Aaron Miles and PTBNL or cash for Willy Taveras ($$$) and Adam Rosales
according to Olney
Rosales is a semi-competent SS and semi-competent hitter, so he is the utility IFer, and looks about as good as we could hope for that role. He is possibly better than Pennington.
Taveras is a salary dump (he’s making $4M), who will either get released or replace Rajai if Rajai is traded in the original role Rajai was designed for (excellent CFer, abysmal hitter.)
So they get a good utility IF option in return for giving up a terrrible contract for an abysmal contract. Sort of a steep price to pay for a utility IFer, but it fills a need.
You dirty grill burier!
I linked this elsewhere, but he appears to be well down the Reds’ prospect lists.
up
Eh, I think we need more single-topic posts, esp w/r/t (a) the A’s and (b) slusterbation
up
I agree.
Also, he can’t hit, is below average defensively, and mostly played 3B for the Reds in his half season last year.
up
As I said elsewhere, according to that scouting report, he’s Fox’s D + Hannahan’s O.
up
No, saying Fox’s D is ludicrous. He’s the backup SS! And his offense is better than Hannahan’s…
Here’s his minor league D
He looks like a 1 WAR player who can back up all three IF positions and hit tolerably.
SuSlu: A’s aren’t going to hang onto Taveres.
So how will we get rid of him? Straight DFA? I don’t think Rosales is worth the extra 2 million to upgrade from Miles. Is anyone willing to take on Taveres’s contract?
up
no one will take on his contract. The $2M could be more palatable if you think of it as paying for several years. Still pretty steep, but it’s not a huge amount of money and they needed a utility IFer.
up
Someone might, if we package Taveras with someone with value/upside (goodbye Buck?).
up
Well sure, anyone could be packaged, but his trade value is very obviously negative, and the A’s seem to be in a better position to eat the salary than other teams, hence this trade.
up
Yeah, guess you’re right. Taveras Eveland DFA’d
up
I don’t like the Eveland DFA. What are the odds he’s available to sign a MiLB contract?
up
I have to think the Nationals or, hell, the Mets would sign him to a MLB contract.
up
What’s wrong with the Eveland DFA? The A’s 40 man SP depth goes:
Sheets
Duke
Braden
Anderson
Gio
Mazzaro
Cahill
Mortensen
Maybe you’d want to pick Eveland before Mortensen in terms of pure talent, but other than that, keeping Dana around simply for rotation depth seems unnecessary.
up
I guess I don’t like it because I thought he had some value and DFA-ing him means I was wrong. Your point is well taken.
Heh:
up
If you take $/WAR, both Miles and Tavares are strongly negative. No way Rosales is enough of a positive to get to zero.
up
It’d be really funny if the Reds DFA’ed Miles now.
up
Concur.
Beane’s now slusterbating furiously (all from Jane Lee’s Twitter feed):
• I’m hearing Beane’s not quite done today. Just how many transactions will be made by day’s end?
• Athletics designate pitcher Dana Eveland for assignment.
• Also designate Taveras, claim INF Steve Tolleson off waivers from Twins. Roster move to include Tolleson on 40-man coming.
up
Trainman enters euphoria.
up
Whoa, Tolleson looks really terrible.
up
But he’s a “versatile minor leaguer”!
up
“Steve Tolleson” sounds like he should be a supporting character in a Minneapolis-set remake of Life on Mars.
up
But he’s the son of former big-leaguer Wayne Tolleson!
up
I’m not even going to google Tolleson until he’s a member of the team for a week.
This is crazy, and we still need to trade 3 OFs for, well, anything.
up
… except for, well, 3 more OFs. (Or, for that matter, 3 more UIs.)
I guess it’s really just $1.3M, since they got money from the Cubs for Miles’s whole salary. But then more because of the PTBNL/cash. Rosales’s rights are worth $1.3-2MM probably.
up
If he’s actually 1 WAR (and potentially better as a SS than Pennington) I agree. That seems optimistic to me though.
up
Why does that seem optimistic? That’s his projection….
up
TWSS
up
Because I don’t think he should be regressed upwards as much as he is (he’s a no account prospect in a no account system).
