Yesterday, RAB’s l to a connecting the Yankees to Oakland lefty Gio Gonzalez:
BREAKING MLB UPDATE – The New York Yankees have reportedly opened up trade talks with the Oakland A’s regarding P Gio Gonzalez.
As of writing this (about 5 PM on Sunday), I haven’t seen any other confirmation of this rumor, but that’s beside the point. We’ve seen the Yankees linked to Gonzalez before and he is worth making a run at. Before we explore his value, let’s look at his profile.
Gonzalez was a first round pick in 2004, selected 38th overall by the White Sox out of a Florida high school. In December of 2005, he was traded to the Phillies to complete the trade that brought Jim Thome to the White Sox. 363 days later, he was traded (with Gavin Floyd) back to the White Sox for Freddy Garcia. In January of 2008, he was traded to the A’s with Fautino De Los Santos and Ryan Sweeney for Nick Swisher. So, we all owe Gio a bit of thanks; he helped bring Nick Swisher to the Yankees.
In 2008 Gonzalez reached the Majors and threw 34 innings. In 2009, he lasted for 98.2 innings in the Majors. 2010 and 2011 saw Gonzalez reach 200.2 and 202.0 innings respectively and he was worth 3.2 and 3.5 fWAR in those seasons. While his control has been iffy, 4.44 career BB/9, he’s improved his BB/9 each year in the Majors and was at 4.05 in 2011. Gio’s also shown the ability to strike guys out (8.59 K/9) and has been good at generating grounders (47.5%). His career ERA/FIP/xFIP split is 3.93/4.06/3.98, but those are skewed by the numbers in his cups of coffee in 2008 and 2009. His 2010 numbers (3.23/3.78/4.04) and 2011 numbers (3.12/3.64/3.73) are more encouraging. Gonzalez will be 26 when the season starts (b. 1985) and will turn 27 on September 19th. On the surface, this looks like a guy the Yankees should definitely target. He’s young, gets grounders, strikes batters out, and doesn’t completely walk the ballpark. Gonzalez also has a ton of team control left; 2012 will be his first arbitration year. MLBTR projects Gonzalez to make $4.2M.
It was tricky, and may not be 100% accurate, but I plugged Gonzalez into the trade value calculator to get an approximate number on his value. Based very arbitrarily on the fact that he added .3 WAR form 2010 to 2011, I assumed a .3 increase in WAR up through his FA year. Gonzalez is a super two and will get four arbitration years rather than three. So, for 2012-2015, I “projected” 3.8; 4.1; 4.4; and 4.7 WAR. We’ll also assume raises of $3M a year, so we get the aforementioned $4.2M for 2012, then $7.2M; $10.2M, and $13.2M for 2013-2015. If we plug those in and then assume Gonzalez will be a Type-A free agent when he’s done with team control, we end up with a trade value of $75.6M. That is a lot of value. For a frame of reference as to what that would cost, check here.
Gonzalez has just about everything you’d want in a young pitcher and because of that, he’s going to cost a lot in a trade. In theory, I’d definitely like to trade for Gonzalez. But in practice, I’m not sure it happens. The Yankees can get something similar in terms of production on the free agent market without having to give up prospects, and I’d rather do that.
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I say Hell No to Gio. Besides the Rangers he pitches in a weak division. Not to mention the Oakland Coliseum is a pitchers park. If we trade for someone I don’t want to give up the farm for an iffy pitcher. I would target Matt Garza, I wouldn’t trade any top prospect for him but I would definitely inquire on him.
Personally I’d target Matt Cain first. But to be honest for the RIGHT cost I don’t see anything wrong with Gio. He’d be under team control and a very reasonable salary and he’s a lefty in Yankees Stadium that’s always a good thing. Plus the Yankees need another lefty in the starting rotation. Like I said for the “right” price I’d do it.
Yeah, but getting the right price is the problem. Because of all the team control–and the fact that they’d be trading with Beane–the right price may be hard to come by.
The only thing I worry about when it comes to Cain is the lack of grounders. His HR/FB is the essentially the same H/A, which is obviously nice to see, but not getting grounders might hurt him in the ALE where the parks are a bit smaller.
Matt the only thing I can say and I’m sure we would all agree. It never hurts to try to work out a deal that benefits both parties.
Heck yeah go after him. He’s a young, healthy all-star. If we can get a fit done with personnel, it’d be great- the rotation needs a shot in the arm, wake up a Phil Hughes or two! 4 years till he can go FA, could REALLY lock things down for a while. I wish Oakland needed catching.
The walks definitely scare me, and the two positions where I wouldn’t mind trading some depth (catcher and second base), are two places Oakland has some depth at.
Perhaps this is a deal that finally see’s Hughes go? At this point, I’d prefer Gio over Hughes, but so would most people so it wouldn’t be a 1 for 1 swap. Phil could definitely thrive in Oakland’s huge ballpark, and against light hitting offenses like LA and Seattle. I could see a player like laird being in there too, but who else of value? It would have to include someone with high upside like Betances, no?
Oakland is going to want hitting, and hitting with power. They always crank out quality arms, but they don’t have any real offensive threats. I think this would have to be a 3 team deal in order to get done. Something where we trade Banuelos and some lower quality talent, with a third team getting Banuelos and providing the young offensive talent to Oakland.
I have concerns about Gio against top offenses, and having him lose half his home games in Oakland is also worrying. They’ll want Montero, but I wouldn’t go that far. I believe Steve S. Would be willing to trade Montero straight up for Gio, but I just can’t convince myself it’s a good idea. Maybe Gary Sanchez is a name that has to be part of the deal, but I wouldn’t include Banuelos if Sanchez is in the talks. Maybe Betances and Sanchez, with a major league ready arm like Noesi. Though I probably wouldn’t do that if I was Oaklnd, because I believe Betances is a long shot to stick in the majors as a starter.
One thing I wonder about with Gio is how pitching for Oakland affected him. With that offense behind you, wouldn’t you have a tendency to try to be too fine, knowing you couldn’t allow any runs with that anemic offense behind you?
Watching him pitch, he looks like he’s around the zone most of the time, not overly wild. His walks seemed to come on borderline pitches where he was trying to avoid contact. Putting someone like him in YS3 with that lineup behind him could allow him to relax and challenge hitters more. The stuff is certainly there, the peripherals suggest he should be better than he is. I’d take a chance on him, though I’ll be the first to admit I could be dead wrong about all of this.
I can understand this line of thinking. However I think the counter point would be that while his offense would be getting better, moving to the AL East means his oppositions lineup also gets better. So any positive affect he could receive by our offense comforting him, could be undone by the fact that he loses some of the cookie games he gets in the West.
There really is only one way to know however, and that’s pull the trigger. You would have to get glowing reviews from your scouts, and trust them completely if you are Cashman on this one. I just see too many question marks to allow Montero to go in the trade myself.
Yikes, I had no idea he’s a Super 2. That affects his cost dramatically as you laid out.
I think you were too aggressive assuming rising production, it would be more fair to average out the past two seasons (3.35) and use that as the baseline for the coming two. That may knock it down a bit, but you’re still looking at Montero and one of the B’s(+) according to Sickels’ chart. Noesi may appeal to Beane since he’s MLB ready, but it’s Montero plus a pitcher no matter how you cut it.
The Yanks and A’s are a pretty good match. Barton has been awful, so they could use a 1B with a power bat.