Creating the Wild MLB Offseason's All-Trade Team
If you dig trades, you're digging the heck out of the 2014-15 MLB offseason.
Beginning around Thanksgiving and running straight into the new year, a gaggle of high-profile players have swapped uniforms, shifting baseball's balance of power and then shifting it again.
So, we thought: Why not create an "all-trade team," comprised of the top names dealt at each position, plus a starting rotation and bullpen arm to boot?
Hey, we're still three weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting. This is the gristle; let's chew on it.
OK, a couple of ground rules. Obviously, we're limiting our focus to traded players, so no free agents or international signees. And we're taking only one player per position, meaning some big names were inevitably left off (sorry, Matt Kemp).
Also, naturally, with more offseason to slog through, more deals may yet be consummated.
For now, though, this is your hypothetical traded-player dream team...and we think it'd stack up pretty dang well against any competition.
First Base: Brandon Moss
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Last year was a tale of two seasons for Brandon Moss, who was traded from the Oakland A's to the Cleveland Indians at the start of the winter meetings.
There was the first half, when he posted a .268/.349/.530 slash line, clubbed 21 home runs and made his first All-Star team.
Then there was the second half, when his line plummeted to a paltry .173/.310/.274.
Some of that can be chalked up to injuries; Moss underwent hip surgery on Oct. 21. At age 31, it remains to be seen how he bounces back.
Assuming he does, he'll be a hit in Cleveland.
Second Base: Howie Kendrick
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It's not that the Los Angeles Dodgers needed an upgrade at second base. They already had National League stolen base leader Dee Gordon.
Yet in the span of a few hours on Dec. 11, LA sent Gordon to the Miami Marlins as part of a package that netted young left-hander Andrew Heaney, who the Dodgers promptly shipped off to the Los Angeles Angels for Howie Kendrick.
Kendrick isn't Gordon on the basepaths—who is?—but he does almost everything else better, as evidenced by his 5.2 WAR, per Baseball-Reference. (Gordon's, by contrast, was 2.3 even after his career year.)
As Fox Sports' Jeff Sullivan notes:
"Kendrick's a broadly skilled player. He [has] homer power. He can help some on the bases. He's reasonably durable, and he's a good defensive second baseman. It's the whole package of everything that makes [him] as valuable as he is.
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Third Base: Josh Donaldson
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It's tough for a guy who's finished in the top ten in MVP voting two straight seasons to fly under the radar, but Josh Donaldson has managed the feat.
After being jettisoned by the Oakland A's as part of Billy Beane's latest fire sale, Donaldson's on the Toronto Blue Jays, a club that knows a thing or two about flying under the radar.
If he can duplicate his 2014 campaign, during which he blasted 29 home runs to go along with 98 RBI, he'll elevate the Jays in the wide-open American League East.
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Shortstop: Jimmy Rollins
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If you're looking for youth, Jimmy Rollins isn't your man.
In fact, it's an open question how much the 36-year-old has left sloshing in the tank as he makes the trek from the hapless Philadelphia Phillies to the Dodgers, part of LA's offseason infield makeover.
And yet, the 2007 MVP and three-time All-Star doesn't have to live entirely in the past. He clubbed 17 home runs in 2014, after all, and posted a 3.8 WAR, per Baseball-Reference, his best since 2008.
He may not be a long-term keystone fixture in SoCal. But right now, Rollins is old like a fine wine.
Left Field: Yoenis Cespedes
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There are legitimate knocks against Yoenis Cespedes. Yes, you're busy admiring the majesty of his dingers, but the 29-year-old Cuban masher posted a pedestrian .301 OBP in 2014 while whiffing 128 times.
And yet...those dingers.
It seems silly to point out that last season Cespedes became the first repeat Home Run Derby winner since Ken Griffey Jr. in 1998-99, as if that's a predictor of success in anything other than the Home run Derby. But there you have it.
"I'm somebody who's very conscious of the power that I have," Cespedes said at the time, per The Associated Press (h/t ESPN.com). "So I don't need to put more of a swing or more of an effort in order to hit a home run."
Certainly the Detroit Tigers, who acquired Cespedes from the Boston Red Sox, are hoping that effortless pop revs its way into the Motor City.
Center Field: Jason Heyward
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OK, we're cheating a little here. Heyward, who was dealt from the Atlanta Braves to the St. Louis Cardinals, didn't log an inning in center field in 2014.
He did, however, play 20 games there in 2013, and that's good enough for our purposes.
Speaking of good, Heyward quietly put together a stellar season for Atlanta, posting a .271/.351/.384 slash line while swiping 20 bases and winning his second career Gold Glove.
Add the fact that he's only 25 years old and we're talking one of the NL's premier young talents—no cheating required.
Right Field: Justin Upton
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The San Diego Padres have acted aggressively to remake an anemic offense that finished dead last in runs scored in 2014. Exhibit A: the trade that netted Justin Upton from Atlanta.
