Quote:
Originally Posted by MizzouRah
Shoot, the fan interest drop alone would kill the Angels if they made that trade.
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Ok, I have been thinking about this. Let's look at it from the Angels' point of view.
They just finished 67-95 WITH Trout. We don't know what the owner goals are, but we can assume that "get better" would be one of them. It is also quite likely that cut spending was another.
Trout was +4 WAR over Pham last year. Both players are controlled for two years, so that is -8 WAR for the Angels. But they gained $30M of budget room.
They used half of that to lock up Pollock for 5 years. Pollock was worth 4 WAR last year, so they made up the loss of the trade and they still have $15M to spend. They get three more years of control too. That's +12 in WAR now. (EDIT: Later in the offseason, the Angels picked up another 4 WAR player by signing 2B Brian Dozier to a 6-year deal at $10M per year, bringing the total gained in the trade to 36 WAR.)
Keep in mind the Angels need multiple good players to recover from a 67-95 disaster. It is pretty easy to see how the AI, which only sees numbers, could consider this trade a win. It is not just looking at one trade - it is looking at the big picture which includes what it can do with the $30M of salary gain in a year with a HUGE high-quality free agent class.
It is different for me, because I don't need multiple players. I won 99 games last year. I need that guy that can put me over the top, i.e. Trout replacing Pham. That 4 WAR might be enough to beat Washington in the playoffs, and then I could win it all just like they did.
So, could they have held out for prospects? Yeah, maybe. I wasn't offering any, but I probably would have offered something. I wouldn't have given up a top prospect though, because I was giving up something else that was very valuable - $30M of budget room. I could have signed Machado or Kershaw, kept Pham, and STILL have $7M left.
Heck, now that I look at it, I think the Angels won this trade!
