Atlanta Gets Bronson Arroyo and Touki Toussaint

[TheCrew07]

To put in perspective, what if the Brewers traded Jed Bradley and Lohse for a 26-year-old utility player? You'd be happy, or at the least, not be upset, right? What's the difference between the two deals? Bradley has been given time to fail, Toussaint has not.

 

I struggle with your scenarios because you rarely match up apples with apples.

 

Tossaint was a HS draftee, already throws harder, and from what I've seen had one of the better if not best CB in the Midwest League. Jed Bradley had 1 successful half season at A+ as 24 year old, that's it for his career. Toussaint is just 19 holding his own in A ball.

 

A similar Brewer scenario to what AZ has said would have been that they traded Odorizzi because they drafted Jungmann and Bradley.

 

The Brewers piss away $10 million every year on aging and declining players, I would absolutely eat another bad contract to pick up a pitcher with impact upside, we don't have any in our current rotation, and have just 2 potential impact pitchers at any level of full season ball at this time. It's like I said when the Brewers acquired Wolf and the Reds went after Chapman, where is the $30 million better spent? I don't see how someone being completely objective can honestly believe that AZ having to pay Atlanta with Toussaint to take a bad contract will somehow end well for AZ.

 

I have my doubts that Toussaint would have thrown enough strikes if the Brewers drafted him, but ending up in Atlanta is about as good as ending up in San Fran from a pitching development standpoint, time will tell.

 

Moving to the SAL will be interesting (ATL's A ball affiliate is in Rome, GA), Toussaint will basically get to pitch against all of the best A ball prospects in one season by switching leagues.

 

He's had 2 MiLB articles written on him recently:

 

Toussaint finds focus, blanks Chiefs

D-backs No. 4 prospect tosses six one-hit innings, strikes out five

 

MWL notes: Toussaint continues to grow

D-backs righty building on momentum from extended spring training

[MrTPlush]

Could this be considered the equivalent of giving Toussaint a $10M signing bonus? Obviously Toussaint doesn't get the money, but in essence they "signed" him for $10M. With the #1 overall pick slot value being around $8.5M, I don't know that this is a good deal. Toussaint was the #16th overall pick with a slot value of around $2.6M. Seems like a big overpay for a prospect who may or may not pan out.

 

To put in perspective, what if the Brewers traded Jed Bradley and Lohse for a 26-year-old utility player? You'd be happy, or at the least, not be upset, right? What's the difference between the two deals? Bradley has been given time to fail, Toussaint has not.

 

Slot values aren't fair because the are put in place not choosen. The other problem is that in the draft you have no choice but to sign with that team. If there was no draft and it was just a big FA these #1 choice would get massive deals...MASSIVE.

 

I will say this though. This is not a clear win for the Braves. It is just a good sign that they are trying to improve their farm. If Toussaint never pans out it is horrible for them. But for now it will look great because they are trying to improve their team.

 

As for the D Backs whether or not Toussaint pans out it will always look quite dumb. They valued $10mil over a very good prospect and helping the team in the future. They didn't really need that money off the books. Going straight to the owners pocket.

[brewmann04]

lets hope they do not trade any of their top prospects at this point.

they need to move their players on the major league lineup if any one wants them.

[SRB]

I guess this fixes the return on Lohse/Garza as "negative one Tyrone Taylor"

 

5.1 IP, 13 H, 10 R, 7 ER

 

Oops, better make that "negative one Orlando Arcia"

[brewmann04]

At this point you can expect to not get any thing in return for Loshe or Garza. They really killed any hope of trading them never mind getting any type of prospects. So the only trade you can see if they move Gomez or Krod. Aram is not going fetch anything and neither is Broxton or Cotts.

[Outlander]

I don't really like the trade for either team really. Giving a team $10 million for a prospect seems like an overpay and sending away your prior number one pick for money does not look good at all to your fans and has the potential to make you look really stupid if he ends up being a good player.

[bill hAll Star]

I don't really like the trade for either team really. Giving a team $10 million for a prospect seems like an overpay and sending away your prior number one pick for money does not look good at all to your fans and has the potential to make you look really stupid if he ends up being a good player.

 

I agree with this take. That said, if I was a fan of Atlanta, I'd be happy about this...Arizona, not as much.