As U-T San Diego's Jeff Sanders notes:
"Over the past six seasons, only seven outfielders have piled up more homers than Upton (147). That impressive run of consistency included 29 homers in 2014, which is as many as all of the Padres’ outfielders amassed in their combined 1,984 plate appearances last year. Upton, of course, needed only 641 to reach the second-best homer mark of his career. He also set career-highs in RBIs while turning in the third-best slugging percentage of his career.
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Yes, Sanders adds, Upton also struck out 171 times, and his defense isn't above reproach. But 27-year-olds with legitimate game-changing pop don't grow on trees...at least not in San Diego.
Catcher: Miguel Montero
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The Chicago Cubs' youth movement is in full effect. Oh, and then there's Miguel Montero.
Amidst a sea of blue-chip prospects itching to make their mark in 2015, Montero (along with pitcher and whopping free-agent fish Jon Lester) figures to be a steadying influence in the Cubbies' locker room
The 31-year-old backstop, acquired from the Arizona Diamondbacks Dec. 9, posted a .243/.329/.370 slash line for Arizona last season while cracking 13 home runs.
His most important attribute, though, is leadership behind the dish. "He's a veteran," Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein said after the trade, per The Chicago Tribune. "[And] he cares a lot about winning."
No. 1 Starter: Jeff Samardzija
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When the Chicago White Sox acquired Jeff Samardzija (learn to spell it, already) from Oakland on Dec. 9, they got one of the top available right-handed starters in baseball.
Samardzija posted a 2.99 ERA and 1.065 WHIP with 202 strikeouts in 219.2 innings for the A's and Cubs last season and made his first All-Star team.
Now, one year away from free agency, he'll look to blow into the Windy City and improve upon those ace-level numbers—and ensure everyone remembers how to write his name.
No. 2 Starter: Rick Porcello
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A quick recap: Last season at the deadline, the Boston Red Sox traded ace Jon Lester to the Oakland A's for Yoenis Cespedes.
Then, this winter, after failing to sign Lester as a free agent, Boston sent Cespedes to Detroit for sinkerballer Rick Porcello.
That led to inevitable, and unfair, Porcello/Lester comparisons.
No, Porcello isn't Lester. But he did average a scant 1.8 walks per nine innings last year while posting a 3.43 ERA in 204.2 frames.
Here's how Boston general manager Ben Cherington summed the situation up, per ESPNBoston.com's Gordon Edes: "If we had known in July we weren't going to sign Jon Lester, I think we would have been happy to trade for Rick Porcello.''
No. 3 Starter: Yovani Gallardo
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Essentially everything went wrong for the injury-bit Texas Rangers in 2014.
Yovani Gallardo can't fix it all, but he could certainly help.
The big 28-year-old right-hander posted a 3.51 ERA in 192.1 innings with the Milwaukee Brewers last season, and now figures to slot into the No. 3 spot in the Rangers' rotation behind Yu Darvish and Derek Holland.
Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News thinks the Gallardo trade "changes the entire dynamic of the starting rotation."
Given how things broke last season, the Rangers had better hope so.
No. 4 Starter: Mat Latos
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Mat Latos is coming off an injury-riddled season, during which he threw just 102.1 innings after eclipsing 200 frames each of the previous two years.
Now, after a trade from the Cincinnati Reds to the Miami Marlins, Latos will look to bounce back in a possible contract year, assuming Miami doesn't lock him up long term.
They probably won't, though they may regret it.
This is a guy who's still just 27, who got Cy Young votes in his first full season and who posted a 3.8 WAR as recently as 2013, per Baseball-Reference.
In other words, the kind of asset the Fish will want around in the win-now Giancarlo Stanton era.
No. 5 Starter: Shelby Miller
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The bad news for Shelby Miller? He's leaving the St. Louis Cardinals, a franchise known for developing young talent. The good news? He's going to Atlanta.
USA Today's Tom Heaney spells it out:
"It’s not always favorable when a pitcher leaves the Cardinals, but Miller headed to another one of the best organizations for developing arms. It’s hard to bet on his late-season pace lasting the whole year. Still, the flawed but talented 24-year-old is one year removed from a stellar debut...
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That debut would be 2013, when Miller finished third in NL Rookie of the Year balloting. And that finish would be the second half of last year, when Miller lowered his ERA from 4.29 to 2.92.
"Flawed but talented" is a fine assessment. We'll take it—and so, apparently, will Atlanta.
Relief Pitcher: Tyler Clippard
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Tyler Clippard recorded only one save last season for the Washington Nationals, but he posted a 2.18 ERA in 70.1 innings and made his second All-Star team.
He also became a quirky fan favorite, replete with his own bobblehead, as The Washington Post's Dan Steinberg relates:
"If adult Nats fans liked Clippard, their children may have liked him even more. They liked his goggles. They liked his funky delivery. They liked his occasional dance moves, and the way he interacted with them at fan events, and I don’t know what else, exactly.
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Now, Clippard's a member of the A's after heading west in a trade for shortstop Yunel Escobar. Whether he can repeat his pen performance—and win some young East Bay hearts with his goggles—remains to be seen.
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