103 replies to this topic

[czar]

Ken Rosenthal reported on Napoli a little while ago.

But now...

Source: #Blue Jays' Vernon Wells heading to #Angels in Napoli trade. #MLB

11:$23M, 12:$21M, 13:$21M, 14:$21M

I mean, Toronto has to be paying half, right?

Edited by czar, 21 January 2011 - 06:26 PM.

[cwright]

I know the Angels already dumped Gary Matthews, Jr., but seriously, how many center fielders do they need?

I really don't get this from the Angels' perspective. Even if Hank Conger is ready (which I don't believe he is) and Napoli's days behind the plate are numbered, Napoli at least provides insurance for Morales and flexibility at C and 1B. Vernon Wells provides....what, exactly?

[templeUsox]

I know the Angels already dumped Gary Matthews, Jr., but seriously, how many center fielders do they need?

Well, they really only have 1. They moved Hunter off of CF last season and Wells hasn't been a good CF for the last three years, though he continues to play the position. I assume he will play LF, Bourjos will play CF, and Hunter will be in RF.

The bigger issue is paying $86M for a lesser version of Torii Hunter, which I assume they won't be doing.

Edited by templeUsox, 21 January 2011 - 06:37 PM.

[Max Power]

Napoli and the Angels exchanged arbitration figures already. Is Toronto bound to their offer or do they make their own? It probably won't matter since Toronto will almost certainly sign him before the hearing date.

Vernon Wells is a strange case. He's actually been a good player 3 of the last 5 years, but terrible the other two. If the Angels are getting the good version, that's worth $15 million a year. The bad version is a slightly better use of a roster spot than Gary Matthews Jr.

[JMDurron]

I don't really understand how this makes more sense for the Angels than being the high bidder (or at least a more competitive bidder) on some combination of Crawford/Beltre. If there isn't significant $ going back to the Angels, this strikes me as a possible panic move, where a useful trade resource is effectively wasted because they did not play the offseason Free Agency game very effectively.

EDIT - Wasted is a bit of an oversell on my part, but if the Angels are really willing to pay Vernon Wells money to upgrade the lineup/OF, why the low bidding on Crawford? Were they just that out of sync with what the FA market was going to cost this season, and now they are operating with a new, better understanding of the costs?

Edited by JMDurron, 21 January 2011 - 06:43 PM.

[radsoxfan]

11:$23M, 12:$21M, 13:$21M, 14:$21M

I mean, Toronto has to be paying half, right?

I would think they'd have to be paying more than that. Napoli, despite his poor defense, is still probably a net positive in a trade (i.e. the Angels wouldn't give him away for free).

At what salary over the next 4 years would Vernon Wells have to be paid to be a net positive for the team aqcuiring him? 4/36? Even that seems like an overpay for someone who is currently 32 years old with his inconsistent and mostly mediocre level of play.

I'd honestly not give him more than 4/24, and that's with the knowledge he may not even be worthy of a roster spot 3 years from now. If the Angels aren't getting AT LEAST 50M along with Wells, they are getting screwed here.

Also, is Wells currently better than Torri Hunter in center? UZR hates him the last couple years.

Edit: Do the Angels have any awful contracts they can dump on Toronto that will make this approach some level of rationality? The funny thing is that the most overpaid player on the team might be Torri Hunter, but he is a better player and cheaper than Wells.

Edited by radsoxfan, 21 January 2011 - 06:57 PM.

[nattysez]

Edit: Do the Angels have any awful contracts they can dump on Toronto that will make this approach some level of rationality? The funny thing is that the most overpaid player on the team might be Torri Hunter, but he is a better player and cheaper than Wells.

Or, conversely, what Jays prospects would the Angels be interested in buying by taking Wells's deal?

Putting together the latest Twitter rumors, deal sounds like Wells and Kyle Drabek for Rivera and Napoli. I'm curious to see what the whole deal looks like; there is no way the Angels took on Wells's salary without receiving something significant (either cash or players) in return.

Edited by nattysez, 21 January 2011 - 07:02 PM.

[Dummy Hoy]

What I don't quite get is that Toronto has JP Arenciba in the wings at C. Of course they may think he's not a C long term, and their usage of him in September showed they may not tlike him at all (although that may have been Cito trying to save his job by playing vets).

[YouDownWithOBP?]

Dont forget the Jays lost Overbay, so Napoli should see a fair amount of time at 1st base.

[Seabass177]

Rosenthal is saying Wells and cash for Rivera and Napoli.

Obviously, the amount is the key.