[monty57]

I don't know anything about the Diamondbacks' financial situation, but this is my concern with this year's Brewers. If the owners are facing a situation where they may have to either dig into their own pockets or borrow money to meet payroll, they can do some strange things. I'm sure they thought it would be easy to trade away big money guys like Ramirez, Lohse and Garza, but with the way things have turned out, they're kind of stuck... especially if Gomez remains hurt and underperforming.

 

I really hope they don't have to get "creative" like this in order to keep Attanasio and his crew from having to dip into their own pockets to meet payroll.

[ewitkows]

We'll we've only got 70 mil in contracts for next year. And they can replace all of our FA with min or near min deals so I'm not that worried about salaries

[umphrey]

With no context it's not a terrible trade because Toussaint is unlikely to be a MLB player anyway, but if I was a Dbacks fan I would be furious that my team was unable to manage their payroll and draft competently. It's not like they're spending the money on the team, the owner is just going to pocket it.

[nate82]

With no context it's not a terrible trade because Toussaint is unlikely to be a MLB player anyway

 

What?

 

At worst Toussaint should be a relief pitcher similar to Jeffress.

[monty57]

We'll we've only got 70 mil in contracts for next year. And they can replace all of our FA with min or near min deals so I'm not that worried about salaries

 

I think you may be a little over. I have:

 

Braun: $15M

Lind: $8M

Gomez: $9M

Rodrigurez: $7.5M

Lucroy: $4M

Maldonado: $1.1M

Garza: $12.5M

 

Deferred salary owed

Lohse: $2.33M

Ramirez's deferred is $3M in each of 2017 & 2018

Broxton: either a $1M or $2M buyout (Cot's says $1M in one spot, and $2M in another)

 

That puts guaranteed payouts in 2016 at around $61M (assuming Lind is picked up and Broxton is not, which would seem likely if no trades are made). That's for seven players

 

Then you've got Segura, Peralta, Smith, Schafer, Dominguez and Thornburg in arby (all first year). I'll just say $8M for those 6 players. Now we're at $69M for 13 players.

 

Finally, you've got Davis, Gennett, Fiers, Nelson, Jeffress, Blazek, Perez, and whoever takes Lohse's spot all pre-arby. That's 8 players, around $5M, for 21 players at $74M.

 

Therefore, without any moves, we should be able to field an $80M or so payroll. With the presumed decline in ticket sales from coming off a terrible season and not making any changes other than replacing free agents with pre-arby guys, the team could probably still make a little money with an $80M payroll, even thought the roster doesn't look good enough to win.

 

That doesn't answer how the owners will come up with the $10-20M they could lose this year if they are unable to dump useless salaries like Lohse, Garza, Broxton, and Ramirez. They are structured as an LLC, so if the team is going to lose money, if they don't have that much money sitting in an account somewhere, they will either have to borrow the money, or the owners will have to pay it out of their own pockets. Assuming they take out a loan against the equity of the team, which is the likely route they'd take, that would probably deduct around $1M per year from team salary for the next 20 years.

 

Obviously, the best course of action now (after they backed themselves into a bad situation by going over budget on team payroll to put together this group) is to shed payroll. Unfortunately, the "easy" choices to shed are playing so poorly that no one would take their salary. That leaves us with Parra, who is almost assuredly going to be traded just to shed salary, and Gomez, who has been injured and under-performing all season.

 

This is the problem the Brewers face, and this is why they don't care to trade Lucroy and Segura... that doesn't help the problem they are most worried about, which isn't baseball, but money. They probably think that holding Lucroy and Segura will help them sell tickets next year, which will make up more revenue than trading their salaries would save them.

 

It's an ugly situation, and I'm not sure what they're going to do. Probably take the loan to cover their current losses and slash payroll going forward to make sure the owners make money even if fans decide not to show up. It's situations like this that force teams to either do something like the Diamondbacks did in this trade, or to go into a "rebuild" without a strategy of how to ever get out of it.

[ewitkows]

Well right now we are 11th in baseball in attendance with a little over 1.1 mil in only 35 home games. If attendance says the same they would draw 2.5 mil. We have no idea how much they are going to lose if they just keep everyone. My uneducated guess would be not that much and I'm not that worried about payroll/attendance.

 

We should be able to trade Krod and knock another 5 mil off next season if we are tight.

