GRADE THE TRADE: WHAT IS A MAN?
"All I ask is a square deal for every man. Give him a fair chance. Do not let him wrong any one, and do not let him be wronged."
-Theodore Roosevelt
China affectionately refers to the years of 1839-1945 as the Century of Humiliation. Within the First and Second Opium Wars, World War I, the first and second Sino-Japanese Wars, and the Second World War, China saw much of its territory and trading rights ceded to foreign powers. The Qing Dynasty fragmented and fell apart as it was powerless to stop it. Even countries such as the United States, who had previously admonished Britain and other nations from attempting to carve up China, eventually got into the mix as well. It had to. This was a period where colonialism was reaching an all time high and those that sat back, risked missing out on some of the best parts that could improve their country. This was certainly the feeling of Imperial Japan at the time, who felt like they were incredibly late to the game and had to catch up with everyone else. For God’s sake, England owned almost half of the world at this time!
This brings us to Dan, the China of our 2024 league. In a matter of one month, he's allowed himself to be cut apart and given out to other teams as brutally as the Chinese gave themselves out in the Treaty of the Bogue. What's strange about this newest deal is how muted it feels compared to the last one, which I described as an atomic bomb going off. This is like a hydrogen bomb going off. Technically bigger, but we're all sort of numb to the destruction after a certain point. It's only making the rubble bounce.
So what is this trade that occurred this time? Let's take a look and find out where the problem lies and how we could fix it.
part 1: the trade
Dan trades Freddy Peralta, Luis Robert Jr (IL), and Ozzie Albies for Patrick's Ronald Acuna Jr (IL).
I'm going to once again provide their stats upfront to better showcase their performance this year. I'm including their recent 14 days as a barometer of their recent trend and this time I'm going to include their career numbers for expectation purposes.
part 2: el abusador
“Hey Pat, what’s it going to take to get Acuna off your team?”
We need to start with Ronald Acuna Jr. in this trade because no doubt, Dan approached Pat with the inclination to take advantage of the immediate tragedy. Acuna recently tore his ACL in his left knee (not the one he just had reconstruction surgery on) and is out for the rest of the year. As the best player in baseball in 2023, Acuna’s value is at a weird point. This is further complicated by the absolutely abysmal season he’s been having this year. Trying to suss out what Acuna could fetch when healthy was hard enough. Now with a very clear timetable for his injury, it’s even more difficult.
There are several dynamics at work here so we’re going to start with Acuna’s absolute garbage, nigh below replacement level performance. What in the world was going on with Acuna this year?
Fortunately a lot of smarter people have been working on this very question. Unfortunately no one had a clear answer to the question “why” but provided the answer of “patience” anyway.
Via Scott Chu from Pitcher list during an AMA on reddit, this seems to suggest that Acuna is performing closer to his 2022 season, which is still a good season and we should be patient. That’s a frustrating line of reasoning because it’s not something actionable for an owner to use. It also doesn’t paint the full story as Jay Jaffe at Fangraphs points out in this article on May 8th: Last Year’s Model of Ronald Acuña Jr. Is Nowhere in Sight | FanGraphs Baseball
Acuna has been terrible. Specifically he’s been terrible at four seam fastballs as he has whiffed on every single one outside of the strike zone and when he does make contact, it’s weaker than in his past years.
No one can answer why all these changes were happening. Was it the knee from spring training? Then why is his sprint speed up? Is there something in the Braves’ water? How come Acuna’s dip is so much worse than Olson and Harris’s numbers? A psychological issue for a guy with nicknames like The Beast, The Abuser, or I am Savannah? Maybe if he didn’t have confidence in his knee.
But this was all when Acuna was healthy. A feeling of hope was at least there for Pat and other owners that maybe Acuna could turn it around still and be the first round player he was last year. Now though, he’s a slumping player who is out for the rest of the year and facing a return that might not even be 2022 levels of production. It's such a bleak outlook for people owning him that how do you even get anything of value for the guy when his inflation will put him at a first round position next year?
Enter: Dan Topczewski.
part 3: my injured guy for your injured guy
Ignoring for now the reason why Dan would be interested in a player like Acuna, we’ll discuss what probably was the first start of this trade talk: Luis Robert Jr. It’s a simple kind of opening offer that’s funny and isn’t too unreasonable. LRJ is on the IL currently having suffered a right hip flexor strain in early April. However, unlike Acuna he’s actually coming back this year and has started his rehab assignment in AAA today. What kind of player he is when he returns remains to be seen, but that’s what makes this such a fun start to a trade discussion. Pat is still trying to win this year so having a guy come off the IL in the position that Acuna occupies is rather perfect.
