To a casual baseball fan, Stephen Strasburg’s numbers are not pretty. The owner of a 4.76 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP, Strasburg is clearly having the worst season of his career. But how bad has he been, really? Not as bad as you think. Take a look at these 2015 stats:

Player A: 3.48 xFIP, 22.8 K%, 5.5 BB%
Player B: 3.31 xFIP, 24.1 K%, 5.3 BB%
Player C: 3.18 xFIP, 24.9 K%, 6.0 BB%

Player A is none other than Johny Cueto, recently traded to the Kansas City Royals. 12th in ERA among qualified pitchers, Cueto is widely considered among the best, and perhaps deservedly so with five straight years of a sub-3 ERA. While he has consistently outperformed the above metrics, they are still indicative of general pitcher performance and should not be overlooked when comparing the quality of different pitchers.

Player B actually has the fifth lowest ERA among qualified pitchers and was also traded at the deadline. He’s been one of the most reliable pitchers over the past five years and has been an ace on every staff for which he’s pitched. Player B is David Price.

Player C is obviously Stephen Strasburg, and as you can see, his peripheral stats stack up against the best in the game. In addition to these 2 players, Strasburg also compares positively to others like Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir, both of whom have better ERAs but a worse xFIP, K%, and BB%.  Strasburg is pitching like an ace, and xFIP shows that, so why have his results been so poor?

Well, first of all, there’s his .345 BABIP. Not only is this high compared to the league average (.296), it’s well above his career mark of .302. Considering he’s not giving up any more line drives or hard contact than usual, his BABIP should fall back to around the .300 mark and bring his ERA down with it.

Not only is his BABIP at an all-time high, his LOB% is at an all-time low. Currently at 65.3%, it figures to inch back up to his career 73.2% mark, or at least to the league average of 72.4%. Considering his strikeouts have not dropped off, there’s no reason for his drop on LOB%, and it can simply be chalked up to bad luck, something that he’s had plenty of this year.

Looking at these stats, there’s nothing that suggests Strasburg is anything but unlucky. However, as Jeff Sullivan pointed out here, Strasburg’s problem could stem from the injury he suffered in the spring. He had apparently adjusted his mechanics to compensate for the discomfort, and even though it appears as though he has fixed this, it’s possible that when pitching from the stretch and in higher leverage situations, he returns to this altered motion by default. When looking at the difference in Strasburg’s stats between pitching from the windup and the stretch, this is what we see:

Evidently, this claim has some ground. Strasburg is clearly having some problems with runners on base, particularly in striking batters out. Before we deal with the strikeout numbers, let’s take a look to make sure that he’s not just getting killed during the at bats that don’t end in strikeouts.

Strasburg is actually generating more ground balls and weaker contact with runners on base. His infield hit percentage is triple what it is when the bases are empty, something that can be attributed to luck. With such weak contact, it’s safe to say this isn’t the problem. So it must be the strikeouts. If we take a look at his whiff rates, the results are intriguing:

OK, so there’s definitely a problem here. With runners on base, he’s only whiffing batters at half the rate he’s done previously in his career, as well as half the rate that he does with the bases empty. So what’s the issue? Well, it’s not his pitch velocity:

He could be playing (Saturday). I’m not sure yet. I want to see how it plays today, but I wanted to be upfront with him and just let him know it’s not just a day off.

— Joe Maddon

And with those words on Friday, August 7th, the Castro Regime fell in Chicago. Starlin Castro has earned the pine, posting an abysmal .268 on-base, around 50 points worse than the MLB average. Power has been even more of a problem; Castro’s ISO of .068 is sixth worst in MLB among qualifying hitters. It is also the worst of Castro’s professional career. Maybe he contributes with speed? Nope, not since 2012, when Castro stole 25 in 38 tries. He’s had only 23 ineffective attempts since then. His defense, long and loudly criticized, hasn’t been all bad; the metrics differ on him, but add them all up (metaphorically, anyway) and he seems to grade out about average.

Castro is striking out only a bit more this year than he has in his career (16.8% vs. 15.7%), but he’s making weaker contact. His infield fly percentage is at a career high of 12.9%, a full 5% higher than his career average. It was high last year, too, but he made up for it with a line-drive rate of over 22%. The line drives are gone this year, with Castro hitting a career low of 15.8%, which is, like his ISO, sixth worst among qualifiers.

Castro isn’t obviously being pitched differently this year. He’s seeing a few more strikes, but that’s probably an effect of his power outage rather than a cause. It doesn’t seem that pitchers have found some sort of secret recipe to deprive him of hits. Rather, it appears that fastballs are simply overwhelming him. According to his PITCHf/x data, Castro’s done pretty well against most offspeed pitches, but he has a league worst -2.70 runs above average/100 against four-seamers, and he’s 4th worst against two-seamers (-2.74). There are some decent hitters who have struggled with one of those pitches this year, but no one has been as bad as Castro at both.

Castro has been known to travel with a rough crowd, and more recently there’s been some ADD speculation. The Cubs organization is hinting that conditioning is a problem, which would explain the loss of power and his inability to hit the fastball. Perhaps, but Castro is 10th overall in total plate appearances since 2012. Whatever his problems may be, durability hasn’t been one of them.

And it’s worth remembering that Castro plays the most difficult position in what is arguably the most difficult team sport. He’s still only 25 years old, and by the standards of young shortstops, Castro has done quite well so far. He’s 29th in career bWAR (8.1) in the divisional era for shortstops through age 25. There are some great players in the top 50, and some not-great players, but there’s only one real disaster: Bobby Crosby at #40. (Ok, Rafael Ramirez at #39 was pretty bad too.) So Castro could have a Crosby-Ramirez future, in which he rapidly descends into mediocrity and irrelevance. But the vast majority of players with achievements similar to his at age 25 did not.

This suggests that either patience or a change of scenery could help Castro, as Grant Brisbee suggested in refuting the ADD speculation in the post linked above. Patience would not, however, seem to be the right move for the Cubs at the moment. Theo Epstein correctly eschewed the splashy megamove at the trade deadline: the wildcard game isn’t worth surrendering prospects. But it makes sense to to take less costly steps to improve this roster for the stretch run, and Castro is easily the biggest hole on the 25-man roster, with arguable exception of the 5th starter slot, now filled (for the moment, at least) by Dan Haren. The Cubs have been more than patient with Castro, and the performance hasn’t been there. Maybe they can give him more at-bats if they fall out of contention, but right now the team’s immediate future matters more than Castro’s.

