Organized Chaos trades away
SS Carlos Correa ($103)
CF Cole Roederer (prospect)
Jobu Needs a Refill trades away
SS Royce Lewis (prospect)
3B Gio Urshela ($10)
CF Kyle Isbel
BAILEY’S THOUGHTS
This is a weird one.
I didn’t really understand the first Carlos Correa trade (for relatively cheap Freddie Freeman and cost controlled Dansby Swanson, where Correa also came with a sweet, sweet prospect) and I don’t get this one either. I’m mostly surprised there was a buyer for Correa. I like him, but he hasn’t topped 481 plate appearances since 2016. I think he’s an awesome player, but he’s just never been healthy enough to rely on and being 25-years-old is offset by costing $103 and being an easy greed target, so there’s seemingly no long-term value beyond 2020. If Jobu needs to re-sell him this season, he should have buyers (hand raised emoji here), but even then, is someone like Long Ball or TBD giving up a Royce Lewis caliber prospect plus other pieces to rent Correa for the rest of 2020? I doubt it.
I mean, the salary is fine if Correa’s a bonafied 600+ PA stud. But he’s not. Anthony Rizzo is being kept at $95 and that seems alright. I’m keeping Bryce Harper at $117 because, well, why throw him back to auction to maybe save $20 to redistribute to Michael Wacha? Chris Sale and Noah Syndergaard are on the trade block and priced similarly, but they somehow feel more reliable and impactful to me than Correa. Ultimately I think it’s okay to just build your best team possible for $500 and more or less ignore the individual salaries, but that sort of assumes your high salary guys are dependable. Like, Rizzo has topped 600 PA in seven straight years. If he gets hurt, that’d suck, but betting on his durability is a fairly safe bet.
I’m not a big Gio Urshela believer, but simply due to attrition, it wouldn’t shock me if Urshela outscores Correa in 2020. Or at least performs comparably. He won’t if they play the same number of games. But if Correa misses 50+ again, it seems possible.
Anyway, I do like that Jobu is attempting to field the best team possible in 2020. Prospects like Royce Lewis are rarely made available. So even if I don’t love the trade, I think it’s smart of Jobu to go against the grain and be the owner willing to make these guys available. If you’re okay saying that your entire prospect lot is not off limits, you can gain access to tons of actual major league points-scorers. Royce Lewis is, what… a top 10-15 prospect by most lists? So if he’s available and every other team is refusing to even discuss players if they’re on a top 100 list at all, maybe even top 150-200, you can potentially find an edge for yourself.
I’m also not quite sure how much I like Lewis. He was absolutely abysmal last year. The tools and the scouting reports are there and the lists love him, but how often do truly elite prospects have years as terrible as he just did? Having said that, the prospect love in this league suggests to me you could’ve gotten a massive haul for Lewis as soon as auction ended.
I have no idea who wins this trade. Probably Chaos. Although maybe not, since I still feel like if he rolled back that first Correa trade his team would be in a far better spot today.
HUSTLE’S TOXIC $0.02
I think Correa is a great player, obviously has injury risk and is expensive, but if he helps you compete and you have the cash, he’s great to have. My main issue with this trade for Jobu is he waited until Late January to put up an elite asset on the trade block in hopes of getting win now pieces. Strategically the move to get Correa for a prospect seems fine, and it doesn’t hurt that Lewis’ stock took a hit this offseason. That being said, I feel like the return for Lewis could have probably been better if he was shopped earlier and multiple teams were still holding on to good expensive players.
Urshella was also someone who took 2 2nd rounders and an OK prospect in Alexander Vargas to acquire for JOBU. So in order to get an over $100 dollar player it cost a super elite prospect and 2 2nd round picks (+Vargas). That just hasn’t been the going rate for Correa in 5 years of this league, and i think I’m in a position to know having owned him for most of it.
That being said, JOBU clearly has set up his team to make a run for it this year and his team certainly got better with this deal.