But this is Acuna we’re talking about here. Is LRJ worth the #1 player in baseball, even an injured one?
Personally, I’d say yes. End of trade talks, we got our deal. And I’m not even a LRJ believer.
Let’s look at what Luis Robert Jr is capable of and the sort of dings that he could have that would lower his price to require additional packages to even it out. To start out with, LRJ Is a great baseball player. His performance last year proves the talent that we all were hoping to see from him as he went on to hit: .264 AVG, .857 OPS, 90 R, 38HR, 80 RBI, and 20 SB.
His previous years were all trending in similar directions and no doubt, had he not gotten hurt on April 5th, he’d be on pace to repeat his 2023. LRJ’s average exit velocity had increased from last year’s 89.1 to 92.4. His HardHit% increased from 41.7% to 64.7%. And his wOBA suggested an increase of his average was coming. If he had only not gotten injured…
It is at this point that I need to address the elephant in the room: apart from 2023, Luis Robert Jr. has not played in more than 98 major league games in a season. He is easily the Tyler Glasnow of hitters. Let me illustrate this with his injury history for those with short memories:
3/10/18 - Sprained Left Thumb
8/18/20 - Hand
5/2/21 - Hip
4/21/22 - Groin
8/12/22 - Wrist
8/26/22 - Wrist
8/30/22 - Wrist
9/6/22 - Wrist
9/15/22 - Hand/Wrist
9/18/22 - Hand/Wrist
9/24/22 - Wrist
4/29/23 - Hamstring
5/23/23 - Hip
7/10/23 - Calf
8/9/23 - Finger
9/2/23 - Quad
9/24/23 - Knee
4/5/24 - Hip
Some of these have been full IL stints that have missed weeks to months. Some, like most of the 2023 ones, were merely a day or two off to rest a boo-boo. But all of these add up to a lot of incomplete seasons and worry that they will continue. Luis Robert Jr has a problem with staying healthy and if he’s not healthy then he’s not on the field and if he’s not on the field, then he’s not going to give you those 38 home runs and 20 stolen bases.
I think some level of risk needs to be baked into his price and if I was Pat, I’d want some insurance on him if I’m trading the 2023 MVP and best player in baseball (titles that mean very little in the context of this year).
part 4: the teammate
So pairing up LRJ with another bat would make sense here. And what better guy than with another Atlanta Braves player, Ozzie Albies.
Albies is a player that would fall into the category of Hall of Very Good. He does a lot of things just fine and he does them fairly consistently. Looking back up at the stats above, he’s a career .279 hitter with a good amount of pop and a bit of speed. With the exception of 2022 in which he broke his foot and then his right pinky finger, Albies has hit 24 or more home runs for the past 6 years (we don’t count 2020). And couple this with 13-20 steals a season and a respectable batting average, you have a very good second basemen to form a core around.
So what the heck is going on this year?!?
First and foremost, it would be wrong to say that Albies is having a bad year per se. He’s hitting for average about the same as he usually does and he’s given some speed and some power. But wow, are there way fewer home runs than expected. Three home runs by the third of the season is hardly the pace you want.
Much like Acuna and the rest of the Braves, I can’t really say why this is happening, but I can at least point to some worrying stats that owners like Pat and Dan will want to keep an eye on. Albies max exit velocity has dipped by 2 mph and his launch angle has increased by 3 degrees. His barrel rate has been chopped in half, going from an 8.2% last year to 4.1% this year. His infield fly ball percentage (IFFB%) tripled this year at an ungodly 17.2%.
Albies is hitting a lot of weird balls up into the air and they’re not going far. It’s odd, because his fly ball rate is the same level it’s always been and 3 degrees on the launch angle is hardly making a straight up line.
Looking over his heat maps, I’m not seeing pitchers doing anything starkly different for Albies this year over last year. And yet last year by this time, Albies had hit 10 home runs with a .255 AVG. There’s reason to believe this is all part of the Braves being in such a slump. By this time last year, the Braves had a SLG of .463, 52 points higher than their slugging this year. But as already noted this year, the league’s offense is down from last year. This year the league is hitting a .388 SLG vs a .409 SLG from this time last year.
So maybe it’s the cold temperature as everyone loves to say. Or maybe the balls this year are all made out of rocks and don’t go as far. I don’t know. But Albies should have some discount baked into him for any trade because of the risk that his power is half of what you’d expect.