[Kramerica Industries]

What I don't quite get is that Toronto has JP Arenciba in the wings at C. Of course they may think he's not a C long term, and their usage of him in September showed they may not tlike him at all (although that may have been Cito trying to save his job by playing vets).

Cito wasn't canned, he retired.

Couldn't we also assume that they dont view Napoli as a C? Possibly they believe he is there DH/1B, they did lose Overbay to the Pirates.

To trade Vernon for any player with value is all that matters for Toronto. Where they fit the players in is an after thought. Napoli and JP will have value in a trade if they dont see where they fit. Wells and at least part of his contract is gone-That's all that matters to AA and the Jays.

It's too bad, I wanted to see Manny back in the AL East. Maybe Tampa?

[radsoxfan]

What I don't quite get is that Toronto has JP Arenciba in the wings at C. Of course they may think he's not a C long term, and their usage of him in September showed they may not tlike him at all (although that may have been Cito trying to save his job by playing vets).

This deal from Toronto's point of view is 99.9% about getting rid of Wells. Sure it would be nice to get a helpful piece in return, but they won't let some positional redundancy get in the way of saving a boatload of money.

Of course the amount of money is the key. But if Toronto is paying anything less than 50M, they are making out like bandits.

This retweet from Keith Law sums it up...... Love how the Wells trade includes a Napoli physical, as if Jays would walk away. Doctor: "He has no legs." Jays: "Yeah, we're OK with that."

Edited by radsoxfan, 21 January 2011 - 07:38 PM.

[OCD SS]

11:$23M, 12:$21M, 13:$21M, 14:$21M

I mean, Toronto has to be paying half, right?

Even this doesn't cover how ridiculously backloaded Wells' contract is. Here are the complete figures:

$25.5M signing bonus ($8.5M payment each March 1, 2008-10)

08:$0.5M, 09:$1.5M, 10:$12.5M, 11:$23M, 12:$21M, 13:$21M, 14:$21M

It's not as bad with the signing bonus, but the Jays have still only paid wells $40M over the 3 years of the extension, or $13.33M per year average vs the $18M per year average over the life of the contract.

[Dummy Hoy]

Cito wasn't canned, he retired.

It was my impression that they asked him to retire. I thought there were some internal issues, but you're correct, he did retire. I guess I was surprised by their usage of Arenciba, and had forgotten that Cito chose to quit.

To trade Vernon for any player with value is all that matters for Toronto. Where they fit the players in is an after thought. Napoli and JP will have value in a trade if they dont see where they fit. Wells and at least part of his contract is gone-That's all that matters to AA and the Jays.

This deal from Toronto's point of view is 99.9% about getting rid of Wells. Sure it would be nice to get a helpful piece in return, but they won't let some positional redundancy get in the way of saving a boatload of money.

This is clearly correct.

[rembrat]

Josh Beckett just let crapped his pants a bit.

[Kramerica Industries]

This is clearly correct.

No doubt, and this is the case if they save only 25% of the contract. Imagine if this guy is right:

Just heard Angels may not be getting any money from Jays in Wells deal. Not cast in stone, but pointing that way.

Link

Edited by Kramerica Industries, 21 January 2011 - 08:43 PM.

[radsoxfan]

From Fan Graphs Dave Cameron

"I guess if you can't get Carl Crawford or Adrian Beltre, Vernon Wells is the next best thing. Oh, wait, no, he's like the 943rd next best thing."

When asked how much the Jays should have to pay...

"I don't know, $50 million? $60 million? What would you have signed Vernon Wells for if he was a free agent this winter? Probably no more than 3/30, right"

[Rough Carrigan]

Wow. That better be one monster frigging check the Jays are writing to send along with Vernon.

It's pretty hard not to be down on Angels management. They bought into Scott Kazmir just when it was becoming clear that the great Kazmir of 2006 and 2007 wasn't coming back. They don't get Crawford. They don't get Beltre and now they go for Vernon Wells?!

Why is such a big market team trying to hit an inside straight with guys like Kazmir and Wells?

[SoxScout]

NO CASH INVOLVED!

Holy shit!

jonmorosi: #Angels - #BlueJays deal is Wells for Napoli and Rivera. Cash is not mentioned in release from either club. #Toronto
jonmorosi: Source confirms to FOXSports.com: No cash involved in Wells trade. Straight 2-for-1.

Edited by SoxScout, 21 January 2011 - 09:17 PM.

[86spike]

This is the worst trade ever. Ever!

[Scoops Bolling]

Are the Angels completely insane? Maybe they'll trade for Ryan Howard in a couple years too.

[Lars The Wanderer]

This is the worst trade ever. Ever!

Even Brian Sabean is laughing.