[monty57]

Well right now we are 11th in baseball in attendance with a little over 1.1 mil in only 35 home games. If attendance says the same they would draw 2.5 mil. We have no idea how much they are going to lose if they just keep everyone. My uneducated guess would be not that much and I'm not that worried about payroll/attendance.

 

We should be able to trade Krod and knock another 5 mil off next season if we are tight.

 

You may not be worried about payroll/attendance, but I'd bet the Brewers/Attanasio are.

 

I guessed going into this year that even if things went really bad we wouldn't be below the low 2M mark in attendance, because fans were still riding high and buying tickets based on the "152 days in first place" marketing plan, and the assurance that Attanasio was pissed off and making some changes, so everything would be okay. Attendance in the second half is going to be lower, as those are the tickets that weren't bought up in the past offseason, but I'd still say we'll be well over 2M, which is probably fine for an $80-90M payroll. We're at around $104M, which IIRC was a little over budget going into the season, probably because they figured it would be easy to shed a lot of money by simply trading off "proven" guys like Ramirez and Lohse. That hasn't worked out for them, so it will be interesting to see what they do.

 

Since it's easy to say "it's not my money, so I don't care," remember that it is somebody's money, and they do care. If the ownership group has to dip into their own pockets to cover some payroll, they are going to want to recoup that money in future years by making more profit. If they have to take a loan, that means some of the future revenues will be tied up paying off that loan. With ticket sales likely down, that could mean payrolls in the $70-80M range. When we're used to $90-100M, that's a 20-30% decline in payroll without a strong farm to give us top-tier pre-arby guys.

 

This could be cured to some extent by taking advantage of the few good trade chips we have and turning them into a number of good prospects. I hope they go this route, but if I had to bet, I'd say they aren't going to make too many meaningful moves, and are going to go into next year with a substandard team, trying to convince the fans that they're still a playoff-caliber team. I think this is the one way they will get Wisconsin fans to turn their back on the team.

[LouisEly]

I struggle with your scenarios because you rarely match up apples with apples.

You're not exactly matching apples to apples yourself. Bradley never pitched in low-A ball. How can you compare the results of one pitcher in low-A ball to another pitcher at a higher level? How do you know that Toussaint will pitch as well at high-A, much less AA? You've touted Robert Stephenson from the 2011 draft, and while he has upside, his BB/9 has increased with his promotion to AA - last year he walked 4.9/9 and this year he's walking 5.0/9; you yourself state how important it is to have control/command.

 

I think that it is a relevant comparison because one was the #15 overall pick and the other was the #16 overall pick of their drafts.

 

You're also missing my point (and agreeing with most of it without knowing) - my point is that you would be happy to "sell" Bradley for $10M, but how do you know you would be happy "buying" Toussaint for $10M? Toussaint hasn't been given the opportunity to fail yet; Bradley has.

 

Regardless, it is an interesting scenario, and it does give credit to the argument of dumping payroll. I'm just not sure that $10M is the right price.

[LouisEly]

The draft signing amounts are artificially held below market value because of the pool/slotting system in place.

In 2007, the average signing bonus for picks 13-18 was $1.5M. In 2006 it was $1.58M, and in 1998 it was $1.34M. Assuming 5% inflation of bonuses per year, that would equate to 2015 signing bonuses of $2.33M, $2.57M, and $3.23M.

[igor67]

I'm actually pretty convinced that if you totally dropped the draft total amateur spending would only rise a little. GMs will only drop so many millions on guys who never see the big leagues. The top talents would probably see their money increase, but other players might easily see their money drop off. We currently see these absurdly high bonuses because the draft artificially restricts the supply when some player manages to find away to be signed as an amateur free agent that you get bidding wars.

[monty57]

I'm actually pretty convinced that if you totally dropped the draft total amateur spending would only rise a little. GMs will only drop so many millions on guys who never see the big leagues. The top talents would probably see their money increase, but other players might easily see their money drop off. We currently see these absurdly high bonuses because the draft artificially restricts the supply when some player manages to find away to be signed as an amateur free agent that you get bidding wars.

 

You're probably right. The top guys coming out every year would get a ton of money, while the guys a few rounds down would probably make less than their current "slot value." Could you imaging the bidding war on a guy like Strasburg or Harper if there wasn't a draft? I'd guess they'd have been signed to a $100MM deal immediately.