That said, maybe the Cubs could spend a few minutes rethinking their approach to Castro. He’s has had three different managers in the last three years, each using a different approach with him. Dale Sveum’s tough love didn’t work, and Maddon’s zany zen isn’t working either. It was Rick Renteria’s more personal approach that seemed to get the most out of Castro. The karmic wheel spins in unpredictable ways, and Castro’s collapse may simply be the earthly price the Cubs are paying for Renteria’s defenestration, but it also suggests Castro can be reached, because someone was able to do it. Maddon is intelligent enough to realize this, and flexible enough to recognize that the shtick that works for most players doesn’t work for all. If Castro’s benching is coupled with some creative efforts to get him re-engaged, the Cubs may still be able to get value out of the player.

Diets, workouts, Ritalin, and perceptive coaching will be for naught if Castro is in fact the second coming of Rafael Ramirez. At some point his relatively reasonable contract will begin to look like an albatross, and the Cubs will cut him loose or trade him for minimal return. It would be helpful if players came equipped with little red crystals in their palms that glowed when the player reached his ceiling, but that won’t happen until at least the next renegotiation of the CBA.  So yes, it is possible that Castro has plateaued, and neither he nor the Cubs have figured that out yet.

But the Cubs have a little time. They can jury-rig their infield until they’re ready to press Javier Baez (or even Arismendy Alcantara) into service. They can see how the rest of the season develops, and how Castro progresses as they attempt to rebuild him in place, much like they’re doing with Wrigley Field.  As many have observed, his trade value can’t get much lower, so it doesn’t hurt the Cubs to take a little more time to see what they have. Burning a valuable roster spot on an unproductive player is dangerous, but the biggie-sized September roster is nigh.

If I had to bet, I’d bet that Castro will be moved in the offseason in exchange for someone else’s disappointment (Jed Gyorko, anyone?). But it’s not impossible that, in the top of the 12th inning of Game 7 of the 2015 World Series, Castro comes in from the end of the bench to hit the game-winning homer.  On what started as a day off.

I wish I knew why Jung-ho Kang and Ben Paulsen seem to get so little respect. It’s baffling. Regardless, people should be talking about these guys and their production — both have very legit numbers, yet few seem to have noticed. More to my point: fantasy baseball players should pick them up from the waiver wire ASAP. I mean, right this second.

Kang, recall, is the stud the Pirates signed from Korea. An unknown for the better part of the season, Kang is making his presence felt in the middle of the Pirates lineup, having just earned honors this July for NL Rookie of the Month. Kang, with dual SS/3B eligibility, is owned in just 57.9% of ESPN leagues and is slashing a highly productive .291/.365/.446 and, based on what he did in Korea, his .809 OPS could prove to be low in the long run.

Kang went through a bit of a power drought in June, but he caught fire in July. He’s now hitting .291 with 8 HR and 35 RBI. Consider that in the last week of July, Kang recorded multiple hits in five out of eight games with 6 R, 2 HR, and 3 RBI in that stretch. In his next game, on August 1, he hit his 8th home run of the season, a ball that traveled 412 feet. In 2014, Kang launched 40 home runs in 120 games in Korea, while also hitting .297. The kid can flat-out rake. With Jordy Mercer on the shelf (and not very good when healthy), Kang continues to occupy the 4–6 holes in Clint Hurdle’s lineup.

As many hitters have said before: As the summer heats up, so do they. I suspect we’re going to see Kang launch many more home runs before season’s end. If nothing else, even if the power is merely moderate, the fact that he hits for average, steals a few bases, and slots in the middle of a very potent Bucs lineup makes him worthy of a pickup in leagues of any size.

Ben Paulsen. What’s not to love about a guy who: 1) plays half his games at Coors Field; 2) made minor league pitching look like little league; 3) hits for both power and average; and 4) absolutely kills right-handed pitching? Answer: Nothing. His numbers aren’t dissimilar from those of Kang (in fact, they’re nearly identical), with a .300 average, 8 HR, and 34 RBI. His average is a bit buoyed by a .363 BABIP, though ZiPS projects a .333 BABIP the rest of the way. The only knocks against Paulsen are playing time and his ugly platoon splits, which are obviously related. But as with guys I’ve discussed before, who cares if he’s not an everyday starter; he’d just tank your average anyway. Instead, bench him against the few lefties he’s allowed to face, and you won’t be disappointed.

FanGraphs had this to say about him before the season started; it’s like these guys are clairvoyant or something. But they’re also very much wrong in the when they say that Paulsen’s game is made for just NL-only leagues. It’s much better than that (keep reading). Per FanGraphs:

The Quick Opinion: If Morneau starts the year on the disabled list as he recovers from knee surgery, Paulsen could be a sneaky short-term option in NL-only leagues, but that’s about it.

Paulsen, actually, is now effectively an everyday starter in the mercurial Walt Weiss’ lineup, thanks to the demotion of Wilin “Baby Bull” Rosario. Justin Morneau’s concussion symptoms are persisting, and he may have played his final game in the big leagues. Thus, the gig is Paulsen’s to lose, and with Corey Dickerson on the DL again, Paulsen has also been playing some corner outfield when called upon.

And when the 27-year old Paulsen is called upon, the numbers are a thing of beauty — against RHP, anyway, who he’s torturing to the tune of a .308/.361/.535 triple slash. Paulsen’s OPS of .896 isn’t just ‘productive,’ it’s downright fantastic. Frankly, it’s more than a little weird that just 19.7% of ESPN players own him. I’m happy to say I’m one of them, though I missed out on Kang, much to my dismay (and totally because of my stupidity).

There will be more blogs to follow, with similar themes in mind: finding value where there seemingly is none. There always is, you just have to look hard enough.

The last time Matt Shoemaker allowed more than two runs in an outing was June 19. Since then, he’s pitched 37 1/3 innings, allowing just seven earned runs. He has 35 strikeouts compared to just 11 walks, leading to a 2.88 FIP. He’s been even better when just isolating the numbers in his three starts since the All-Star break, with 27/6 K/BB and a 1.36 FIP, although, to be fair, that is an incredibly small sample. For comparison’s sake, his FIP through June 19 was 4.70.

So has there been a change in Shoemaker’s game, or has his streak been a fluke? Well, I wouldn’t be writing this if it was the latter, as I’m sure you could’ve guessed (although if you weren’t able to guess who the article was about after the first paragraph, perhaps I’m overestimating you). There’s been a significant change in the way Shoemaker has approached batters. Take a look at his pitch type chart through June 19, courtesy of Baseball Savant:

And then take a look at the data since then:

Through June 19, Shoemaker threw his fastball (four-seam and two-seam) 51.6% of the time. Since then, it’s been 56.9% of the time. Comparing these two proportions with a two-tailed Z test yields a p-value of .034, significant at the .05 level, showing that there has indeed been in a difference in the amount of fastballs he’s thrown.

