{"id":9847,"date":"2014-10-10T11:11:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T15:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9847"},"modified":"2014-12-21T17:17:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T22:17:24","slug":"shields-myers-trade-revisited-not-such-a-bad-deal-now-eh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9847","title":{"rendered":"Shields-Myers trade revisited; not such a bad deal now, eh?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While reading <strong>David Schoenfield<\/strong>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/sportsnation\/chat\/_\/id\/51186\/mlb-with-schoenfield\">10\/1\/14 chat<\/a>, someone asked the following question:<\/p>\n<p><em>How does the Myers\/Shields trade look a year later?<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A great question.\u00a0 For those who don&#8217;t remember the entirety of the deal, on 12\/9\/12 this trade occurred:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Rays got <strong>Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery<\/strong> and <strong>Patrick Leonard<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Royals got <strong>James Shields<\/strong> and <strong>Wade Davis<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Prospect-followers (like me) howled about the trade at the time.\u00a0 Wil Myers was the consensus &#8220;best prospect in the game&#8221; at the time while Shields wasn&#8217;t exactly considered to be an &#8220;Ace&#8221; in the league.\u00a0 Royal&#8217;s GM <strong>Dayton Moore<\/strong> was accused of playing short-term gains versus the long term health of his franchise because of perceived pressure to return to the playoffs for the first time in nearly 3 decades.\u00a0 Myers subsequently turned around and won the AL Rookie of the Year in 2013 while the Royals improved but still fell short of the playoffs.\u00a0 I freely admit it: I hated the deal and thought it was another example of the Rays fleecing another team in a trade.\u00a0 I wonder now if it is because I undervalued what Shields brings to the table.\u00a0 I wonder if we all do: compare what Tampa got for Shields versus what they got for <strong>David Price<\/strong>; if the Myers deal had been for Price instead of Shields, I wonder if anyone would have howled a bit, since Price was a &#8220;name&#8221; player with awards while Shields was and is a relatively &#8220;anonymous&#8221; player in what he accomplishes on a day to day basis.<\/p>\n<p>Two seasons onward, with the Royals having broken through to the playoffs, lets take a look at the players involved.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Shields: Just finished his second 225+ inning season leading the Royals staff, putting up bWAR figures of 4.1 and 3.3.\u00a0 Shields also made the start (thought he didn&#8217;t really factor in the decision) that put the Royals into the ALDS for the first time since 1985.\u00a0 He went 6ip\/2ER to earn the win in the ALDS series clincher over the Angels, and is scheduled to start the ALCS opener tonight.<\/li>\n<li>Davis: failed as a starter in 2013, but became one of the best setup men in the game in 2014.\u00a0 Numbers: 71 innings, a 1.00 ERA, a sub 1.00 whip and a 3.7 bWAR.\u00a0 That&#8217;s a pretty big WAR figure for a reliever.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>2014 bWAR for the Royals&#8217; side of the trade: 7.0 between them.<\/p>\n<p>How about on the Rays&#8217; side?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Myers had a 2014 slash line of just .222\/.294\/.320 in 87 games and missed half the year with a broken wrist.\u00a0 bWAR of -0.9.<\/li>\n<li>Odorizzi made 31 starts as a back-end rotation member; 11-13 with a 4.13 ERA and a 90 ERA+.\u00a0 bWAR=1.2<\/li>\n<li>Montgomery just finished his second full year in the AAA rotation, going 10-5 with a 4.29 ERA in Durham.\u00a0 He has yet to appear in the majors.\u00a0 He&#8217;s also just finished his 7th minor league season, which means he&#8217;ll be a MLFA if he&#8217;s DFA&#8217;d by the club (he&#8217;s on the 40-man roster; I&#8217;m not sure how many options he has left).<\/li>\n<li>Leonard had a .808 OPS+ as a 21 year old in high A.\u00a0 He&#8217;s likely 2 more years away from a MLB debut.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>2014 bWAR for Rays side of the trade: 0.3.<\/p>\n<p>Devil&#8217;s advocate statement: It is just one season.\u00a0 Shields is a FA once the playoffs are over while the Rays control all four guys for years to come.\u00a0\u00a0 But &#8220;flags fly forever&#8221; and the Royals did finally achieve their goal of making the playoffs.\u00a0 And they continue in the playoffs while Tampa continues to play golf.<\/p>\n<p>Two years onward, would you still make this trade?\u00a0 Would you sacrifice the long term promise of Myers and Odorizzi for the short term glory of a playoff run?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s Update<\/strong>: this article was originally published in Oct 2014.\u00a0 In mid December, 2014, Tampa, San Diego and Washington were involved in a <a href=\"http:\/\/grantland.com\/the-triangle\/mlb-2014-padres-rays-nationals-wil-myers-three-team-trade\/\">huge 11-player 3-team<\/a> trade where Myers was moved to San Diego.\u00a0 The return Tampa got for Myers was, to be honest, kind of thin frankly.\u00a0 The Padres sent 5 players to Tampa (a backup catcher and four prospects) to acquire Myers and others, and then Tampa turned around the two best prospects in the deal to the Nats for <strong>Steven Souza<\/strong> and <strong>Travis Ott<\/strong>.\u00a0 Did the Rays trade away a problem child?\u00a0 Was Myers over-hyped?\u00a0 Did he win his Rookie of the Year award thanks to an inflated BABIP and in actuality he&#8217;s a lot closer to replacement level than many thought?\u00a0 Per the article, the answer to all of those questions may be &#8220;yeah, maybe.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0 But inarguably this recent Myers trade if anything makes the Sheilds trade that much closer of a &#8220;win&#8221; on the KC side of this original deal.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While reading David Schoenfield&#8216;s 10\/1\/14 chat, someone asked the following question: How does the Myers\/Shields trade look a year later? A great question.\u00a0 For those who don&#8217;t remember the entirety of the deal, on 12\/9\/12 this trade occurred: The Rays got Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery and Patrick Leonard The Royals got James Shields [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[223,509,1306,1304,49,1305,2621,1328,1982,1303],"class_list":["post-9847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","tag-david-price","tag-david-schoenfield","tag-dayton-moore","tag-jake-odorizzi","tag-james-shields","tag-mike-montgomery","tag-patrick-leonard","tag-steven-souza","tag-travis-ott","tag-wil-myers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9847"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10149,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9847\/revisions\/10149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}