It's only been a matter of hours and I've already had several people ask me if this is a good deal for the Cubs. As much as I am flattered having anyone respect my opinion on anything enough to seek it out, I feel like it's a question asked expecting a fairly simple yes or no answer, and I haven't had a fairly simple yes or no answer to give any of these people. It's more complicated than that. There are too many variables to consider. What I'm going to attempt to accomplish with the following is explain everything that comes to my mind when I'm asked "Is this a good trade?" Then, after a bunch of context most people aren't interested in listening to, hopefully I'll have a final yes or no answer to their question. With this blog post, as any trade involving a crop of prospects, only time will tell if it's successful.
I'd like to start by quickly stating how much I love this trade for the Oakland A's. Anyone who's spent time around me this baseball season knows how much I appreciate what the A's front office has accomplished, yet again. As a Cubs fan, any hope I might have had going into the season for having a rooting interest in a contending team died around April 15. It wasn't long after that I recognized just how dominant the Oakland A's seemed to be. I immediately adopted the A's as the team I was rooting for to win the World Series, mostly just on the principle they deserve it more than anyone else. I even went as far as purchasing an Oakland A's hat about a month ago. A hat I'm now almost certainly going to wear to Wrigley next weekend on our annual Cubs Trip to visit The Friendly Confines. Samardzija and Hammel are legitimately good pitchers. This is a significant upgrade to the A's rotation that has been hit hard by injuries. Their odds of winning the World Series definitely improved with this deal, and it does not matter what happens with any of the prospects they traded away in this deal, if they do win a World Series with this current group of players, this trade was a success for them. Now, I didn't just write all of that out of pure love and admiration for the A's. The way Oakland has constructed their contending team ties heavily to my first point concerning the Cubs current approach, and the baseball landscape as a whole, but first a quick history lesson is required.
In a quick homage to Moneyball, as much as the Joe Morgans of the world might try to convince you that nobody changes baseball, the truth is the baseball world is ever-changing. Like all competitive sports leagues, it's a copycat league. There are fads and trends, generally set by the most successful teams of the time, that are copied all around the league, go in and out of style, and eventually some new knowledge is gained by testing these ideas and theories to their limits both on the field and in the front offices. Baseball is constantly getting smarter and more advanced, and the pace at which it's learning is increasing to match or exceed the pace of growth in the monetary investment in it's players, also known as risk. The baseball landscape even just 10 years ago was drastically different than it is today. In the early 1990's John Hart, GM of the Cleveland Indians at the time, started negotiating pre-arbitration extensions with multiple talented, young players to avoid ""running an entire class through arbitration" and "demonstrate to our fan base that we were in this for the long haul." The Indians were extremely successful as a small market team using this model, winning 6 AL Central titles in 7 years, and making two appearances in the World Series over that time. By the time Hart stepped down as GM of the Indians in 2001, most of his core group of players had reached free-agency and cashed in large deals with big-market clubs. This was a time when good players, still in their prime years were widely available on the free agent market and the prices were quite reasonable. This lead contending teams to not hesitate to trade their own developing talent for established Major League contributors because this strategy was affordable and effective on most budgets. However, baseball had taken notice of what the Indians had done and slowly started applying this new information. In the coming years, pre-arb extensions would become increasingly common, especially among small-market teams. In locking up a player to a long-term extension so early, teams absorb some risk the player will not reach his potential through under-performance or injury, but stand to save a ton of money if the player reaches or exceeds expectations. These deals are generally team-friendly. This, combined with other more recent changes to the CBA, decreased the number of quality free-agents available and drove up costs for those free agents that were available. Only a select few teams were now able to afford to build rosters consisting heavily of free-agent acquisitions. This has made prospects as valuable as gold. Gone are the days of the Atlanta Braves trading away their entire farm system for 700 ABs of Mark Teixeira. The most valuable asset to Major League teams is a price controlled player. Baseball has changed.
While most teams, including our beloved Cubbies, are collecting, hoarding, and extending into their free-agent years as many prospects as they can, one team is doing just the opposite. The Oakland A's. The A's, always searching for market inefficiencies, are ahead of the curve once again. Teams are now undervaluing their average to above average Major League talent and overvaluing these prospects in hopes of hitting a home-run at the cost of a double. This team Oakland has constructed, that I praise so much, has been largely built by trading away their own prospects to teams who have under-appreciated what they have in the Majors. Although brilliant, it has come with a price..... the window for this A's team to win is limited. They've traded away much of their minor league system for players currently in their prime, so once these players exit their prime, or reach free agency, the A's don't have much to fall back on and will likely have to go into a Cubs/Astros style tank and rebuild process. The A's were at a point where it made sense to push the chips all-in and the Cubs had the players they needed.