 

This will never happen, but I wouldn't be totally against it, as it would be a way for shrewd management would be able to allot more money to this group and find a bunch of cheap talent to stock up the farm since most teams would still max out their MLB payroll. Small markets wouldn't get the super-hyped guys (the few guys on the cover of national magazines while in high school like Harper), but could stockpile a whole bunch of first round talent if they chose to put the money into doing this as opposed to adding on some free agents at the MLB level. I could see teams like the Pirates and Rays figuring out how to take advantage of this, while the Brewers would probably abandon the whole process.

[TheCrew07]

I struggle with your scenarios because you rarely match up apples with apples.

You're not exactly matching apples to apples yourself. Bradley never pitched in low-A ball.

 

I didn't initiate the comparison, you did.

 

I pointed out how they were completely dissimilar players in dissimilar situations.

 

And no, I understood your larger point, and completely disagree with it. Bradley doesn't have top of the rotation potential, Toussaint still does, he didn't even step on the mound until his teens, he was a soccer player prior. Bradley flopped right out of the gate while Toussaint is ascending.

 

I do find the premise intriguing and wouldn't be opposed to buying a prospect of Toussaint's quality for 10 mil, however no one would have bought Bradley for 10 mil at the same point in his career, nor is there is top Brewer pitching prospect that I would sell to get rid of a bad contract. There is really no comparing a raw 19 year old working 93-96 with a plus plus curve through his first 17 starts to a college junior who was shut down for injury after his first 16 starts, works 89-93, and has an above average slider. You said Toussaint hasn't had the opportunity to fail yet he surely has shown more in his first season than Bradley did in his.

 

Toussaint has the ceiling of a #1 but likely falls back to a #2 or #3, it became quickly apparent that Bradley was a #3 best case as he's never thrown as hard in pro ball as he did in college. Maybe he was on something in college, maybe his arm is just out of gas, we don't know... all we do know that there is a disturbing trend of Brewer draftees who threw harder before being drafted than they did after... Anundsen, Heckathorn, Arnett, Bradley, Frederickson, and Lintz off the top of my head for higher round draft picks. The only pitchers on the other side of the coin are Manny Parra (draft and follow) and John Axford (Lee Tunnell fixed his mechanics which added 5 mph to his FB).

[Eye Black]

The draft signing amounts are artificially held below market value because of the pool/slotting system in place.

In 2007, the average signing bonus for picks 13-18 was $1.5M. In 2006 it was $1.58M, and in 1998 it was $1.34M. Assuming 5% inflation of bonuses per year, that would equate to 2015 signing bonuses of $2.33M, $2.57M, and $3.23M.

My point was draft signing bonuses are not an accurate indication of a players open-market value.

 

If the entire draft was auction style with no caps or penalties, and allowed players to negotiate with all 30 teams, a bonus that falls within the range between the 13th to 18th highest bonuses given out would be considerably higher than $3 million. Especially in a year like last year that was arguably more talent laden then the average draft, I think it is possible that 15 to 20 of the players drafted last year would have gone for more than $8 million on the open-market. If the day after Touki signed with the D-Backs they were allowed to sell him to the highest bidder it would have certainly resulted in a much greater amount than what they had paid him.

[Eye Black]

The quotes from Dave Stewart in this Ken Rosenthal ARTICLE are astounding.

 

Dave Stewart: “The truth is we did not know what Touki’s value would be if we shopped him. There is a lot of speculation on that. People are assuming it would have been better, but we don’t know.”

 

“There was an opportunity to make a deal that gave us more flexibility today as well as next year. We took that opportunity. It’s tough to say we could have gotten more. He was drafted at No. 16, given ($2.7) million. In my opinion, that’s his value.

 

“To this point, he has pitched OK, he has pitched well. But guys are mentioning that he throws 96 mph. He hasn’t thrown 96 mph since he’s been here. We haven’t seen 96 once. There is some inflation of what people think Touki is.

 

“We think he’ll be a major-league pitcher. We don’t see it happening in the next three or four years. Maybe five or six years down the road, he’ll show up and be a major-league pitcher. But that is a long ways down the road.”

I can't believe that it is coming from a major league GM. He admits that they did not "shop" Touki, so he doesn't really know what Touki's value was among other teams. If the D-Backs got rid of Touki because they didn't believe he was very good then I have no problem with that. My issue is that clearly other teams still think he has significant value so why not strive to receive the maximum value in exchange for trading him.