Of course, throwing more fastballs doesn’t translate to a drop in FIP of over 3 points. That is, unless, those fastballs are of higher quality. And, class, what’s the most important aspect of a fastball? Hopefully you were at least able to guess this one: the velocity. Which, naturally, is the next thing I looked at.

Again, I used Baseball Savant’s PITCHf/x data. Narrowing the results to just fastballs, here are the velocities of Shoemaker’s pitches this year:

At the beginning of the season, Shoemaker’s average fastball velocity hovered right above 88 mph. Since then, it’s steadily risen, and there’s a clear jump about two-thirds of the way into the season (note that this time would be remarkably near June 19). After the jump, his average velocity has hung closer to the 92 mph range, further away from Jered Weaver status. FanGraphs data shows the same thing:

Note, this data also shows Shoemaker’s average velocity from 2014, when he had a 3.04 ERA and a 3.19 SIERA. This image confirms the steady increase in velocity of Shoemaker’s fastball, as it has recently resided at or even above its value from last year’s productive season. There have been clear results from this change, especially in the form of whiff rate, and predictably, strikeouts. Through June 19, Shoemaker’s whiff rate sat at a mediocre 10.5%.

Since the All-Star break, this is what that breakdown looks like:

You might notice that his whiff rate sits at 13.7%, which would be top-5 among starters if he managed it for an entire season. Now, I’m not naive enough to think that number is where is true value lies after just 3 games, but he’s certainly improved off his 10.2% mark he had earlier in the season.

I’m not suggesting Shoemaker is the next coming of Clayton Kershaw. I’m not even sure if he’s the best pitcher on his own staff. But one thing is for sure: Matt Shoemaker is throwing the ball harder than he has in the past, and it’s working. And while it may not continue at this level, there’s no reason it should stop.

Note: Norris has now signed with the Padres.

—

Hey, remember Bud Norris? The guy who was an opening day starter for the 2013 Astros (although that team lost 111 games, so that might not be something to brag about). He then was traded for prospect Josh Hader (who was just traded for Carlos Gomez), and a replacement level player in L.J. Hoes and a compensatory 1^st round pick. The draft pick turned out to be Virginia’s Derek Fischer who has hit 19 dingers for the Astros single-A club in 2015. He won 19 of his first 35 starts with the Orioles. This O’s pitcher got released on August 8^th after clearing waivers. He is now free to sign with any team willing to take on his services. Norris has been a huge disappointment in 2015 — actually huge disappointment would be an understatement. The Orioles signed Norris to a one-year, $8.8 million contract last winter to avoid an arbitration hearing. He was slated to solidify the middle/back end of the O’s rotation. A solid veteran who over his first five full years in the league averaged a WAR right around 2. He has never been flashy but always solid, until 2015. 2015 is the year of the Bud Norris Apocalypse. Norris sported an ERA of 7.06, and a Win-Loss record of 2-9. So is Norris this bad, or is he a victim of bad luck, and is picking him up for a pro-rated portion of the league minimum worth it?

What changed in 2015 versus the rest of Norris’ career that saw him deliver an average ERA of 4.20 over parts of six seasons? There’s a few factors that snakebite Norris in 2015. The first is Norris had a brutal increase in his FB/HR rate. For his whole career (2015 included), 11.4% of the fly balls hit against Norris went over the wall. This year that number ballooned to 17.7%. That is over a 55% jump. Why the huge jump in FB/HR rate? Well, it is not that his fastball velocity dipped, in fact his fastball velocity is over .6 mph faster than his career average of 92.9 mph. Norris is throwing the same rate of strikes vs. his career rate (63%). He has not been throwing in the middle of the plate any more than usual either. In fact, on pitches in the middle third of the strike zone he has thrown 0.7% less pitches than his career average.

Perhaps the reason behind the change in FB/HR rate is luck, but Norris is also throwing 7% more fastballs than the career average. Batters may have been sitting on his fastball more than usual and were teeing off. My thinking is that when a pitcher does not have a huge drop in velocity or major change in strikes thrown, the huge increase in FB/HR rate must be something of a fluke. Norris also got snakebitten by an awful LOB% of 59.5%. His career rate is 72%. Maybe this is just a product of being unlucky. But Norris has been miserable in situations with men on base; with runners in scoring position, batters were hitting .313. No pitcher on earth is going to have a good ERA when batters are hitting over .300 with RISP.

To recap, it seems that Norris may have been much more unlucky this year than other years in his career. He has not been good by any means, but he is not as bad as the 7.06 ERA he has this season. The xFIP and SIERA projections give Bud an estimated ERA of 4.55 and 4.48 much closer to his career mark of 4.20. It seems that Norris has been plagued this season by an inability to pitch with RISP and an awful FB/HR rate. I highly doubt anyone is going to confuse Norris for a top-tier starter, but he should still be a serviceable back of the rotation option.

Signing Bud Norris at this point in the season has practically no risk. If Norris signed for the league minimum, it would be pro-rated to roughly $150,000. Norris could serve as a $150,000 insurance policy in the event that a starting pitcher goes down. He could get picked up and put in the bullpen in a long-relief role with the capability of making a spot start. Having a viable long-relief man is huge during the late months of the season as teams try to save their bullpens. He could easily be picked up by a team like Minnesota who is 4 games back of the wild card. They could use back of the rotation help with the injury to Tommy Milone. The Giants could use rotation help with the recent injury to Mike Leake. And unless Kansas City feels comfortable running Jeremy Guthrie out to the mound every 5th day, Norris could be a good fit. Even a team like St. Louis or Tampa could use him for a spot start to give some rest to fairly young starting rotation. There could potentially be multiple landing spots for Bud. While Norris is not a flashy option by any means, he is a veteran who could easily be a band-aid for a team with a banged up rotation or just simply looking for someone to eat innings.

*Stats acquired from FanGraphs.com and Baseball-Reference.com.

The importance of getting ahead of hitters is stressed to pitchers from the first time they play in a non-coach-pitch league.  It’s not what happens on the pitch immediately following a first pitch strike, it’s because the numbers for the rest of the at bat sway dramatically in the pitcher’s favor.

These are league averages, but for the most part they apply to individual hitters as well.  Paul Goldschmidt is not a “league average” hitter, in fact, he is at least in the conversation when discussing the best hitter in baseball right now (2015) – and I only say at least because I’m too afraid of the backlash I might receive if I declared him the best.  But regardless if a pitcher is facing an average hitter or an elite hitter, the law of getting ahead applies –  even if the numbers for Goldschmidt do look a bit different from the table of above.