[rembrat]

I wonder what's going to happen to Vernon Wells, who hit .321/.363/.628 at home and .227/.301/.407 on road, once he leaves one of the best hitting ballparks for one of the best pitching ballparks?

hooo boy

[OCD SS]

I saw some chatter on other boards that Drabek was headed to LAAAA as well. That would at least make this deal kind of defensible from Moreno's side, but I have nothing to back that up beyond internet speculation.

Edit: even with Drabek, I'm not sure this is defenisible. I wonder if they kicked the tires on Alfonso Soriano?

Edited by OCD SS, 21 January 2011 - 09:32 PM.

[nattysez]

I had developed a little respect for Reagins based on my assumption that he had developed an internal value for Crawford and Beltre, then walked away from those negotiations when the amounts being offered them were too high above what he believed their value to be. There's definitely an argument to be made for that approach.

But now I have no idea what he was thinking, because he could've easily had both of those guys for the amount by which he'll now be overpaying Wells.

[Rough Carrigan]

Jesus.
I sort of wondered if, in the case of Kazmir, the Angels didn't foolishly convince themselves that they just needed to convince him to pitch to contact. Genius field general Mike Scioscia would just impart his old timey baseball wisdom to the lad and -presto- the Angels would have themselves a top flite lefty. Only the guy was avoiding contact because his stuff increasingly sucked, especially compared to what he threw in 2006 and 2007.

But what the hell is the rationale you sell to yourself to convince yourself to take on Vernon Wells's entire contract?

[rembrat]

Ken is now reporting there IS cash going to back to Cali with Wells.

[Clears Cleaver]

ummmm, what? Toronto can be a real contender next year if they are abel to add some payroll with an inseason trade

[czar]

Ken is now reporting there IS cash going to back to Cali with Wells.

Where?

This article he is listed as co-author on (with Morosi) says no cash. His last tweet that mentions the word "cash" was over two hours ago.

[rembrat]

Wait, the clock on this laptop is always fucked, it's like Jan.04.1980 up in this bitch. My mistake.

[Rough Carrigan]

Wait, the clock on this laptop is always fucked, it's like Jan.04.1980 up in this bitch. My mistake.

Were you posting from a DeLorean going 88 mph again?

[radsoxfan]

ummmm, what? Toronto can be a real contender next year if they are abel to add some payroll with an inseason trade

For all the laughing about the deal, this actually sucks for the Red Sox. If there is no cash in the deal, Toronto just opened up about 20M in payroll each of the next 4 years.

I don't see them contending this year regardless, but that Wells albatross was a nice anchor to have weighing down a division rival through 2014.

[rembrat]

Great point, rad. The highest paid Blue Jay is now Adam Lind at a whopping @ 5.15MM. And they literally have no big deals left up there. Interesting.

EDIT: Rivera brings along his 5 and change million, Napoli requested 6.1MM in arb and Bautista is going to get a bump.

Edited by rembrat, 21 January 2011 - 10:02 PM.

[Hendu for Kutch]

I'd never seen a GM wrap up executive of the year 3 months before the season even started, so big kudos to Anthopoulos on this one.

[cshea]

Where?

This article he is listed as co-author on (with Morosi) says no cash. His last tweet that mentions the word "cash" was over two hours ago.

http://twitter.com/SI_JonHeyman

update: hearing now $5 million is going from #bluejays to#angels. covers a month and a half of wells $, but it's something

[rembrat]

Ah, I guess Tony Reagins signed on to the internet and saw that he was getting fleeced.

[Gdiguy]

update: hearing now $5 million is going from #bluejays to#angels. covers a month and a half of wells $, but it's something

That's almost worse than no cash moving at all - at least with no cash, you can just argue that the Angels are terrible at over-interpreting small samples of success and expecting them to be maintained over the life of the contract, but they loved Wells' makeup/stats/whatever b.s. they want to spin. If there's 5 million in cash moving, that means that the Angels actually recognized that Wells was overpaid, but are so horrifically bad at judging just how much he's overpaid, they basically threw up a random amount of cash for Toronto to include.

Even if you include the ~11 million that Rivera/Napoli are going to get next year as sunk costs, how many teams would take Wells's contract + 16 million as a pure salary dump? Maybe one or two?

Edited by Gdiguy, 21 January 2011 - 10:17 PM.

[86spike]

Theo better be calling Anaheim about getting Weaver for Lackey right damn now.

[radsoxfan]

For some reason, the $5M is acutally even more funny to me. The fact that Reagins actually had a negotiation about the money, and settled on only 5 million...good lord.

