Trade Andruw? Good Luck.
Yesterday, it came out that Andruw Jones would like to be traded from the Los Angeles Dodgers. After he hit .158/.256/.249 in his first season in La-La land, the feeling is certainly mutual. His ridiculously horrible performance earned him a -1.56 WPA/LI in just 238 plate appearances, ranking 4th worst in the majors despite only playing about two months worth of baseball. It was one of the worst seasons we’ve seen in a long, long time.
However, thanks to the two year deal the Dodgers gave Jones last winter, they still owe him approximately $22 million, covering his $15 million 2009 salary and the $7 million they still owe him as part of his signing bonus. Considering how poorly he played in 2008, and the general negative feelings about his work ethic, it wouldn’t be easy to move him even if he was only owed half that amount. Finding a team that wants to take a shot on him, and is willing to pay part of his salary, is going to be a challenge.
However, the name value will probably still pique the interest of at least a few GMs. Is there anything left to be interested in? Can we chalk up his ‘08 results to just a lot of bad luck?
In a word, no.
Last year, Jones significantly down on the amount of strikes he swung at (going from 71% to 62%), but despite being more selective, he actually made less contact (72% in ‘07, 69% last year). That’s a bad combination – if you start letting more strikes go by, you should theoretically increase your contact rate, because you’ve hopefully reduced the amount of hard to hit pitches you’re swinging at. Jones, apparently, was staring at the ones he could hit, and still flailing miserably at the ones he couldn’t.
This resulted in a drastic jump in his strikeout rate, which ballooned to 36.4%. That’s a K rate reserved for the swing-from-the-heels slugger types, such as Ryan Howard and Jack Cust. You can survive with a 36% strikeout rate if you’re hitting the crap out of the ball when you make contact, but Jones didn’t do that either.
Hid line drive percentage was just 13.4%, and he managed only 12 extra base hit all season. His ISO of .091 would fit in well with David Eckstein’s career marks.
And, just for fun, he failed to steal a base for the first time in his career.
Add it all up, and in 2008, Jones was something like a compilation of Ryan Howard’s contact abilities, David Eckstein’s power, and Jack Cust’s speed, mixed with Nomar Garciaparra’s health, and Carlos Beltran’s contract.
Good luck trading that, Ned.
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What about Andruw for Luis Castillo, with the Dodgers paying the rest of Andruw’s signing bonus, plus throwing in a couple million for his 2008 salary. Both teams get rid of headaches and bad contracts to fill a slight need.
“What about Andruw for Luis Castillo, with the Dodgers paying the rest of Andruw’s signing bonus, plus throwing in a couple million for his 2008 salary. Both teams get rid of headaches and bad contracts to fill a slight need.”
How do you “fill a slight need” by acquiring a player who is worse than almost any of the other options you have to address that need?
Ol’ Ned will just have to eat this contract unless there’s a GM out there who owes him one whopper of a favor. As a Braves fan, I was always a big fan of Andruw, but I was glad to see the team let him go in free agency. While I don’t blame his weight gain for the struggles at the plate, it did kill his footspeed and his range in center was clearly not what it once was. Combine that with the lack of discipline at the dish and a lot of signs were pointing to a rather quick demise.
I’ve long felt that Andruw Jones was an overrated player, and wondered why the Braves kept him as long as they did. Fortunately for them, he’s now the Dodgers’ problem. But he strikes me as the fielders’ version of the Pirates’ former starter Matt Morris, an eight-figure salaried “replacement player”–or worse.
He was ridiculously horrible last year. But he is playing for his next contract, and this season’s embarassment might have spurred him a little. Luis Castillo is basically worthless and has no upside (not that he ever had much). Andruw is basically worthless, but still has upside. On a 1-year contract where the other team picks up a few million and takes back one of my bad contracts, I would take the risk.
If the Mets don’t have to pay any of Andruw’s signing bonus, he is “only” $15 million, or $9 million more than Luis Castillo. Plus the trade would remove Castillo’s $6 million salary in 2010 and 2011. I would certainly rather have Andruw, considering he is only signed for 1 year and is playing for his contract and reputation. Its not like the Mets are poor or giving up anything of value in such a deal.
This is old news. Andruw Jones hasn’t had a season that suggested any rebound for a few years now. Just look at his stats leading up to 2008, there was no reason to believe he was not on his decline phase of his career and 2008 made that abundantly clearer, whatever 2007 did not.
He can take a seat next to Colletti’s other big flop of a signing, Jason Schmidt, or better, they can be bookends on the bench.
That’ll be close to $40M sitting on the bench for 2009 between just the two of them, the Dodger’s should be horrible next year, even with their good young prospects. Even if Schmidt is able to start the season, given his injury history, you cannot really rely on him to start the whole season nor can you expect him to just start pitching like he’s being paid, just like that, after being out for so long..
He was playing for his contract in 2007 and failed too. I would love to see Boras’ infamous book when Andruw becomes free agent again, there’s really no way to try to spin it, he was horrible in 2008, as well 2007 wasn’t that good either.
I didn’t care for Castillo either, he’s like a Juan Pierre (another Colletti bust) playing in the middle infield.
But if the Mets took over all of Andruw’s payment, it might be worth trading Castillo for Jones, just to get his salary off the books sooner for the Mets, and the Dodgers would have Castillo as an OK bench player for the middle infield instead of a useless bench spot in the OF where they would still have Pierre sitting on the bench too.
The only good news is that LA only signed Jones for 2 years. Bad contracts become worse when they’re long-term deals.
I never believed in the boogeyman as a child, little did I know it would manifest itself later in my life as Andruw Jones.
He makes me cry inside.