Paul Goldschimdt is just so strong, and so adept at making hard contact to all parts of the field that, even at his worst, he’s still so much better than other professional hitters.  The results clearly show that he’s a lesser version of himself throughout the duration of an at-bat that starts with a first-pitch strike, but here’s the thing: getting a first-pitch strike on Goldschmidt isn’t easy.  Not only is he discerning, but he is so devastatingly destructive when he sees something he likes.  Pitchers have gotten a first pitch strike against Goldschmidt 56.7% this season (league average is 61.1%).  In 471 PA, Paul Goldschmidt has only swung 126 times at first pitches, or 26.8%.  It could be said that Paul Goldschmidt “goes to bat with a plan”.  But it’s not like pitchers’ game plans will stand idle while Goldschmidt continues to pummel them; they will make adjustments, and one adjustment they have made, because the pay-off is so dramatic, lies in figuring out how to get ahead of him.

First, let’s consider two samples from Goldschmidt’s 2015 – through July 3^rd of this year Paul Goldschmidt put up MVP numbers:

April 6 – July 3:

Since then, however, he has hit like someone who just might be mortal:

July 4 – August 4:

So what course of action have pitchers taken to get ahead of him in the count?  The answer lies in the conveniently bolded numbers featured in the CB% column of the table below.

Numbers represent the usage of pitches in all first-pitch situations to Paul Goldschmidt.

Obviously there’s been an uptick of a larger percentage in split fingers for first pitches, but a hell of a lot more pitchers throw curveballs than splitters, so that value is not really important.  What is important is that 119.5% increase in first-pitch curveballs, because Paul Goldschmidt SPITS at first pitch curveballs.  He saw twenty-eight, 1^st pitch curveballs in the sample size concluding July 3^rd and swung at a grand total of 1 of them.  Since then, in a month, he’s seen 20, first-pitch curveballs and has swung at exactly 0 of them.

Goldschmidt is looking for something hard-ish (fastball/slider/change-up; league average change up velo is 83.3 compared to 77.7 for curveballs and 84.2 for sliders) that he can drive on the first pitch, and knows he can lay off curveballs to sacrifice a first-pitch strike and still be an above-average hitter.  For the record, it’s not like Goldschmidt is bad against curveballs; he owns a 3.31 wCB/C in 2015 (3.79 through July 3^rd, and 2.16 after), it’s just that he’s committed to his plan.  Pitchers – or analysts – have noticed his disregard for curveballs as first pitches, and the pitchers – not the analysts – have twirled curveballs in to Goldschmidt on the first pitch at a much higher rate over the last month – again, that number is 119.5% more often.  While the strike percentage of these curveballs has only been 45%, that’s still up from the 28% of curveballs for first-pitch strikes through July 3^rd.

Conjecture alert:  Perhaps expecting more first-pitch curveballs, Paul Goldschmidt has readied himself to not swing at the first pitch, as he has swung at just 25.3% of non-curveball first pitches since July 4^th, compared to 32.9% through July 3^rd.  Pitchers have been able to sneak their first pitch strike percentage up against Goldy from 55.9% to 59.5% in this past month – that’s a 6.4% increase.  So it seems as though the best way to beat Paul Goldschmidt is to try to find some way to make him swing the bat less, because when he does, bad things happen to baseballs.  For clarification, I’m talking about throwing him more first pitch curveballs, not walking him every time up.

Paul Goldschmidt is so good that he will probably adjust to this new approach fairly quickly.  I said earlier, “he knows he can lay off curveballs to sacrifice a first-pitch strike and still be an above-average hitter” – Paul Goldschmidt’s aim is not to be a player who is an above-average hitter – he’s a force at the plate and he will adjust.  Health permitting, Goldschmidt will likely finish the season with at least a .300 AVG, 100 R scored, 30 HR, 100 RBI, and 20 SB – a line we haven’t seen from a first baseman since Jeff Bagwell did it in 1999.

So as Goldschmidt adjusts to this new attack from pitchers, maybe the real number to take away from this research is that Goldschmidt is partying like it’s 1999.

In “Hardball Retrospective: Evaluating Scouting and Development Outcomes for the Modern-Era Franchises”, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original team. Therefore, Nolan Ryan is listed on the Mets roster for the duration of his career while the Expos / Nationals declare Gary Carter and the Marlins claim Josh Beckett. I calculated revised standings for every season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition.  Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Expanding on my research for the book, the following series of articles will reveal the finest single-season rosters for every Major League organization based on overall rankings in OWAR and OWS along with the general managers and scouting directors that constructed the teams. “Hardball Retrospective” is available in digital format on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, GooglePlay, iTunes and KoboBooks. The paperback edition is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and CreateSpace. Additional information and a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here.

Terminology

OWAR – Wins Above Replacement for players on “original” teams

OWS – Win Shares for players on “original” teams

OPW% – Pythagorean Won-Loss record for the “original” teams

Assessment

The 1983 St. Louis Cardinals     OWAR: 54.8     OWS: 310     OPW%: .517

GM Bing Devine acquired 73.1% (30/41) of the ballplayers on the 1983 Cardinals roster. Based on the revised standings the “Original” 1983 Cardinals edged the Expos by a single contest while pacing the National League in OWAR and OWS for the second consecutive season.

Jose Cruz (.318/14/92) topped the Senior Circuit with 189 base knocks and registered 30 Win Shares. Terry Kennedy (.284/17/98) and Ted “Simba” Simmons (.308/13/108) shared responsibilities behind the dish. First baseman Keith “Mex” Hernandez earned his sixth straight Gold Glove Award. Larry Herndon (.302/20/92) posted career-bests in batting average, hits, doubles and RBI.

Simmons ranked tenth among catchers according to Bill James in “The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract.” In total, eight ballplayers from the 1983 Cardinals roster registered in the “NBJHBA” top 100 rankings including Steve Carlton (15^th-P), Keith Hernandez (16^th-1B), Jose Cruz (29^th-LF), Andy Van Slyke (32^nd-CF), Tom Herr (40^th-2B), Garry Templeton (42^nd-SS) and Terry Kennedy (52^nd-C).

The Redbirds’ rotation featured John Denny (19-6, 2.37), the league-leader in victories and 1983 NL Cy Young Award winner. Steve “Lefty” Carlton tallied 15 wins while striking out a League-leading 275 batsmen. Jerry Reuss contributed a 2.94 ERA along with a 12-11 record. Luis DeLeon saved 13 contests and furnished an ERA of 2.68 with a 1.045 WHIP.