In his head, I wonder how much Anthopoulos was willing to give before walking away from the trade. Conservatively, I think he would have paid $40 million easy. Imagine his excitement (and the owners) when they found out they had a deal at $5 million. Literally like winning the lottery.

A real negotiation with 2 rational people in this situation should have started at Reagins demanding 60M, with Anthopoulos offering 40M. They would have settled on 50M and each side would have had reason to be happy about the deal.

I wish I was a fly on the wall for these bizarro world negotiations. You think Reagins initially demanded 5M and AA immediately accepted? Or did Reagins start at something like 8M and get bargained down? Could Anthopoulos keep a straight face? The entire thing is so absurd.

Edited by radsoxfan, 21 January 2011 - 10:31 PM.

[radsoxfan]

A few quotes from Keith Law (I guess we shouldn't post entire insider articles?)... the last one a bit of a bad omen for Red Sox fans

Vernon Wells isn't a terrible player -- he's a solid player with a terrible contract. And he is absolutely the wrong player right now for the Los Angeles Angels, who have made one the worst desperation moves I can remember.

In exchange for Wells, the Blue Jays get a huge pile of money back in their 2012-14 budgets. A cost once deemed sunk has now been rescued from the depths of the bad-contract abyss. They also get a solid offensive catcher in Mike Napoli, who was underappreciated in Anaheim because his defense is fringy, and Juan Rivera, a pretty good facsimile for Wells before his power vanished in 2010. I'm pretty sure the Blue Jays would have accepted a box of turnips and a can of potted meat to get out from under Wells' contract, though.

Look for them to plow some of that money into this year's Rule 4 draft, where they have seven of the first 80 picks (including the Angels' second-rounder), as well as into the major league roster next winter, since they have only about $14.5 million committed for 2012, not counting the $8 million option on Aaron Hill. They could become very good, very fast.

[JohntheBaptist]

Oh my God. That's totally shocking. How can that be right? Amazing, amazing deal for Anthopoulos.

[Paradigm]

Anthopolous is proving himself to be a hell of a GM.

- it looks like, all things considered, he did as well as you can hope for in the Halladay trade
- he dumps Vernon Wells' contract
- he somehow unearths Jose Bautista
- he hires John Farrell (ok, unproven)

The Marcum/Lawrie trade is hard to judge right now, but he's done a lot to like and, just as importantly, nothing that makes you smack your head and ask, "why?"

Just what this division needs. Another smart GM.

Edited by Paradigm, 21 January 2011 - 11:10 PM.

[TheYellowDart5]

This is one of those deals where you feel certain that an absolutely death-causing amount of alcohol had to be involved in the negotiations. Though Angels fans are probably going to be drinking themselves to death all night because of this one.

[86spike]

This is one of those deals where you feel certain that an absolutely death-causing amount of alcohol had to be involved in the negotiations. Though Angels fans are probably going to be drinking themselves to death all night because of this one.

Anthopolous and his front office are probably blind stinking drunk right now too.

[TheYellowDart5]

Also, I can't wait for the first time Mike Scioscia has Wells try to lay down a bunt, Wells pops it up for an out and then slowly walks back to the dugout with his head down as the camera cuts to Scioscia making his "Who farted?" face. That will probably be the highlight of the entire season.

[SemperFidelisSox]

Toronto is just going to turn around and give all this money they just saved to Bautista.

[Mueller's Twin Grannies]

If the Angels don't make the playoffs this season, is Reagins's job in jeopardy? If this is the best he could do this offseason after a less-than-spectacular offseason last year, ownership can't be too thrilled.

[rembrat]

Toronto is just going to turn around and give all this money they just saved to Bautista.

JP Sabrmetrics ain't there any more.

[radsoxfan]

I can't get enough of this deal. Always fascinating when large companies put totally incompetent people in charge.

From Halos Haven....

Angels Release Mike Napoli, Sign Juan Rivera To Four-Year, $86 Million Extension

[rembrat]

If the Angels don't make the playoffs this season, is Reagins's job in jeopardy? If this is the best he could do this offseason after a less-than-spectacular offseason last year, ownership can't be too thrilled.

Reagin's had to present this trade to ownership though, there is so much money being adsorbed that he had to get the OK from Moreno & Co before doing it. The Angels aren't really into advanced statistical analysis so they don't give a flying eff about WAR, in their book it's probably only an overpay by 2-3MM a year. They don't use UZR so they don't think his defense has slipped as much as it has either. Maybe they had scouts on him, maybe they didn't, but the Angels still operate like it's 1980 and that 31HR, 88RsBI, GGer is better than nothing in their minds.