More on the Kouz Deal
January 15th, 2010 | Published in Daniel Gettinger, Kevin Kouzmanoff, San Diego Padres, baseball, roster moves, trades | 14 Comments
by Daniel Gettinger
For over a year I have pleaded (some may call it whining) for the Padres to trade Kevin Kouzmanoff. As Ben posted earlier, the Padres have finally done so. In return for Kouzmanoff and Eric Sogard, the Padres will receive outfielders Scott Hairston and Aaron Cunningham. This is a great trade for the Padres.
First lets look at what the Padres are giving up.
The As are acquiring Kouzmanoff’s three arbitration seasons. Kouz has been remarkably consistent as a Padre, posting WARs of 2.7, 2.8, and 2.7. Both with the glove and the bat, Kouz is average for his position. At 28 years old, the A’s can probably expect Kouzmanoff to continue to post WAR’s between 2.5 and 3.0 for the next three seasons.
Using a dollar per win value of $4MM, and the standard 40%, 60%, 80% expected arbitration award, Kouzmanoff is expected to get paid between $21MM and $25MM while producing $31MM and $37MM worth of value. That’s $10MM-$12MM of surplus value (not including any free agent compensation the A’s may eventually receive) over the three years.
Eric Sogard is a soon to be 24 year old second baseman who walks a lot, but like most second baseman does not have much power. John Sickels rates Sogard as the Padres 20th best prosect and gives him a C+ grade, writing: “Gets on base, not punchless, defense is so-so but I like the bat enough to keep give him this grade.”
According to Victor Wang’s research on prospect value, a C hitter older than 23 years is expected to provide $0.5MM of surplus value. In total, the Padres are surrendering something between $10MM and $13MM of value.
So, what are the Padres getting in return?
The Padres will control Hairston for his final two years of arbitration. The projection systems peg Hairston as an average outfielder with the bat. Overall for his career, Hairston has been an average, albeit versatile fielder. His biggest problem has been staying in the lineup. He has never played more than 116 games in any season.
The past three years, Hairston has been a 1.8, 1.8, and 1.4 WAR player. He might be slightly better than that, but for the sake of being conservative, lets say he will be between a 1.5 and 2.0 WAR player over the next two seasons. In a vacuum, that equates to between $2.5MM and $3.5MM in surplus value.
Sickels rated Aaron Cunningham the A’s third best prospect entering the 2009 season (due to a brief appearance in the majors this season, he was ineligible for this year’s list.) Sickels gave Cunningham a B grade writing: “A solid all-around player. Doesn’t have the ceiling of some of these other guys, but a surer bet to reach his.” Baseball America rated Cunningham baseball’s 55th best prospect entering last season.
According to Wang’s research, a hitter ranked between 51 and 75 on Baseball America’s rankings is worth $14.2MM. In total, the Padres are receiving about $17MM of value in return for $10MM-$13MM of value.
However, things get even better. The Padres traded from an area of surplus for talent in an area of need.
With Chase Headley on the roster, the Padres had two third baseman, but were forcing one (Headley) to masquerade as a left-fielder. Not surprisingly, Headley’s fielding was a major liability and zapped much of his value. In the minors, Headley was considered an average fielding third baseman, and in the majors Headley has shown to be no worse than an average hitter. In replacing Kouz with Headley at third, the Padres essentially break even.
Replacing Headley with Hairston in the outfield, however is an upgrade. Hairston provides similar value with the bat, but is a much better (think 15-20 runs better) fielder than Headley, and given his ability to play CF, more versatile.
Kouz for Hairston alone, while not necessarily a great deal from a traditional surplus value calculation perspective would probably have been a break-even proposition for the Padres due to their surplus of third baseman. Also adding a solid prospect like Cunningham ensures that the team received more than fair compensation for Kouzmanoff, and makes this deal a serious win for the Padres.
January 15th, 2010 at 10:54 pm (#)
Quick note: As I alluded to in the comment section of Ben’s post, some people are higher on Sogard and lower on Cunningham than I am. That said, even if you adjust Sogard’s value up and Cunningham’s down, I still very much like the deal.
January 15th, 2010 at 11:22 pm (#)
Great stuff. My analysis of the two major league players is really similar to yours.
Like I mentioned, just not sure I think the difference in the two prospects is quite that large. Will think about it more, though, and post sometime tomorrow.
January 16th, 2010 at 1:01 am (#)
As I said on my blog post, I like the trade. It immediately fills a hole in the OF for the Padres with Scotty and gives them a top OF prospect going forward.
It also improves the overall defense of the Padres just by replacing the dreadful defense of Headley in LF with Blanks.
The Padres will take a hit in infield defense with Headley at 3B, but not enough of one to offset how much better anyone would be in LF than Headley.
A side note: Chone (Sean Smith) recently had a great article about how he and others have inflated the value of a point of WAR.
So in reality, this is really a pretty even trade.
Kouzmanoff and Hairston are known values. You can compare what they have done. Scotty is a platoon OF and a decent one. I really like seeing him come back to the Padres, but he is not near as valuable as Kouzmanoff.
The other two are prospects and we really have little idea of what will happen when they make it to the big leagues. Well, we have some idea of what Cunningham HAS done at the ML level and its not good, but he is still only 23.