The “Original” 1983 St. Louis Cardinals roster

Honorable Mention

The “Original” 1982 Cardinals           OWAR: 54.7     OWS: 318     OPW%: .552

The majority of the Cardinals teams from 1977-1985 consistently achieved OWAR scores above 40 and/or OWS scores above 300. Due to the roster similarities I have selected the 1992 roster for additional comment.

The “Original” 1992 Cardinals           OWAR: 47.8     OWS: 286     OPW%: .563

Andy Van Slyke (.324/14/89) led the National League with 45 doubles and 199 base knocks while accruing a team-high 35 Win Shares. Van Slyke collected his fifth consecutive Gold Glove Award and placed fourth in the NL MVP balloting. In his second full season Ray Lankford (.293/20/86) nabbed 42 bags and established a career-high with 40 doubles. Terry Pendleton replicated the output from his MVP campaign in ’91, posting a .311 BA with 21 blasts and 105 ribbies. He delivered a League-leading 199 safeties, made his lone All-Star appearance and earned runner-up status in the MVP vote. Lance “One Dog” Johnson swiped 41 bases and topped the circuit with 12 triples. Mike Perez (9-3, 1.84) and Todd Worrell (5-3, 2.11) anchored the bullpen corps.

On Deck

The “Original” 1992 Padres

References and Resources

Baseball America – Executive Database

Baseball-Reference

James, Bill. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. New York, NY.: The Free Press, 2001. Print.

James, Bill, with Jim Henzler. Win Shares. Morton Grove, Ill.: STATS, 2002. Print.

Retrosheet – Transactions Database

Seamheads – Baseball Gauge

Sean Lahman Baseball Archive

Here’s Part 4 of my look at Dave Cameron’s past Trade Value lists. Over the last three write-ups, we’ve gone from Dave’s 2007 rankings way back on USSMariner.com and examined what kind of return teams were getting for their players listed among the top trade assets in the game. We’ve seen young superstars in their prime get dealt, pitchers coming off recent Cy Young seasons shown the door, teams waiting too long to trade their top assets, and even a young stud outfielder shipped off because of makeup concerns. Now it’s time to finish our journey down memory lane with three more trades, all fascinating in their own unique ways.

All trade information was taken from Baseball-Reference.com. For each player, I’ve included next to his name, his age at the time of trade, along with his final year of team control and the amount due for that player including all team options.

2012

23. Justin Upton, 25, controlled through 2015, $38.5 million

• January 24, 2013: Traded by the Arizona Diamondbacks with Chris Johnson to the Atlanta Braves for Brandon Drury (minors), Nick Ahmed, Randall Delgado, Martin Prado and Zeke Spruill.

For Justin Upton, we can do much better in evaluating his trade value than just looking at what Arizona actually received in return. Seattle had made an offer that the Diamondbacks accepted about two weeks before this actual deal went down, and that would’ve been the package, done and done, until Upton himself stepped in and vetoed the whole thing, forcing Kevin Towers to look in a different direction.

The trade that fell through with Seattle would’ve sent prospects Nick Franklin, Charlie Furbush, Stephen Pryor, and Taijuan Walker to Arizona. Let’s look at the pedigree of these guys first.

Furbush was a 26-year-old lefty reliever who had a solid first season out of the bullpen in 2012 after having a disastrous 2011 in the rotation. He wasn’t nothing, as the southpaw struck out 29.1% of hitters he faced in 46.1 innings that year while accumulating 0.9 WAR. In fact, he’s still doing his thing in Seattle even now in 2015, having carved out a niche for himself in the Pacific Northwest.

For the 23rd best trade chip, Jack Zduriencik and his staff were willing to part with a consensus top-20 prospect, another top 100 guy, a solid organizational piece and a decent lefty arm. If this trade had gone through, Walker would have been the highest ranked prospect moved in this exercise (until the very next trade we look at, that is) since the 2007 trade that sent Miguel Cabrera to Detroit and top-10 prospects Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller to Miami. Had Upton not flexed his veto muscles and shot this deal down, Arizona would indeed have done very well for their outfielder, acquiring both quality and quantity.

Be that is it may, Upton did indeed say no, so the Braves swooped in to match the Upton in Arizona with the new shiny free agent acquisition they signed. With three prospects, a young major-league pitcher, and a wily utility veteran, Atlanta acquired Upton and Johnson. Shall we have a look at the minor-leaguers?

Along with these three organizational pieces, Arizona acquired Delgado, who was a top 50 overall prospect two years in a row before 2013, and Prado, the keystone of the package and the National League equivalent to Ben Zobrist. For his rookie season in 2012, Delgado held his own the first time around the league, putting up a 4.09 FIP and 0.9 WAR in 92.2 innings and 17 starts. The control was a bit lacking as his K-BB% was only a mediocre 8.5%, but still, the 22-year-old performed well enough to keep that prospect shine on and be a valuable trade chip for Atlanta.

As a 28-year-old who never had any sort of pedigree in his career, Prado exploded onto the season in 2012, racking up 5.4 WAR as the super utility player that the Braves could plug in anywhere at any time. Unfortunately, he only came with one year of control at the time of the trade, which is in stark contrast to Upton’s three years. It’s this lack of team control that makes me think Arizona’s better deal would’ve been from Seattle, with Walker and Franklin being two strong prospects that the Diamondbacks could’ve really used to get back to their 2011 levels of success.

Instead of what the Mariners offered, the Diamondbacks took on three (much) lesser prospects, a recently graduated pitching prospect, and a breakout player that they could only hold onto for one more year. While they did sign Prado to an extension immediately following the deal, it still doesn’t change the fact that Arizona could’ve done better for Upton, but was unable to because of the outfielder himself.

37. Wil Myers, 21, controlled for six full years after call-up, PreArb – Arb3

• December 9, 2012: Traded by the Kansas City Royals with Patrick Leonard (minors), Mike Montgomery and Jake Odorizzi to the Tampa Bay Rays for a player to be named later, Wade Davis and James Shields. The Tampa Bay Rays sent Elliot Johnson (February 12, 2013) to the Kansas City Royals to complete the trade.

Ah, this was a trade to remember. I still remember it like it was yesterday, with almost every analyst in shock that Dayton Moore would do something this incredulously stupid. You had Royals fans frantically trying to defend the move while Rays fans were jumping for joy that a consensus top 10 minor league talent was headed their way. In a twist of how these trades usually work, I’ve created the same prospect ranking graphic for the Royals players, which is the side for the ranked player. For the first time, the asset that Dave ranked was in the package, not being dealt for one.

