#10

A recent thread among the Wren-bashers is how Mike Trout could be a Brave right now, if not for Frank’s bungling. While in theory this is true, in practice it’s highly unlikely he ever could have had a tomahawk across his chest.

The logic goes like this: At the 2008 trading deadline the Braves traded Mark Teixeira to the Angels. When the Teixeira signed with the Yankees, the Angels received the Yankees 1^st round pick, #25 overall, which they used to pick Mike Trout.

Some have said that had the Braves not traded Teixeira, Trout would be a Brave. This line of reasoning supposes two things: that if the Braves held on to Teixeira they would have received the 25^th overall pick, and with that pick they would have picked Trout. The former is debatable and the latter is improbable.

The main issue facing bad teams with soon to be free agents they doubt they will sign is whether the haul of prospects they would receive via trade is of larger value than the potential draft picks. In brief, if a team loses a top tier free agent they receive the first round pick of the team that signed him as well as a supplemental pick between the first and second round. (there are some exceptions that I’ll get in to later) While it’s not a great package, it’s certainly better than nothing and enough to entice a team to not give a player away for pennies on the dollar.

The 2008 Braves were pretty bad, the only real stinker over the last two decades for the franchise. At the trading deadline they sat 9 games out of first and with a miserable pitching staff (Charlie Morton, Jo Jo Reyes, Mike Hampton and Jorge Campillo all started more than a dozen games). They weren’t going to win and Mark Teixeira made it clear he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than top dollar, something Atlanta could not afford. The Braves had to decide which was a better return: potential draft picks or something on the trade market.

The market for Teixeira- undeniably one of the top run producers in the game- was surprisingly weak. Not many contenders needed first basemen and everyone knew Teixeira would seek a jackpot, so no one wanted to give up the system for a two month rental. The Angels, a generally conservative team, paid the Braves the price, giving them young 1^st baseman Casey Kotchman and minor league reliever Stephen Marek, who never made the majors. Kotchman was for the most part a bust and traded for Adam LaRoche the next trading deadline. LaRoche put up two huge months in his second tour of duty with the Braves then left for Arizona.

So the question is this: Is a year of Kotchman and two exceptional months of LaRoche worth the 25^th overall pick? If it’s Trout, no way. But there’s no way to know the Braves would have picked Trout, or even got that pick, or any pick at all.

The draft pick compensation comes with snags. If a team with one of the 15 worst records signs a player, you get the second round pick instead of first. If a team signs two top players, the first round pick goes to the team the higher ranked player came from and the other gets the second. If a player is hurt, or his numbers inexplicably fall, you might not get any pick at all. In short, receiving compensation is just as much of a risk as trading for prospects.

In 2008, the same year Teixeira signed with the Yankees, the Brewers shipped a huge portion of their farm system to Cleveland for CC Sabathia. Their pretense was that both Sabathia and fellow ace Ben Sheets were up for free agency and if they left, the Brewers would have two first round picks and two supplemental picks to rejuvenate their system. Instead Sheets got hurt and brought them no return, while Sabathia signed with the Yankees, who also signed the higher ranked Teixeira, and Milwaukee only qualified for a second round pick. Two first and two supplemental turned in to one supplemental and one second. A similar debacle happened the next year with the Braves believing Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez would bring a similar bounty, but only brought a supplemental, second, and Jesse Chavez, thanks to Soriano not signing with another team and Gonzalez going to the last place Orioles.

Maybe if the Braves keep Teixeira he signs with the Yankees as happened in actuality. Or maybe he signs with the Orioles or Nationals (both heavy bidders near his home town that he expressed interest in) and the Braves get a second instead of a first. Or he signs with the Red Sox or Angels and we get a different pick.  Or maybe he breaks his leg or slumps badly and reconsiders free agency. And while we’re on the game of maybes, maybe Casey Kotchman lives up to his potential and is a decent return for Atlanta. It’s impossible to guess how those two months would have played our and/or alter what happened. There are too many what ifs to know where the draft pick would have been, or if we would have even gotten one.

The final premise is that the Braves would have selected Trout if they had the chance. (they actually did have the chance, at pick 7, but went with Mike Minor) The easiest game of “you’re an idiot” in baseball is to look at back drafts and shout “you should have taken so and so here!” Every team in every year in the history of the draft- even teams that have amazing luck- can go back to a round/year and say, “wow, we should have taken player x” there. The “they shoulda taken” logic can say that right now Albert Pujols or Craig Kimbrel should be on every major league team as they all passed on him in the draft. It’s a lot less fun to say, “Wow. The Angels did a really good job scouting that guy.”  20 teams had an opportunity to get Trout, but the Angels were the only ones smart enough to do so.

But even playing the hindsight game doesn’t necessarily make Trout a Brave. He was a high dollar, Northeastern high schooler, the exact opposite of what the Braves look for. It’s impossible to guess who the Braves would have taken at 25. The following are the five players drafter before and after Trout: Chad Jenkins Giovani Mier, Kyle Gibson, Jared Mithcell, Randal Grichuk, Eric Arnett, Nick Franklin, Raymond Fuentes, Slade Heathcott, and LeVon Washington. Franklin and Gibson are still decent prospects, but as of now, none of those ten players would provide more value than one year of  Kotchman and two months of LaRoche.

I’m not trying to imply the Kotchman trade was great or even the best option. The Braves badly lost both Teixeira trades (from Texas and to Anaheim). Given everything he knew at the time I think Frank Wren made the right decision at the time to trade Teixeira for Kotchman. If you say he should have let Tex play out the string and hope for draft picks, I respect that. But baselessly claiming Mike Trout would be a Brave now is unfounded and reckless.