If you’ve ever debated someone online or in person about trading a player coming off a bad year, you probably have heard the phrase “You don’t sell when the stock is down”. I certainly have. It’s nice and short, easy to understand and sounds authoritative. But as is the case with many of life’s other simple truths, when put into practice as an all-encompassing rule we find that it just doesn’t work. For starters, this argument has always struck me as too dogmatic. Next, it assumes an upward long term trajectory that often doesn’t exist, especially when dealing with prospects or young players.
The annals of baseball are littered with players who were highly thought of, had brief success and wound up released by the age most people graduate medical school. Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes once could have been centerpieces in deals to acquire some of the best players in baseball. Both are now at points in their careers where you can draw up likely scenarios where one or both of them could be non-tendered by the end of this year. Two of the players they were linked to, Johan Santana and Dan Haren, have blown them away in terms of production since being connected in trade talk. Santana (10.9 WAR since 08) has outproduced Hughes (6.1 WAR 08-11) despite missing the entire 2011 season. Haren’s 09 campaign alone (6.4 WAR) was greater than what Joba has done from 09-11 (3.7 WAR). Hughes value may have been down after a middling, injury riddled 2008 season. But in hindsight, doesn’t the admonition to ‘never sell low’ seem foolish?
While a player’s value may be down from a previous high, it may still be higher than it will ever be again going forward. To use a Wall St analogy, a stock that was $50 a year ago that is worth $10 today may seem to have lost much value, but selling that stock at $10 may be the best move to make if you believe it’s heading to zero. What’s worse, in baseball teams often have to PAY someone to take the non-performing asset off their hands. When you’re dealing in equities, at least you can only lose the money you invested. Can you imagine paying Warren Buffett to take some Monster.com stock off your hands? The Yanks are currently engaged in negotiations to make a this type of deal for AJ Burnett. If you thought selling low coming off his bad 2010 season was a bad idea, consider the fact that they’re now looking at paying the vast majority of his salary to pitch for another team.
Carlos Zambrano is another example. If the Cubs had taken a package for him in 2010, you might have heard the refrain “His stock is down, dumb move”. Certainly his value was down, in 2009 he posted a 3.6 WAR season and was coming off a 2.3 WAR effort in 2010. If you traded him to a contender after 2010 he certainly wouldn’t have fetched as much as he would have the year prior. Yet we all know what happened to his stock in 2011. He posted a 0.9 WAR season, was a constant clubhouse distraction, even quit baseball at one point, and was subsequently traded for the to the Florida Marlins AND Theo Epstien had to pick up $15M of the $18M owed to the Big Z for the privilege of having him pitch for somebody else. In hindsight, selling low would have been a far, far preferable move.
In my view, if one side is advocating to trade the player off a down year it is incumbent on them to establish that there’s little reason to expect the player to improve. This is the ‘stock is heading down further’ argument. But for those advocating NOT to deal the player, they have to establish why they think his performance is likely to improve going forward. The problem is trying to ascertain which stock is poised for the rebound and which one is heading down the drain. It’s easy give more rope to young players in their years under team control, since they’re relatively cheap and yet to hit their prime. But age alone certainly isn’t enough to be decisive. Some players enjoy some early success and are never able to make the adjustments and develop the repertoire necessary to keep MLB hitters off balance. There’s a reason why teams pay hundreds of millions of dollars for free agents who are proven performers. It’s because they know the upward career trajectory that fans assume in most cases simply doesn’t exist.
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The key, like you mentioned, is that “don’t sell low” assumes there will be a high.
Using Johan Santana kinda hurts your case. Certainly considering salary (and even expected future value), no one in their right minds would rather have Santana than Hughes. Goes to show just how stupid that trade could have been.
Also, it’s absurd to state that the Yankees could have had Haren, even with Joba. ‘Zona didn’t just want him either – they wanted Nova plus more. Who knows what the ‘plus more’ could have been? Banuelos? Robertson? So selling low or high wasn’t the main concern – it was selling a bunch of possible highs in addition to taking on a lot of salary. I’m not even sure if the Yankees should have made Joba+Nova++ even today. Not a slam dunk.
Also, I doubt the Yankees would have been able to trade AJ so easily after 2010 – he had far too much salary (and years) left. This is probably the best time to trade him. And it’s not about selling low or high – they just need to get rid of him because there’s simply no place for him on the team anymore.