My first impression when I examine this trade is that someone messed up. Either Dave was out of his mind ranking Myers in the top 40 and he shouldn’t have sniffed the list, or Kansas City got absolutely fleeced and could’ve received much more than Shields, Davis, and Johnson for this boatload of prospects. Yes, the current San Diego Padres right-hander was ranked on the last four lists, but he had fallen off by 2012 probably because he only had two years left on the insanely team-friendly contract the Rays got him to sign. Let’s compare the Royals’ return on Myers with the Blue Jays’ return on Halladay four years ago, as both players were ranked 37th at the All-Star Break and traded just months later in the offseason.

Toronto acquired three top 100 prospects in Kyle Drabek, Travis d’Arnaud, and Michael Taylor (not the current Washington Nationals outfielder), and both Drabek and d’Arnaud were ranked in the top 30 at the time of the trade. On the other hand, Kansas City acquired a 30-year-old starting pitcher with only two years of team control left, a failed starter turned useful reliever, and a piece in Johnson that really had no value at all. And keep in mind, it’s not like the Royals got that deal for just Myers. Rather, Myers was joined by fellow top 100 prospect Odorizzi along with two other useful pieces. I have to imagine that if Toronto somehow had prospects at the same level as Odorizzi, Montgomery, and Leonard and packaged them along with the identically ranked Halladay, they would’ve seen their return explode way past the level of Shields, Davis, and Johnson.

Maybe Dave was wrong and ranked Myers much too high, and major league front offices just don’t value unproven minor league talent that much, no matter the pedigree. For example, last year Addison Russell, who BA ranked 14th in the 2013-14 offseason, was dealt along with a couple solid top 10 organizational guys in Billy McKinney and Dan Straily for half a season of Jason Hammel and one and half seasons of Jeff Samardzija. Yes, prices go up during the season, but perhaps we’re overvaluing the top minor league talent in terms of trade value. Or maybe Dayton Moore and Billy Beane messed up in a big way and sold their prospects at laughable prices. I’m not sure.

The 2013 list saw no players get dealt within the year, but thanks to Billy Beane, we got one more off the 2014 list that stunned the baseball world and still confuses us months later.

2014

17. Josh Donaldson, 28, controlled through 2018, Arb1 – Arb4

• November 28, 2014: Traded by the Oakland Athletics to the Toronto Blue Jays for Franklin Barreto (minors), Kendall Graveman, Brett Lawrie and Sean Nolin.

One year after Dave ranked Donaldson 17th and the star third baseman lost one year of team control, he slipped all of… zero spots. Since Oakland dealt him away, Donaldson has only gotten better, hitting for more power than ever before while maintaining the elite defense at the hot corner that allowed him to rack up 14 WAR in 2013 and 2014. The A’s received a former hype machine in Lawrie and these three prospects.

Lawrie’s best seasonal output in WAR still remains his 2011 cup of coffee when he lit the world on fire with 2.6 wins in a mere 171 PA. Since then, injuries and poor performance have allowed the 25-year-old to only accumulate 6.2 WAR in 1660 mostly mediocre trips to the plate. Right before the trade during his injury-plagued 2014 season, Lawrie did earn 1.8 WAR in only 282 PA, which is approximately a 3.5 pace over 550 PA. If the Oakland front office was hoping for that kind of performance and health from him, that would be understandable and make this trade easier to swallow. Unfortunately, 2015 has been his worst year yet, with not much offense or defense to speak of.

As for the prospects that Beane acquired to restock the system, again, we see how if Donaldson really was the 17th most valuable trade chip, Toronto robbed Oakland blind. Zack Greinke, ranked 20th on the 2010 list, was worth a true blue-chip prospect in Alcides Escobar, another top 100 prospect rated better than Barreto in Jake Odorizzi, a major-league ready center fielder in Lorenzo Cain, and a solid organizational piece in Jeremy Jeffress. With all of Lawrie’s shine long gone after three hugely disappointing seasons, I would say he was not a significantly better trade piece than Cain was. Odorizzi was a better prospect than Barreto, and that leaves the shiny former top 20 prospect Escobar and Jeffress against Nolin and Graveman. No one knows what the Blue Jays could get if they traded Donaldson right now, and we will probably never find out, but you’d have to think they could do better than the package that sent to the Bay Area.

That’s it then. Sixteen players and fifteen deals across seven years of Trade Value lists. Thanks to anyone who stuck around and joined me on this journey through the past. As for the 2015 list, who could we see change teams between now and next year’s break? Could it be Yasiel Puig at 28, with rumors that the Dodgers have been shopping their 24-year-old outfielder? Maybe the 39th name on the list, Carlos Carrasco, gets moved as Cleveland decides to see what they can get for one of their stud pitchers. Or perhaps someone out of nowhere gets sent packing. Christian Yelich? Sonny Gray? Corey Seager? The possibilities are endless.

If Dexter Fowler or any of the other Dexter Fowler-type players mentioned below are sitting on your fantasy baseball waiver wire, then stop what you’re doing right now and snag them. What follows mainly applies to deeper mixed-leagues, but frankly, I’m a little tired of reading the musings of “experts” on how this or that guy is “viable only in NL-only” or “shallow-mixed” leagues. That’s all well and good, but let’s cut the crap: we want guys who produce counting stats, and Dexter Fowler and those like him do precisely that for leagues big and small. They score runs, steal bases, hit home runs, get on base, and more, but for some reason, people don’t give them the credit they deserve. For instance, Fowler, with his 10 HR, 66 R, and 16 SB, just finally cracked the ESPN Top-250 list this past week; but he’s still ranked behind the likes of Logan Morrison. See what I mean? But I digress.

Here’s my point: If you’re like me — and you probably are, to the extent that you love playing Rotisserie/fantasy baseball — then you’re looking to find value on the waiver wire or via trade; you’re looking for undervalued players who produce counting stats. Sounds easy enough, and if you look at the ownership rates of a few guys I’m particularly keen on, then it really is easy to find these guys free of charge; guys like Dexter Fowler (owned in 57% of ESPN leagues), David Peralta (27%), Preston Tucker (27%), or Marlon Byrd (34%). Are these names flashy? No, not really, but who cares; they produce.

There are plenty of other, similar players who all have a few things in common relevant to us baseball-minded folk: they produce in at least three categories and are probably on your waiver wire or sitting on someone’s bench ripe for a trade offer from you. Why these players — and those like them — are so under-owned is, in many cases, the result of playing time (i.e., platoons), but I also suspect the ownership percentages are skewed by 8-team leagues . In deeper leagues, however, like those I care about, Dexter Fowlers are must-haves.

Here’s at look at how the Dexter Fowlers I’ve identified (and there are many more) can help you. I’ve also provided some stats and thoughts on why so few people have grabbed these particular guys. In any case, these are guys you’ll want down the stretch.

