This has been quite a week for Zack Greinke; first he gets name dropped on the Simpsons, now he is officially on the trading block and figures to have his name mentioned in trade rumors from now until the season starts and it's his 27th birthday today (happy b-day). How are we supposed to react to this news; depression, curiosity, excitement, anger, joy, just what exactly could Zack Greinke trade talk bring to a Royals fan? As it turns out, this is actually one of the best examples of baseball trade game theory that you can come up with and the Royals will, presumably, have the opportunity to weigh many offers from other teams in an attempt to make the correct decision on what to do with Zack. Lets try to over analyze this thing to death:
Timing: A big factor in how to play this game is the timing of the decision as to when it is best to pull the trigger. As others have pointed out, the decision to put his name out there now could be that in this year's free agent market there is Cliff Lee and then no one (think Bruce Chen multi-year deal). Also, the fact that Cliff Lee is out there points to just how valuable Zack is, from 2008-2010 they have almost identical values; while Zack hasn't shown the ability to annihilate teams in the postseason like Lee, Lee is the only one to miss significant time due to injury during that time period and Zack is 5 years younger. So essentially you get someone as valuable as Cliff Lee, but you save $120-$150 MILLION and only give-up a few 20-year-old minor league players who may or may not pan out. Also the fact that Greinke is so cheap means that almost everyone except for the Pirates (and whomever isn't on his no-trade clause) will be able to make offers, whereas if you gamble that he will be the same Zack next year and wait to make the deal until next season's trade deadline when some teams have already been eliminated you don't have the same field to choose from. Basically, you can survey the top minor league players in almost every organization in baseball and say you want A,B,C, D and let the games begin. In the Lee sweepstakes it will be 2 or 3 teams bidding against each other for something that they can't help but to overpay for. However, in the Greinke trade talks the respective teams will most likely have similar chances of the payoff working out in their favor; the Royals will have more upside, but but an equally great downside, ie all prospects bust. Meanwhile, the other team will take less risk by getting a valuable proven, young player for two years at a good price, but they may give up a pair of good young players that would have cost nothing and Zack doesn't lead their team to the playoffs over the next two seasons. But this is the dilemma; do you hold on to Zack and hope that he can fill some seats next season and/or be worth the same or more at next year's deadline or do you get max value for him now and hope that the players pan-out. Forgetting about the risk for injury, which is most likely the only thing that would make him worth significantly less next summer, you have to ask how much more is Zack worth now as opposed to during the season? How much will it adversely affect the current team and fans? And, most importantly, can we actually get what he is worth?
Zack's Value: In terms of what the haul should be, this is really a difficult question and extremely difficult to quantify because of what the Royals will presumably be looking for. In all likelihood the Royals will not be looking for another proven star or semi-star player, this would be the only fair way to evaluate the true worth of Greinke; lets just say the Royals could get a proven position player at about half Greinke's value but at 1/3 of the cost and then another cheap 5th starter or a solid prospect, but also the least likely to happen. Going around the league and looking for these types of combinations would be fun and I'm sure you could find one on just about every baseball team (check out this proposal for example). However, I imagine that the Royals are looking to really cash in on big time prospects who are ready to hit the big leagues, but who will also be making the league min for a few years. This is where it gets cloudy when trying to determine what he's really worth: is it two big-time prospects plus three other mid grade prospects, is it one super big-time prospect, a good prospect and two mid-graders, is it two super big-timers and another marginal guy??? This goes back to the first point about timing and judging if he is actually worth that extra prospect now as opposed to next July, which is almost impossible to surmise. You could break down all of the Cliff Lee trades and see what his worth was, but most of the results of those trades are still out to jury, although you could look at what the Rangers gave up this deadline and say that Zack will still be worth a top level prospect even a year and a half from now. When dealing with prospects you will always find yourself in this situation and the goal is really to give yourself a 60/40 advantage, no matter who the prospect is there will still be a great chance for them to fail, so you need to get several in order to cut those chances down, but the more you take the less you will get on the high end. This is Cy young winner, 27-year-old Zack Greinke we are talking about, but then again he is just one man and through the last three seasons of his greatness the Royals have never come close to a .500 season.
If the PBR controlled the Royals: So now its the offseason and we get to play GM, which is after all is why we would waste all of this time over a seemingly unanswerable question (or pointless, depending on your viewpoint). The bottom line is that Zack is too valuable, in terms of prospects, to trade right now. If Zack could bring in two major league ready pitchers right now and another prospect or a couple of proven, cheap, position players then it might be wise to pull the trigger and add quality depth. As it stands the Royals are in a somewhat enviable position of being able to almost completely dismiss the 2011 season as a Spring, Summer and early Fall Training camp, they are stacked with players for next season - not good ones, but ones that deserve a shot at showing how mediocre and below average they are and then you can begin the real youth movement after the all-star game and look forward to the 2012 all-star game at The K. Zack will always be worth top prospects, just how many is not really that important because all of them have, more or less, the same opportunity to fail so you're gambling with the predictability of the success of 20-year-old kids (not an exact science). If you wait until next season you might lose one good one or a couple of decent ones, but if it is prospects you need then you will get them. Plus it gives you the advantage of being able to see what Zack's worth is to the club, maybe things fall in to place and the Royals can make a run at .500 and Zack gets his Cy-young back (which might make him worth more) and the seats fill up at the K and he gets to have a farewell tour as Royal or pledge his allegiance to the club for their forthcoming glory years. Also, lets say that on the off chance the Royals suck again next year and for example DeJesus gets traded and/or Alex Gordon is a total bust, then you can know that what you need is an impact corner outfielder and take the best one in baseball because some other team is desperate to make the playoffs.
Right now it just seems anti-climactic to trade Greinke, unless you want to turn him into a pair of proven players, there doesn't seem to be a real advantage to shipping him off now versus next summer. Getting a haul of prospects now just doesn't feel right, if you are tired of babying Zack and want to move on then take the best two proven major league players available, but don't give us more prospects. Also, from a selfish perspective, we want to seem him pitch in a Royals uniform again. However, this should add some excitement to an offseason that was shaping up to be the most boring in the history of the Royals.
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