Reese Kaplan -- Never Say "Untouchable" in the Off-Season

Buy low.  Sell high. It’s one of the most basic tenets of the free enterprise system.  You buy players at the nadir or their value and try to sell off redundant assets or people for whom you can readily find alternatives who might not perform at the same elite level but who could do a credible job for you while the peddled player could net a major haul in return.

Yesterday one of our writers posted the idea of trading Pete Alonso.  Once you got past the emotional and financial implications of trading away the HR champion and reigning Home Run Derby champion, the notion is an interesting one.  While I disagreed with the package – two expensive rentals – the fact is he would be the ultimate sell-high candidate.  He’s making minimum wage and delivered 53 HRs while driving in 120 in his rookie year. 

Picture by Ernest Dove

Lost in the shuffle between his injuries and Alonso’s monster season is Dom Smith.  Will he hit 53 HRs?   Highly unlikely.  Will he drive in 120?  Again, highly unlikely.  However, he did hit .287 and ended the season in the most memorable way by depositing a walk-off home run in the 11^th inning in dramatic fashion to remind people that hey, I’m here, too. 

I’m not going to sit here and speculate what you could receive for Alonso in trade but think about if Mike Trout was on the market.  Alonso doesn’t have the speed of Trout but has way more power and doesn’t cost $30 million per season.  In other words, you can pretty much name your price.   There are no untouchables on a roster and with a very capable spare part in Dom Smith (not to mention JD Davis), asking for the best offers on Alonso would allow you to address a myriad of problems in one fell swoop. 

Suppose the Padres turned around and offered you starter Chris Paddack (3.33 ERA in his rookie year), closer Kirby Yates (1.19 ERA), and a few top prospects…you’ve got 1B covered, you pick up another quality starting pitcher, another quality relief pitcher and a few wildcards.  That would help you with the Noah Syndergaard/Zack Wheeler/Marcus Stroman/Steven Matz uncertainties, all of whom will be walking away before Paddack even hits arbitration.  It would also immediately stabilize the bullpen and perhaps allow you to trade off excess mid-year if Diaz and/or Familia rebound to form.

Now this deal wouldn’t happen because Eric Hosmer is at 1B for the Padres and although he hasn’t worked out as they had hoped, they’re on the hook to the tune of $99 million over the next six years.   The point is that it is silly to say you can’t trade Alonso.  If the right package comes along, anyone should be available. 

One of the friends of the site raised an interesting question about JD Davis.  Many folks are screaming for him to be an everyday player based upon his great rookie campaign.  The same folks are now calling Brandon Nimmo a 4^th outfielder.  I guess they forgot already what a healthy Nimmo can do.  It was just a year ago that Nimmo delivered a 4.4 WAR season playing almost regularly. 

So maybe it’s not Alonso but Davis that you might want to dangle to another club, such as one in the AL to function as a DH?  He has a lot of the same positive attributes of a Pete Alonso plus some positional versatility though he doesn’t play any particularly well.  He is also a minimum wage player with many years of financial control. 

Picture by Ed Delaney

As much as folks like homegrown heroes, I have suggested a few times that financially it may make sense to sell high on Michael Conforto.  His 32 HR/92 RBI season is his best and he finished playing at an All-Star level.  In 2019 Conforto earned a hair over $4 million and is under team control for 2020 and 2021.   He's due a MEGA-raise in arbitration.  An outfield of Yoenis Cespedes, Brandon Nimmo and JD Davis is not exactly chopped liver and Conforto, selling high, could bring back quite a haul. 

On the pitching side of the ledger, a lot of folks are advocating trading away Edwin Diaz and/or Noah Syndergaard.  In both cases (more so in Diaz’ case) you would be selling low which is never good business.  You could flip the script and sell high on Seth Lugo (especially if you think his arm is going to fall off and you worry that his IL stints each season are going to be longer or more frequent).  His numbers are great, he makes no money and could also net a lot in return, but unless you do one of the other above deals or hold out hope that in 2020 Diaz and Familia will pitch like it’s 2017 or 2018 again, that’s a very risky proposition, weakening further your obviously weakest link – the pen. 

The off-season has just begun, and the management meetings are taking place this week.  Many strategic approaches will be analyzed and discussed, including the future of the thus far winning manager (Mickey owns a career 163-161 mark, something the more experienced predecessor couldn’t deliver).  At this juncture all options should be on the table, even the distasteful ones.