Dexter Fowler: How many guys have double-digit home runs and stolen bases in MLB this year? Eighteen. 18! Fowler, recall, was once a highly touted prospect in the Rockies organization, and while he never quite turned into the superstar many had projected, he has had a fine career, and hitting in front of Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo (and lately, ahem, Chris Coghlan) is helping Fowler have one of his finest seasons to date. Currently on pace to destroy his single-season career high homer total of 13 set in 2012, Fowler is also on pace for his first 20 SB season since his rookie year, while remaining among the league leaders in runs scored (currently 4th in the NL at 66).

Let’s take a step back for a second: Fowler has 10 HR and 16 SB. That’s fantastic in its own right, but he gets zero love (or 57% love, as it were). The knock on Dexter, of course, is his low batting average. However, that argument is starting to fall apart, as the average is on the rise and it’s been dragged down by a career-low .297 BABIP (career BABIP of .342). Not to mention Fowler takes a ton of walks, thus helping buoy his run and stolen base totals in the absence of hits. And on top of the great counting stats and rising average, Fowler is a switch hitter, leaving him immune to benching in the face of tough lefty/righty matchups.

For perspective, consider this: Christian Yelich is ranked ESPN’s number 35 outfielder for Roto 5×5 leagues (117 player overall); Fowler is ranked OF #59 (230 overall). Here are their stats; I have no idea what drugs ESPN is taking, but I want some.

Yelich (owed in 67%): .263; 35 R; 6 HR; 25 RBI; 10 SB (note: he did spend roughly three weeks on the DL and is without the benefit of Stanton)

Fowler: .243; 66 R; 10 HR; 27 RBI; 16 SB.

Here’s more perspective: According to ZiPS projections, Yelich is on pace to finish the season with stats in all categories almost identical to what Fowler has achieved by July.

Why the disparity in rankings? You tell me — potential, I suspect, but you don’t need a PhD in statistics to tell you that Fowler is vastly outperforming Yelich this year, and we are well beyond the days where the small-sample size caveat holds water. Yelich, to his credit, is a fantastic hitter and has a bright career ahead of him, but he’s got nothing on Dexter Fowler in 2015.

Here are a few other Fowler-types to keep in mind:

David Peralta: The dude crushes right-handed pitching. Peralta, a converted pitcher, has an average batted-ball velocity of approximately 95 MPH according to baseballsavant.com (that’s really, really good). He currently owns a .281/.351/.493 triple slash with 9 HR and 48 RBI, though he rarely plays against lefties (which is perhaps stupid, but a topic for another time) despite a recent vote of confidence by Chip Hale for his improved ability to mash lefties as well.

Bottom line: Peralta flat-out hits. He’s been on a roll since Inciarte went on the DL, and thanks to the maddening way in which Hale manages his lineup, Peralta is not an everyday starter — but against righties, which make up the majority of National League pitching (by far), Peralta holds prime real estate in Arizona’s lineup and should be in your lineup as well, and ahead of guys like, for instance, Christian Yelich. And maybe even Dexter Fowler, depending on your particular needs. In addition to Peralta’s 9 HRs in 288 ABs, he’s also stolen five bases and regularly slots in the 2-hole when he’s not batting cleanup.

In a stacked Arizona lineup, opportunities to score and drive in runs are plentiful — as he’s shown over the past two months. If nothing else, just bench him against lefties and start him against righties, whom he absolutely destroys, which reminds me of Preston Tucker.

Preston Tucker: A highly regarded prospect in the Astros organization, Tucker was called up from Fresno in May. He got off to a hot start, cooled in June, but here in July/August, Tucker is again raking. Known as “Bam Bam” for his likeness to Fred Flintstone’s pal (or grandfather?), Tucker is 25 and has crushed 77 homers (minors & majors) since 2012, after being a 7th round pick in 2012. His platoon splits aren’t pretty; you won’t want to start him against the few lefties he’s allowed to face, but what he does to righties almost makes me feel bad for the pitchers: He’s slashing .296/.356/.568 against righties (OPS of .924 if you don’t like math), with 5 HR in 46 AB’s since the All-Star break.

Start Tucker with confidence; he bats second or cleanup against righties, and with Gomez in town, Jake Marisnick (a righty) is the odd man out more often than not — Tucker and his .924 OPS do too much damage to bench against RHP. Also note that Tucker gets more starts than does Colby Rasmus (until the return of Springer, when they both likely sit) another guy I like, incidentally, for his power vs. righties. Tucker’s power is real; his ISO is a lovely .204 and his .265 batting average aligns well with his minor league numbers, and his BABIP is a sustainable .299 given his hard-contact rate and minor league numbers.

Marlon Byrd: He’s hit 18 home runs and, in his last 60 games (roughly), is hitting over .290 with 15 home runs. He’s owned in 34% of ESPN leagues. Byrd has hit 25 and 24 homers the past two years, respectively. Enough said.

As I mentioned, there are plenty of other Fowlers out there, and I will cover those in my next post. Hint: Gerardo Parra (72%!); Colby Rasmus (5%); Jarrod Dyson (7%).

In our look through Dave’s past Trade Value lists, we’ve only found trades that were completed in the offseason following the completion of the lists. However, we have something different with our four players dealt off the 2011 list. Two of the four were traded within a few weeks of Dave publishing his articles, and one more was dealt almost a year later in June 2012, which allowed his value to drop considerably before his old team decided to cut bait. It’s time for the 2011 Major League Baseball Trade Value List.

All trade information was taken from Baseball-Reference.com. For each player, I’ve included next to his name, his age at the time of trade, along with his final year of team control and the amount due for that player including all team options.

2011

25. Ubaldo Jimenez, 27, controlled through 2014, $17.95 million

• July 30, 2011: Traded by the Colorado Rockies to the Cleveland Indians for a player to be named later, Joe Gardner (minors), Matt McBride and Alex White. The Cleveland Indians sent Drew Pomeranz (August 16, 2011) to the Colorado Rockies to complete the trade.

The contract status above for the ever-mercurial Jimenez is actually rather deceiving, as his original 4-year deal with Colorado signed in 2009 came with team options for 2013 and 2014, but with a catch. If he’s traded at any time during the years of  the contract, he can void the latter option and go directly to free agency, and after a blistering second half of 2013 that helped propel Cleveland to a wild card berth, that’s exactly what the right-hander did. But we’re not so much concerned with his free agency as we are with the trade that went down just after Dave ranked Jimenez so generously. Desperate for a frontline ace and sitting only 1.5 games back of the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central, the Indians sent a package of Gardner, Pomeranz, White, and McBride to Denver. Instead of having a lot of text to read, I decided to include more of a graphic look at the quality of the prospects sent over. I think you’ll figure it out for yourself.

