up 2-2.5 fWAR in a good year. Instead, it seems they want to save the money on a DH and put other players in when the situations calls for it (Lind hitting righties, Maxwell hitting lefties).

This scenario has tertiary benefits as well. It removes the awkward decision Ned Yost has to make in NL ballparks (Butler or Hosmer). Lind is a Butler-like defensive first baseman. There’s no pressure to play Lind over Hosmer. Lind also has a more appealing contract. He makes less money this year, much less next year with a team option of $7.5 million (Butler has team option for $12.5 million), and has another team option at $8 million in 2016. Butler’s contract is up after 2015.

If the Royals were to trade Butler for Lind, they should demand a prospect along with him, probably not the Blue Jays’ most coveted prospects, but each of the three I put forth have issues. Many question Stroman’s ability to hold up as a starter (he’s very small). Norris has had control issues in the minors, and Nay is still very early in his development. Still, each of these prospects has the potential to be an above average major league player.

That’s scenario one. The Blue Jays get the better/more consistent major league player. The Royals get more flexibility and a good prospect while still having the potential to get good production from the DH spot.

Scenario two is the reverse of scenario one because the Royals would be getting the better player and would need to provide prospects in return.

I’ve already written on what Butler is. Bautista is just a better version of Butler. He hits for more power. He walks more. He runs better. His defense isn’t great, but it’s probably better than Butler’s, and at the very least, he provides more defensive flexibility than Butler. Bautista doesn’t have the high batting average that Butler does, but his OBP is still pretty high (career .361).

Issues with Bautista? He’s been hurt for parts of the last two seasons. He’s 33 years old. He makes $14 million a season for this year and next with a $14 million option for 2016. But other than that, he’s one of the premier power hitters in baseball, which is why giving only Butler won’t suffice.

That said, the Royals aren’t desperate to trade so they shouldn’t be giving up top prospects like Kyle Zimmer or Yordano Ventura. But the Royals have a pretty obvious break between their top-tier prospects and the rest of the bunch. As I see it, they have seven top-tier prospects. (Zimmer, Ventura, Raul A. Mondesi, Hunter Dozier, Sean Manaea, Jorge Bonifacio, and Bubba Starling). After that, they still have some promising talent, Almonte for example, but there’s a clear difference between the Royals’ seventh best player and their eighth (perhaps with the exception of Almonte who I like a lot). It’s relatively safe for the Royals to give up two of the second-tier prospects in a package with Butler for a hitter like Bautista.

Do I think either of these deals will happen? No, because it’s just a much safer bet that deals won’t happen than that they will. Also, I think the Royals often over-value their own prospects with the heart-crushing exception of Wil Myers who they clearly undervalued. This causes them to hold onto players instead of cashing in on their maximum value (see Mike Montgomery, John Lamb, Chris Dwyer, Clint Robinson, Johnny Giavotella, and others). In fact, I struggle to think of a prospect the Royals traded away at his peak. All the players I just listed were either allowed to decline significantly before trading (Montgomery and Robinson) or languish in the system after losing significant value. To be fair, the Royals weren’t in a win-now mode until last year so most of these players were going to be given a chance to succeed or fail and many failed (as is going to happen. It’s a numbers game).

So, a trade is unlikely to happen. But it should happen. As I stated before, I like Butler, but good, small-market teams do not pay that much for a full-time DH when they can try to get solid production out of a DH rotation for much less. It might be worth it, if they can get HUGE numbers from Bautista AND get the position flexibility he provides (he’s played very little first base, but it’s not that hard; Butler does it).  This would actually cost the Royals a little more money, but would be a big, all-in push for this season.

Whether it’s to the Blue Jays or another team, it makes sense to trade Butler and move into a different system for the DH because true DHs, players who are worth it, are difficult to find.