 

EDIT: Fangraphs' Dave Cameron (ARTICLE LINK) does a more complete and articulate job than I am capable of in his criticisms of Dave Stewart.

[jerichoholicninja]

The quotes from Dave Stewart in this Ken Rosenthal ARTICLE are astounding.

 

Dave Stewart: “The truth is we did not know what Touki’s value would be if we shopped him. There is a lot of speculation on that. People are assuming it would have been better, but we don’t know.”

 

“There was an opportunity to make a deal that gave us more flexibility today as well as next year. We took that opportunity. It’s tough to say we could have gotten more. He was drafted at No. 16, given ($2.7) million. In my opinion, that’s his value.

 

“To this point, he has pitched OK, he has pitched well. But guys are mentioning that he throws 96 mph. He hasn’t thrown 96 mph since he’s been here. We haven’t seen 96 once. There is some inflation of what people think Touki is.

 

“We think he’ll be a major-league pitcher. We don’t see it happening in the next three or four years. Maybe five or six years down the road, he’ll show up and be a major-league pitcher. But that is a long ways down the road.”

I can't believe that it is coming from a major league GM. He admits that they did not "shop" Touki, so he doesn't really know what Touki's value was among other teams. If the D-Backs got rid of Touki because they didn't believe he was very good then I have no problem with that. My issue is that clearly other teams still think he has significant value so why not strive to receive the maximum value in exchange for trading him.

 

EDIT: Fangraphs' Dave Cameron (ARTICLE LINK) does a more complete and articulate job than I am capable of in his criticisms of Dave Stewart.

 

Dave Stewart seems very "old school minded." I can see him making decisions based on RBI's and W's.

[Roderick]

I'm actually pretty convinced that if you totally dropped the draft total amateur spending would only rise a little. GMs will only drop so many millions on guys who never see the big leagues. The top talents would probably see their money increase, but other players might easily see their money drop off. We currently see these absurdly high bonuses because the draft artificially restricts the supply when some player manages to find away to be signed as an amateur free agent that you get bidding wars.

 

My guess would be that there would be at least one deep pocket team every year that would try to corner the market and try to get the three best pitchers, etc. Total spending on the top 30 players would probably at least double, after that spending would probably be the same.

[reillymcshane]

The quotes from Dave Stewart in this Ken Rosenthal ARTICLE are astounding.

 

Dave Stewart: “The truth is we did not know what Touki’s value would be if we shopped him. There is a lot of speculation on that. People are assuming it would have been better, but we don’t know.”

 

“There was an opportunity to make a deal that gave us more flexibility today as well as next year. We took that opportunity. It’s tough to say we could have gotten more. He was drafted at No. 16, given ($2.7) million. In my opinion, that’s his value.

 

“To this point, he has pitched OK, he has pitched well. But guys are mentioning that he throws 96 mph. He hasn’t thrown 96 mph since he’s been here. We haven’t seen 96 once. There is some inflation of what people think Touki is.

 

“We think he’ll be a major-league pitcher. We don’t see it happening in the next three or four years. Maybe five or six years down the road, he’ll show up and be a major-league pitcher. But that is a long ways down the road.”

I can't believe that it is coming from a major league GM. He admits that they did not "shop" Touki, so he doesn't really know what Touki's value was among other teams. If the D-Backs got rid of Touki because they didn't believe he was very good then I have no problem with that. My issue is that clearly other teams still think he has significant value so why not strive to receive the maximum value in exchange for trading him.

 

This is kind of crazy to hear a GM talk like this. This does does not bode well for the Dbacks. I mean, seriously, the GM admitted he didn't even try to ascertain the value of a premium asset. Really weird.

[TheCrew07]

The comment about 96 is funny because he was throwing 91-94 when he started against the T-Rats... so what if he "only" tops out at 95? He's 19 years old for goodness sake.

 

I have a hard time believing anyone is buying what AZ is selling. Toussaint may very well never throw enough strikes, but come on, you were thrilled to get him a year ago at 16, and if he was in the draft this last year he might have been a top 10 pick. Either they are completely delusional or someone needs to help them with their organization spin because the (and I'm paraphrasing) excuses of "we drafted 2 college guys who are higher on the depth chart" and "we didn't how to value him" are incredibly weak.

 

The simple truth which everyone knows is that they had pay ATL to take a bad contract with a promising young pitcher, what a horribly run organization they are turning out to be.