As the 25th ranked trade piece, Jimenez was worth two top-100 prospects, a solid top-10 organizational guy, and then just a guy in McBride, who peaked as the 13th-best prospect for Cleveland after the 2007 season. Comparing this Colorado haul to the Kansas City package for the similarly ranked Greinke, I’d say the deal that the Royals got was slightly better, with a true blue-chipper in Escobar and a major-league ready piece in Cain. Unfortunately for the Rockies, nothing worked out for them in this trade. Pitching prospects at Coors, eh?

29. Kevin Youkilis, 33, controlled through 2013, $14 million (team option)

• June 24, 2012: Traded by the Boston Red Sox with cash to the Chicago White Sox for Brent Lillibridge and Zach Stewart.

So this is the only trade out of all the lists that took place during the following season after the list in which the player was ranked. We can see how much Youkilis’s value tanked, as Boston only got a couple organizational guys that peaked a long while ago and not ranked on anything at the time of the trade. Stewart was a 25-year-old RHP that peaked as the top prospect in the Toronto system after the 2009 season, but still didn’t rank in BA’s Top 100 even then. Lillibridge had a breakout 2011 season as a 28-year-old when he accumulated 1.3 WAR in 216 PA, mostly on the back of a .247 ISO. However, all the shine had worn off by 2012, when he only managed an awful 70 PA for the White Sox before being dealt.

The curious case of Kevin Youkilis is a reminder that as much as we fans are aware of how volatile pitchers can be in terms of performance and health, hitters can also experience similarly rapid, sudden, and unpredictable declines. When Dave put together his 2011 Trade Value list, Youkilis was a healthy 32-year-old in the middle of yet another dominant offensive season, raking to a tune of a 147 wRC+. After a disastrous second half for him (79 wRC+) and his teammates in one of the most memorable collapses in recent years, and an even worse start to 2012, all the value had been sucked out of him faster than anyone could’ve ever imagined. Boston got basically nothing for him less than a year after he was the 29th most valuable trade asset in baseball and less than two years after he was ranked 17th.

35. Trevor Cahill, 23, controlled through 2017, $55.2 million

• December 9, 2011: Traded by the Oakland Athletics with Craig Breslow and cash to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Ryan Cook, Collin Cowgill and Jarrod Parker.

If Jarrod Parker didn’t have such terribly awful luck staying healthy, this trade would look like one of the steals of the decade. As it is, this deal still looks like yet another robbery for Billy Beane’s front office, as Cahill has just not been able to find that 2010 magic that allowed him to put up a 2.97 ERA with 18 wins. Just like in 2007, when the A’s turned Dan Haren into a stockpile of quality prospects, Cahill also became more building blocks for the franchise’s future. As the second piece headed to the desert, Breslow was a useful reliever for the past couple years for Oakland, but hardly a player that should have swung the deal significantly.

However, if we compare the returns that Cahill and Halladay (ranked 35th and 37th respectively on their lists), we can see how Toronto clearly got the better package. The Jays received three high-end prospects all ranked in the top 100, while Oakland acquired a gem in Parker but then two more lower-end organizational players. While the two pitchers were ranked very closely during the All-Star breaks of their years, I suspect what happened the rest of the year greatly affected their respective values. While Halladay continued to dominate in the second half of 2009, Cahill struggled mightily with his results in 2011, coming into the break with a 3.12 ERA but getting pounded to the tune of a 5.80 after. So by the time the offseason rolled around, Toronto was able to sell their ace at a much higher price than Oakland could for theirs.

41. Colby Rasmus, 24, controlled through 2014, Arb1 – Arb3

• July 27, 2011: Traded by the St. Louis Cardinals with Trever Miller, Brian Tallet and P.J. Walters to the Toronto Blue Jays for Octavio Dotel, Edwin Jackson, Corey Patterson and Marc Rzepczynski.

Welcome back, Edwin Jackson! After being involved in the three-team trade that saw Curtis Granderson and Max Scherzer change teams, he makes a comeback in this trade that was more about Rasmus being out of favor in St. Louis than anything, especially when we consider what the Cardinals got in return for their young outfielder.

The pieces sent to Toronto along with Rasmus don’t have much significance, as Miller and Tallet were mediocre relief pitchers in their 30’s, and while Walters was ranked in the top 20 of St. Louis’s system after 2010, he was not having a good season at Triple-A at age 26 and had shown no signs of sticking in the big leagues in his few innings.

In the return headed to Busch Stadium, the main piece was 27-year-old Jackson, who was having yet another solid season, this year for the Chicago White Sox. As a somewhat irrelevant note, Jackson had already been traded that same day from the White Sox to the Blue Jays, and Alex Anthopoulos quickly sent him back to the Midwest. As a very relevant note, Jackson was due to be a free agent right after the 2011 season; he was a rental.

At age 37, Dotel was having a mediocre relief season, putting up a 4.63 FIP in his 29.1 innings with the Jays before really turning it on in the second half for the Redbirds. Patterson was a 31-year-old outfielder who hadn’t provided any value for a major league club since 2007. The lefty reliever Rzepczynski was a 25-year-old who was taken out of the rotation and plugged into the relief corps in 2011.

For the pitching-hungry Cardinals who were in a tight three-team NL Central race at the time (remember when the Brewers were good?), this was a trade to get some depth in the rotation and the bullpen. However, for a young 24-year-old outfielder with three more relatively cheap years under team control, only getting a decent rental starting pitcher and an average lefty reliever seems like the most underwhelming return in this entire exercise. There’s a reason fans and executives were down on this trade for the Cardinals to begin with, and it still looks bizarrely underwhelming four years later. But then again, Tony La Russa and company won the franchise’s 11th title that year, so what do we know?

The 2011 Trade Value list would end up involving some of the most unusual trades we’ve seen, whether it was the shocking depreciation of Youkilis’s value or the only slightly less shocking lack of return the Cardinals were able to acquire for Rasmus. Overall, it seems that Dave had Jimenez about right, Rasmus much too high, and couldn’t foresee the declines that Youkilis and Cahill would have that lowered their values.

Next time, we’ll wrap this whole thing up with three more trades, all polarizing and fascinating in their own way. One outfielder was almost traded to the Pacific Northwest for a strong package before vetoing the deal himself and joining his brother farther east. Then we had one of the most talked-about and discussed trades in recent years, with a mid-market franchise deciding to go all-in and acquiring a frontline starter for multiple top prospects, getting widely slammed across baseball for doing so. And lastly, off the 2014 rankings, we were all caught off guard when a rising superstar 3rd baseman got dealt for a haul seemingly headlined by… no one.