Does a slumping Albies and an injured LRJ equal an injured and slumping Acuna? If I was Pat, maybe. I’m an upside guy and LRJ just never would enter into my zone of interest because I kind of hate him as a fantasy player because of that injury history. But Pat isn’t me and a lot of people salivate with LRJ’s potential so I’m going to look at LRJ’s upside and try my best to ignore his awful injury history. At this point, with Acuna as a 1st round keeper, with an unknown reason for his poor performance this year, and with a horrific injury that last time he had it sapped his power for the whole year, I would be happy with a LRJ and Albies deal. I’m not sure there would be better offers out there.
part 5: but wait, there’s more
I’m not sure there was any real negotiation for Acuna by this point. I’m thinking that Dan did what Ian often does, which is an “opening salvo.” In this, the owner approaches another team and throws down an offer that’s so large, the other owner has no reason not to hit the accept button.
Freddy Peralta. I didn’t want to go too into Peralta because he is what he is, a very good SP2 with flashes of SP1. But some owners really don’t believe in this guy and that annoys me so we’re going to talk about Peralta for a bit because he deserves better than your dirty assumptions.
Over the last 4 years, Peralta has been slowly but surely decreasing his walk rate while increasing his strikeout rate. This has given him a very handsome 1.12 WHIP for his career and has allowed his ERA to remain under 4 consistently. And it’s a good thing he’s keeping the free passes down to a minimum because he’s rather vulnerable to home runs. His HR/FB ratio has doubled since 2021, albeit he’s kept his exit velocities and max exit velocities down. And all of these are lower than peak Verlander so it might just be that Peralta is unlucky.
What I especially like about Peralta is he’s not a two pitch guy, as he has four pitches (Fourseam, changeup, slider, and curveball) that he uses fairly frequently unlike a pitcher like Kevin Gausman who really only has two pitches (Fourseam and splitter) with occasionally a changeup mixed in. To me, this means that Peralta has a better chance at staying consistent year to year because if he has an outing where one of his pitches aren’t working, he has others in his toolbelt to confidently fall back on. Which considering the year Gausman is having, is kind of proving my point.
Does all of this mean I think Peralta has another step forward to take? No, probably not. But it does mean I have utmost confidence in Peralta (pending an injury slip) to be able to slot into my roster and forget about him. And for someone like Pat, that’s a God send considering his pitching has been rather shaky this year (except for that trade for Bryce Miller he made with a brave and righteous owner). A Freddy Peralta shores up the stats that Pat has been middling in the league standings.
part 6: the verdict
This is a trade that I think Dan threw down without any second thought. He saw his opportunity to wrest Acuna from Pat finally. Because the biggest hurdle to getting a player like Acuna even in the open discussions, is the loosening of bonds that he had on his owner. The ACL injury provided that opportunity. Unfortunately, Dan came in with his highest offer rather than any other offer as a starting bid. This was probably predicated out of fear that other owners would be in on the sweepstakes, but that was an erroneous assumption.
It was unlikely that anyone was in Pat’s DMs for Acuna. And for very good reason. We have the 2022 precedent to show how Acuna was when he came back. We also have his bizarrely bad season this year and now we don’t even have him finishing this season to find out what exactly was wrong. I don’t like that going into next season. LRJ and Albies would probably have been enough for Acuna. If I was a Brewers fan, I would not have offered Peralta because he’s the best thing to have happened in my life and I will cherish him now and always.
I do think that Dan needs to make this kind of trade. This trade reminds me of a larger version of my deal for Cedric Mullins last year. You come in to get a guy at a cheaper deal and you end up paying at price and feeling bitter about it the next year. You don’t learn about that bitterness from someone telling you about it. You learn about it from living it. The lesson is that you walk away when you realize you’re not getting the deal you want.
grades:
pat: a
You hit the accept button. Well done using basic motor functions in a timely manner in relation to a glowing screen.
dan: d
You once again used the rules to your advantage to get the deal you wanted. But this is such a bad deal in terms of what you are going for: playing for 2025. This is not a dynasty league. This is a deal that has gains for 2026 because Acuna is gonna be kept in a round he is not worth with a performance that we can track from 2022 that leaves something to be desired. I think you could have gotten this deal done with just the hitters. Some would still be flabbergasted at this because Acuna is just not the target a tanking team should want. A player like Ohtani would have been a better aim (if he was owned by anyone other than Brooke). I think you were sick and tired of LRJ and frustrated with Albies and just wanted them gone. Which is fine. But this deal doesn’t help you and worse, it trades a pitcher that would have given you enjoyment to have on your team with a keeper round that still has value.
part 7: the evil we live with
It’s time to take a look at how our league is run. Because despite what some leaguemates will have you believe, this is not a Dan problem. This problem started with Ian when he did a massive sell off in 2021. Let’s review these series of events because some people seem to believe that Dan is the originator of this:
On July 12th, 2021, Ian traded Max Scherzer, Joey Gallo, and JD Martinez for Thomas’s then injured Ronald Acuna Jr who was being kept in the 5th round.