One question I got was "Aren't Samardzija and Hammel worth more than just 4 prospects?" To answer that, you need to understand the information I've provided above. Teams are more reluctant to part with high level prospects than ever before. For an example, look at this wonderfully done mock-trade exercise put together for Rays pitcher David Price (better than both Hammel and Samardzija). The best offer was less impressive than the haul the Cubs are receiving in this deal. Remember, Hammel, despite having a great 2014 season, signed a 1-year deal with the Cubs this Spring with the sole purpose of being traded right about now. He's a 3-month rental for the A's and his value was limited. Samardzija is free-agent after next season and is asking for a long-term extension in the neighborhood of the 6yr/$105 million deal Homer Bailey got from the Reds. That's not a good deal. Not only are the A's (a small market team) not going to give Samardzija that extension, but depending on how much they are capable of increasing their budget, they may want to unload him this off-season before he's due another significant raise in arbitration heading into 2015. They may have traded away 3 of their top 4 prospects for two rental players. No other team in MLB was going to do that.
Now, to take a look at what the Cubs got back.....
Dan Straily. I like Straily quite a bit. He's fly ball pitcher who's had mixed success at the Major League level so far. He's giving up too many homeruns but that's partially tough luck and partially falling behind and getting into predictable counts. He needs to throw more strikes, and looking at the Cubs ability to quickly improve Hammel, Samardzija, and Jake Arrieta (see this article) much through approach, I think it's possible we'll see something similar with Straily. One thing Straily does well is miss bats. He's only struck out 7.43/9 in his career, but he's currently posting an 80% Z-Contact% (Percentage of times a batter makes contact with the ball when swinging at pitches thrown inside the strike zone (PITCHf/x). Straily hasn't thrown enough innings to qualify for league leaders, but the best Z-Contact% in MLB is currently Chris Sale at 81%. In 38 innings, Straily has got more swings and misses at strikes than anyone on the MLB leaderboard which, along with Sale, includes names like Weaver, Scherzer, Wacha, Ventura, and Teheran. Good company. Even if he doesn't take a step forward, he's a solid addition as a reliable back-end of the rotation starter. If he does take that step forward, he could be a good #3.
Billy McKinney. This is the player in this deal furthest from the Majors, and being so fresh into his professional career, he's the most difficult to assess. At just 19, he's the 6th youngest player in all of High-A ball, so his minor struggles adjusting to that level are not too alarming. The power will come. What is encouraging is his mastery of the strike zone at an advanced level for his age. He's showing an above average ability to take walks as well as an above average ability to limit strikeouts. Scouts rate him out at average to above average in all tools, so he's a "jack of trades, master of none" type of player in the eyes of the scouts, who also report he has a strong work ethic and plays the game all out. He's an intriguing prospect to keep an eye on, and the Cubs certainly hope will fit in to their future plans as a corner outfielder, but is far from a finished product. He's at least a couple years away from playing at Wrigley.
Addison Russell. The real prize of this deal. The #11 prospect in all of baseball. These players don't get traded very often these days. Russell, now the 6th youngest player in Double-A, hit very well in High-A in 2013 as one the youngest players at that level as well. He displayed a tantalizing combination of power and speed to go with excellent plate discipline. The beginning of Russell's 2014 season was delayed by a hamstring injury, and he has only recently returned to play at Double-A, where he's continued to impress over his first 57 ABs. It's entirely possible had Addison Russell not suffered a hamstring injury, he would have produced at such a level at Double-A (much like Bryant has for the Cubs this season), the A's would have considered him untouchable and refused to include him in trade talks. Despite initial concerns whether or not he could remain at Shortstop defensively, he's proven to have all the tools to now project as a plus defender. How he fits into the Cubs picture is yet to be seen. It's possible Bryant moved to the Outfield and some combination of Castro/Baez/Russell play 2B/3B/SS, it's possible he moves to the Outfield, or it's possible one of these guys is going to be traded to fill a different organizational need. That's all going to have to play itself out.
I've seen no speculation on who might be the player to be named later in this deal. It's possible they're still negotiating from a group of players on the player to be named, or it could be dependent on whether or not the A's keep Samardzija past this season. Who knows. I want to say I really like Billy Burns (reminds me of a young Juan Pierre with a better batting eye) and he could fill a huge hole in CF for the Cubs, but speculating is pointless and I'm just going to skip right over this part of the deal.
In closing, would this be good deal for the Cubs in the baseball universe 6 years ago? Maybe not. Is this a good today for the Cubs today? Absolutely. If the Cubs don't trade Samardzija and Hammel, they still suck, and all the Cubs get in return is one compensation pick when Samardzija signs a ridiculous deal somewhere else next off-season. This is much better than that. This makes them a better team for potentially a decade. The baseball landscape has changed. Trade expectations involving prospects need to change with it.
