Trades of July 22nd

Today the Sox made two trades, both of which have the opportunity to be either a win or a rallying point for the Anti-Theo movement, as we will see. Using Sky Kalkman's Trade Value Calculator, I am going to break down the trades.

First, the Sox made a trade for Adam LaRoche, former first basemen of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Considering that he won't get too much playing time, I projected he would be worth 0.8 WAR the rest of the season, based on his past three seasons. Let's see how much he's worth for the rest of the season, especially if he makes Type B classification as a FA.

So, now that we have an approximate value for what the Sox are getting in this trade, let's find out what they are giving up.

The Sox sent two prospects back to the Pirates, neither of which were in the Sox' long terms plans, it would seem. All-glove-no-bat SS Argenis Diaz was given a C+ grade by John Sickels of Minor League Ball. According to Victor Wang's research, which can be summed up by Erik Manning here, he should be worth $0.7 million dollars over his career. The other prospect, pitcher Hunter Strickland, wasn't given a grade by Sickels, but he should fall in roughly with the C grade pitchers, who are worth $2.1 million dollars on average. Since Diaz is on the upper end of the C grade, it should balance out.

In total, the prospects given up are valued at $2.8 million, which would mean the Sox are effectively profiting half a million dollars from this deal, according to my calculations. Now for the I'm-pretty-stupid-so-don't-take-my-word-for-it disclaimer: This projection banks heavily not only on LaRoche making it to the Type B level by the end of the season, but on him regressing to the numbers he was putting up over the past two seasons. There is a good chance he isn't nearly as good as I optimistically project him to be, which would drop his value close to, if not under, zero. That would mean the Sox gave up two mediocre prospects, which isn't a huge loss. The problem would arise if the Sox lose better production from a player to make space for LaRoche. Let's hope he makes Theo look smart.

Later in the day, news broke that the St. Louis Cardinals had a complete mental breakdown and bought every remaining stock in the old GM had agreed to trade a problem for a problem, sending struggling OF Chis Duncan to the Red Sox for the spawn of Satan himself, Julio Lugo. Normally, I'd be running through the streets singing the praises of Theo Epstein, but there's a problem. The Sox are going to be paying all of Lugo's contract for the next two season, roughly $13.5 million dollars. I've accounted for this in my calculations, as you can see:

The WAR calculations, again, come from the past three seasons. Now, let's see if Duncan can be worth anywhere close enough to the value of Lugo's contract:

Oh, no. Even though it's hard to project Duncan because he's been slumping and will likely be in the Minors for most of the season, it'd be difficult for him to come anywhere near valuable enough to make Lugo's contract worth taking on. Overall, the Sox are losing $17.1 million dollars on this trade, assuming my calculations are right. Unfortunately, the Sox were going to have to pay Lugo most, if not all, of his contract no matter who got him, so this deal had almost no shot at being fair to begin with.

(Side note - anyone who's familiar with the Calculator: If a player avoiding arbitration for a season, should I continue with the progressing scale as if they had gone to arbitration? I did here, which is why Duncan is shown as earning so much next year and in 2011).

So, what do you guys think? Will LaRoche be worth it? Will Duncan make the trade look less horrible? Did I fail horribly in my analysis?