Later that day, Ian traded Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Nola, and Alex Reyes for Patrick’s then elbow injured Tyler Glasnow and Jarred Kelenic
On July 13th, 2021, Ian traded Robby Ray, Paul Goldschmidt, Francisco Lindor, and Alex Manoah for Brooke’s Bo Bichette
So I do not want to hear anything about how we have a problem with Dan. Dan is merely following the precedent established in our league. And we don’t have a problem with Ian. Or with Mark. Or with whoever else decides to blow up their team. The problem we have is with our constitution that does nothing to prevent or disincentivize this kind of behavior. I was furious in 2021. I am furious now. The only thing I got wrong in 2021 was that I believed this would create a trend of unrealistic prices for any trade moving forward. I was wrong. What it did do was create a trend of absolute bonkers sell offs when a team feels they’re no longer in contention.
And Dan very much is no longer in contention. A lot of that is because he sold off so early that he created his own last ranking, but he also was hit with bad luck in terms of injury and poor performance from players like Albies and Bregman. So what can we do for our league to prevent these levels of tanking?
There are several options we have with undoubtedly more along the way. I’m going to list some of them below:
We move to a full dynasty league, removing draft day entirely. This would punish a team like Ian’s or Dan’s from getting away with tanking by preventing the ability for them to restock their team on the draft day. They will be stuck with the team they mutilated for years to come.
We offer a reward to the consolation ladder. This could be for the one who wins or the teams who finish in the top half. This also could be done via the standings before the playoffs and offer a reward to teams that finished 5-7. The prize would have to be something that would be of massive benefit for those teams to at least cause hesitation in tanking to such a degree. Maybe the first round pick. Maybe a 7th keeper. Maybe a lull in inflation for one of their players. But it has to be something that a team can use and plan around and not something that is a goofy, oh wow I got something, gift like scrambling the draft order up.
We put a rule into the constitution that stops tanking. This rule could be something like a limit to how many tanking trades a team can make. Or it could be that every deal has to be competitive.
We move the trade deadline up. This would stop trades entirely at a certain point of the year and drastically limit the opportunity for a tanking deal let alone, any deals.
We expand veto uses from preventing collusion to preventing collusion and league imbalance. The idea being that if a trade puts a team into such a hole, that the league has a responsibility to prevent that from happening.
Each of these have flaws.
The problem with the dynasty solution is that it means no more draft day events which a lot of people enjoy and look forward to. It also does not prevent tanking as these kinds of trades are actually more common in dynasty leagues than in keepers and redrafts.
With how close teams have been to making the playoffs each year, the second option has merit as the 5-7 teams are usually right in the thick of things to make the playoffs. The issue is what the reward would need to be has to not only incentivize those teams (or those teams that might be close to those teams), but also not piss off the philosophical differences of the other owners. There’s been massive pushback from a few owners on rewarding any team other than the Champion and in particular, offering the first round pick. Several owners feel that a first round pick or a team associated improvement is a better reward than the championship reward of winning the whole league and getting a belatedly mailed belt (that may or may not have had Ian and Pat’s junk rubbed on it).
The problem with the third option is how arbitrary it is. Deciding what is or is not tanking is a gut feeling most of the time, which makes it difficult to codify in any constitution. This option is further difficult to commit to because no one wants someone else dictating how they run their team, including the constitution. Owners want to run their team the way they see fit, even if they are wrong.
The problem with the fourth option is that it punishes all the other owners who want to make honest trades. By moving the trade deadline up, we removed the option for owners to incrementally improve their team or even to just add a bit more excitement into a season they might have felt low on. This also doesn’t guarantee tanking won’t still happen as Dan sold off after the third week.
The problem with expanding veto uses is that it is also arbitrary as there is no way to know how a trade will or will not work out and trying to codify that will be just as difficult as making a league amendment that restricts such deals from happening.
So where does that leave us? Well we have some thinking to do come this offseason. I hope that some owners will be open to ideas or at least exploring some of these options. The goal should be to not restrict any team from making these trades, but should at least make a team hesitate for a moment before hitting that send trade button. Would Dan have jettisoned Freeman and Bichette if there was a benefit of playing the year out and finishing within 5-7? Maybe. Probably not, but maybe Bichette wouldn’t have been included in the deal or maybe he’d have pushed for another player to keep him competitive. Trying to have his cake and eat it too, sort of thing.
I don’t have answers right now, only ideas and theories. The one thing I can say for certain is buckle up because it’s only June and there will undoubtedly be more trades like this again. Because if other teams don’t take another piece out of Dan or the next team that decides to throw in the towel, then they will fall behind.