Cunningham is considered the better prospect by John Sickels, whom I respect alot, but plays a much less of a position of need in the Padres organization than Sogard.
All in all, each organization wins.
The Padres get the CF/RHB they need this season and the A’s get the 3B they need to take the place of Eric Chavez who will likely never play again.
Both teams get prospects.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:28 am (#)
This is about the kind of trade I expected. Kouz didn’t have nearly as much value as some hoped, as evidenced by the inclusion of Sogard. A few of the proposals floated by Padre fans were plain crazy. But it’s still a pretty good trade.
I’d start Hairston in CF. Forget platooning him with Gwynn in a traditional sense. Anthony Jr could be the 3.5th outfielder, starting in center against tough righties, giving Blanks a break when the big man’s dogs are barking, etc.
Right now Cunningham doesn’t have a very valuable role. Blanks play left as long as Agon is still here, and Venable probably starts in right. Until that logjam breaks, either through an Agon trade, an injury, or poor performance, Cunningham looks ticketed for Portland.
We do have quite a few 2b prospects, because most of our current minor league SS don’t have the defensive chops to stick there. Zaws, Galvez, Cumberland, even Forsythe, who seems much more capable of moving up the spectrum than Darnell.
January 16th, 2010 at 12:44 pm (#)
Watch out for sogard, he looks like a clone from Pedroia, they are both scrappy second basemen from ASU and they can both hit. Hairston is a decent hitter but he should not start for a major league team. I would have rather traded Kouz for a couple of prospects instead of this. Def not a win for the padres but probably not much of a loss. Hopefully they get more for bell.
January 16th, 2010 at 12:57 pm (#)
Pedroia clone? That’s more than a bit strong. DP was in the majors for good at age 22. He’s a very good defender at 2b (10.6 UZR/150). He has a 50 point edge in minor league OPS even though most of his minor league parts weren’t hitter friendly (although not as rough as San Antonio). I like Sogard well enough, but I’d compare him to a non-peak Mark Loretta, not Pedroia. Possible but not at all likely.
Still, having to include him does show that many estimates of Kouz’s value before this trade were grossly inflated. Either that or Hoyer mismanaged the deal. I happen to think that it’s a reasonable, fair return for Kouz. I’d have rather had players under more control, too, but possibly the A’s wanted to make it payroll-neutral.
January 16th, 2010 at 2:25 pm (#)
Adrian will eventually be traded. Blanks will move to first. Another OF spot will open. I am not concerned about having room for Cunningham.
Sogard-I feel a lot of you are WAY overvaluing him. He is no Pedroia clone. Probably a utility guy, and certainly no better than a middling, “We have no talent at 2B” starter. Cunningham is by far the better prospect. I am not losing any sleep over Sogard being traded.
January 16th, 2010 at 4:41 pm (#)
Dont take everything so literally, obviously he is not MVP material. They both seem very similar from similar backgrounds. He has hit well in every places he has been. I just dont know how you can say for sure that this makes the padres better. Hairston is certainly not better than Kouz. We’ll see about Cunningham.
January 16th, 2010 at 5:22 pm (#)
Kevin-Hairston is not better than Kouz, but Headley is probably equivalent to Kouz at third base. Hairston is, at worst, equivalent to Headley as an outfielder.
January 16th, 2010 at 6:30 pm (#)
Or, alternately, be more careful in what you write. A “clone” of Pedroia is an overly strong comparison.
A lot of what this trade does for the Padres involves players other than the ones we acquired. Blanks gets a full-time shot and it’s reasonable to expect that he’s better at the plate and in the field than Headley, who gets to move back to his natural position and whose offense was better than Kouz anyway. I wouldn’t expect Kouzmanoff to repeat his low error total in the future, so Headley doesn’t have to match Kouz’s 2009 defense to match what Kouz would have given us if he’d stayed.
January 16th, 2010 at 9:15 pm (#)
[...] Daniel at Friar Forecast talks about him a little. I look at Cunningham’s numbers and see a better Chad Huffman, which isn’t necessarily [...]
January 16th, 2010 at 9:56 pm (#)
Daniel, good stuff. I believe Kouz is a low-ceiling player (it’s not a bad ceiling, either) and that he is what he’s going to be. Hairston’s numbers at PETCO are something short of stunning, especially in a ballpark that suppresses offense. Losing Sogard, from what I’m hearing, is not great loss to the Padres.
January 17th, 2010 at 4:01 am (#)
IMO you are overrating the value of Cunningham. He may have been rate #55 by BA in early 09, but his value declined some. Also over that time the emergence of ryan sweeney, the trade of michael taylor block his path since cunningham is strictly a corner OF. So the padres may have traded their depth in kouz, but so did A’s w/cunningham. Which makes this a logical and fair trade for both sides. For whatever its worth, Cunningham is actually a month older than Sogard. Cunningham 4th full yr of proball, Sogard 2nd full year.
January 17th, 2010 at 11:48 am (#)
BallFan-You’re right, I may be overstating Cunningham’s value, and possibly short-changing Sogard. (Note: I think it is more likely that I am overrating Cunningham than underrating Sogard). However, Cunningham’s value to teams other than the A’s is not at all affected by the emergence of Sweeney and the addition of Taylor.