I’m not saying you’re wrong, or anything, just being pessimistic.
Why not just DFA Miles and claim Tolleson off waivers?
up
Oh yeah, Rosales.
Hm. Maybe Chavez is retiring.
Taken all together:
At this point the A’s have basically taken a couple pitchers at the fringe of the 40-man roster + a PTBNL + $3M (Tavares is owed $4M – $1M we got from the Cubs for Miles) and turned that into two bench players -> Fox and Rosales.
According to Chone Fox projects to 1.7 WAR and Rosales projects to 1.2 WAR in semi-regular time (~400 PA each).
Just looking at the $ spent that’s around $1M per win on this season, although the A’s are paying more than that in terms of the opp. cost of the lost pitching and the fact that neither Fox nor Rosales will get that many PAs this year. But that’s probably easily balanced by the fact that the A’s now own the right to both of those players through the entirety of their useful careers (both are 27-yo position players with less than a full year of service time).
It was a crazy, windy road but at the end it does seem to make sense both in terms of need and cost.
up
There’s only so much playing time to go around. I can see Fox getting a fair number of ABs between DH, 3B, and maybe even some OF, but the upgrade from Pennington/Petit (or Pennington/Miles) to Pennington/Rosales at SS seems awfully small.
up
Ellis will also need some time off so Rosales will see some PAs at 2B as well. And from all the evidence it looks like he’s well better than Petit. I also think Fox will get some PAs at 1B.
You’re definitely right that they probably won’t catch those WAR numbers in the playing time they’ll get this season. But even if they get 1/2 that much playing time (~200 PA each), which I definitely think is reasonable, and they play at those rates then they’re still a bargain ~ $4M ($3M cost of acquisition + ML minimum, which I didn’t add in before) for ~1.5 WAR. Plus this isn’t the only cheap season the A’s get. Really you could spread that $3M acquisition cost over the length of their 5/6 cost controlled seasons. The $ involved is really pretty minimal.
The real reason to dislike this series of deals is if you thought Jeff Gray, Ronny Morla, Matt Spencer and, eventually, the PTBNL were assets that should have been kept around. I don’t think that’s the case and I think the team is better than it was before all of these moves shook out, so I’m happy.
I’m not happy with the OF moves, though. Spending $6M for a single season’s worth of Crisp and Gross is a poor use of resources IMO. I would have rather saved the cash and used Buck and Patterson.
up
The Doritos Platoon
(Or, the George McFlyball Platoon: Crisp ‘n’ glover)
up
Sure, the A’s were extremely thin on the left side of the infield so any cheap (in baseball $) upgrade, even for backups is worth doing. I don’t dislike these moves. But I can’t get excited by them either. Players who project to be worth ~1 WAR can too easily end up being worthless, by being just a bit worse than projected, or by getting passed up by other prospects in the minors, or by being lost in a future roster crunch.
up
Remember when we used to do crazy multi-team deals and end up with Jermaine Dye for free?
Those were the good days.
up
That ain’t workin
That’s the way you do it
Damon for nothin
And your Dye for free.
up
Look at that Rajai…he’s got it stickin’ in the camera lens…
up
The $6 million invested in Crisp and Gross makes sense if you worry about Davis’ ability to play full time this year. $800 K on Patterson and Buck doesn’t buy you a CF if Davis goes boom.
up
Sweeney can play Cf.
Watch Rosales have trouble catching up to Zito’s slowball.
up
Not only that, their highlight is him hitting a bloop single. Oh boy.
up
Did someone say weak-ass single breaking up a no-hit bid in the fifth?
And Slusser wept
up
poor SuSlu.
Speaking of, have we invited her again yet?
up
I guess that’s the sort of thing I otter do, eh?
up
well, unless you wanna have me dive into it.
up
Surely it’s a job for FSU in a Stompor suit.