It wouldn’t have been Robertson, from what I understand they wanted two prospects along with Nova and Joba. That’s a hard trade to judge now with out understanding who the two prospects were. Given the level of production Haren has produced and the amount of time he was under team control at the time a Joba and Nova trade would’ve been a fair deal. Throwing in Banuelos+ would have tipped the scales a little too much though I think. You are right though, over time we’ve come to think of it as just Haren for Joba, which obviously would’ve been a no brainer.
Given his lack of health and the unknown of how he would’ve done in the AL as his velocity declined, I agree, I wouldn’t go back and do that trade. Though no one can argue that Johan has been the better starter between two when healthy.
You’re discussing specific trade packages, and I never got into that in the post. We really don’t know what was/wasn’t asked for or offered, that often depends on which side you ask. I was addressing those who said at the time that we shouldn’t trade Hughes or Joba for either of those pitchers (one of whom was the GM) and that position has proved to be wrong in hindsight.
On Santana, if by “expected future value” you’re referring to Hughes, that just proves my point. His expected value turned out to be about half what we thought it was, and I would have gladly taken 3 years of ace-like performances from Johan over the last 4 years of Hughes. Maybe you’re still be falling for the prospect trap, assuming Phil will be better next year. I don’t think he will be effective as a Yankee starter unless he dramatically reinvents himself, which is a lot to ask. As things currently stand, I’d rather have a surgically repaired Santana over a young and healthy Hughes, because one knows how to pitch and the other doesn’t.
But the Johan trade wasn’t just about production between the two. No one expected Hughes to outperform Santana in the first several years. It was also about salary obligations, and Santana would likely have taken the Yankees out of the Sabathia sweepstakes, and that would have been absolutely disastrous.
And still, even disregarding salary, I’m not sure anyone would trade Hughes for Johan even now.
The Yankees were absolutely correct in not trading Hughes (and remember it wasn’t just Hughes, it was Hughes AND Kennedy AND others…so that would also mean no Granderson. Imagine the Yankees with Johan and without CC and Granderson. Yeah.) for Johan, in any sense of the word.
Someone once propounded a theory of cycles vs. trends. If you believe in cycles, you shouldn’t sell low; you expect the next cycle to be an improvement. If you believe in trends, selling low is the right thing to do. A drop in performance is likely to be followed by continuing drops.
The trick in evaluating a player who had a bad year is to judge whether he’s in the midst of a cycle or a trend. I wish I knew how to do this.
That’s an interesting distinction. I think in the case of an athlete, age is important in distinguishing a cycle from a trend. A young player or one in his prime could temporarily struggle, but there can be some optimism that they still have the physical ability to recover. An older player (like AJ) is on the decline physically, so a drop in performance is more likely to be a trend.
That’s an old Wall St debate, and the cycle (buy and hold) people have had a rough time after the lost decade, which is in the midst of its 2nd decade. But its a very good analogy.
Selling low makes little sense if the projected return is already inadequate. If you can’t get anything of value now, what difference does it make that you’ll get even less later? Meanwhile,by holding on to a depressed asset there’s the real chance of improved return in the future. This idea of selling low may work with stocks but doesn’t seem well suited to baseball, though I suppose there might be circumstances where it makes sense. Certainly not a rule to live by, though.
Good point, and I suppose it depends on the return you get. The Yanks are in the business of elite performances, so if someone has the potential for that you’d rather have him than someone else with a lower ceiling. As I said above my point in this piece was more narrow, addressing those who use ‘don’t sell low’ as a hard rule, especially with young players.
Just thought of another example. IPK’s value was down after an injury riddled 2009, but the Yanks used him to acquire C-Grand. Nobody minded at the time, but that’s an example of selling low. They also sold low on Jose Tabata, who never became the Manny-type bat some thought he’d be.
Money buys WAR. You can’t compare WAR without comparing salaries.
How much did Santana cost PER WAR? How about Phil and Joba PER WAR? Yeah, if we paid these guys with Monopoly money, then you make the trades for Santana and Haren. But unfortunately, we need REAL money.
You are saying you would rather have Santana, as opposed to:
CC + Phil + IPK + Melky?
Because in the above, the salaries (at the time) match up pretty close.
Noooooo, I always assume the Yanks will find $ under their couch cushions for players they really like and need. Trading for Johan assumes they still go after CC, though they wouldn’t have been as desperate and may not have needed to outbid everyone else by 60+M. The difference between Santana and Burnett in salary is around 6-7M, I have to think they’ll find a way to make that work. So in my fantasy scenario, the Yanks trade for Johan and sign CC the next year. The one they don’t target is Burnett. They just buy the top shelf items.