Analyzing the Gio Gonzalez trade

The Athletics traded Gio Gonzalez to the Washington Nations for A.J. Cole, Brad Peacock, Derek Norris, and Tom Milone. Gio had a 5 WAR in 2011 (despite making just $420,000) and a 4.6 WAR average in his 2 full seasons. His career PE is -.86, with an adjusted PE of -.73. However, his career FIP - is average at 100, and his SIERA is 4.05, hardly impressive. His TR was similarly unimpressive at 8.74. In fact, the only really good thing you can say about Gio is that he has a very good strikeout rate for a starter. Other than that, he seems pretty average.

Cole has never pitched above A ball, but was phenomenal there, earning a -3.16 PE as a starter. To give you an idea of just how good that was, in the league he pitched in (the South Atlantic League), the average PE was .281. Even better was his adjusted PE at -4.63. He didn't walk many batters and he didn't give up many homers either. Even better, he is just 19, when the average pitcher in the league was 22. He is certainly AA ready.

Peacock has 9 AAA starts under his belt, and earned a -2.54 PE. This projects to about an even 0 PE in the Majors, pretty good for a starter. However, his adjusted PE is a full run higher, meaning he would adjust to a 1 PE, which would be solid but nothing special. However, since it is only 9 starts, it makes sense to look at his AA numbers as well. There (mostly as a starter) he registered a -4.7 PE. Even though we don't yet have a pitcher's AA metric, we can assume that a regression for a pitcher from AA to AAA would be very similar to a hitters. According to Simple WAR, hitters put up just 67.7% of the numbers in AAA than they do in AA. This would lower Peacock's PE to -3.18, better than he actually pitched in his 9 starts in AAA. This would adjust to a -.65 Major League PE, almost as good as Gio.

Norris spent 2011 in AA, playing in 104 games. There he had a .367 OBP, .813 OPS, 2.4 PAPP, 1.48 PPG, adding up to a 3 Simple WAR. This means that already, at age 22, he projects to be a .64 O-WAR player. This is while being a catcher who throws out 40% of base runners, and an above average range factor. It is not crazy to believe that he could already step into the Majors and put up a 2 WAR if given enough playing time.

Milone spent 2011 in AAA, posting a -2.75 PE as a starter. This projects to a -.22 PE in the Majors. In 2010, he spent the year in AA, and had a PE of -2.2. This obviously doesn't project near as well.There are a couple ways to explain it, he could have improved, and his FIP is better than his ERA in both AA and AAA. For what it is worth, the Bill James projections have him earning a very nice -1.22 PE.

I think it is pretty obvious that the Athletics won this trade. Even though Gio is a decent starter with a low salary, the A's got 4 players who project to be good in the Majors.

The Nick Swisher Trade

Before the 2008 season, Mr. Moneyball himself sent Nick Swisher to the Chicago White Sox for Ryan Sweeney, Gio Gonzalez, and Fautino De Los Santos. Swisher spent a grand total of 1 year with the White Sox (he currently plays for the Yankees) and had just a .332 OBP with 24 bombs and 69 rbis, with a WAR of -.8 (he made 3.6 million that year). After the season, he was dealt to the Yankees (along with Kanekoa Texeira) for Wilson Betemit, Jeff Marquez, and Jhonny Nunez. Texeira never pitched in the big leagues for the Yankees (although he has appeared in games for the Mariners and Royals) so we will throw him out. Betemit had just 1 terrible year with the Sox, with a WAR of -.4 with a salary of 1.3 million. In Nunez and Marquez's short time with the Sox (neither are in the organization anymore) they each registered a -.1 WAR (because neither of their salaries were disclosed, we will assume it was the minimum $400,000, and we will do this again later on Santos). The four players drew $5,700,000 from the White Sox and posted a combined -1.4 WAR, giving them a combined 19380 WAR and Salary Per. The Athletics story looks much happier. Fautino De La Santos made his major league debut this year and has pitched pretty well with a 3.54 ERA and a .2 WAR (his salary is not released so we will assume $400,000). Since joining the A's in 08, Sweeney has posted a WAR of 6.7 (further salt in the wound, his WAR was negative as a member of the White Sox) and has received $2,625,000 in salary in that time. Gio Gonzalez has racked up a 6 WAR while collecting $1,635,000 from the Athletics. This gives the 3 a total of 12.9 WAR (meaning that those 3 guys alone have won 13 games for the Athletics, while the White Sox players lost games for the team). Adding their salary together and dividing it by their WAR gives them an incredible 361 WASP (they have a value similar to MVP candidate Jacoby Ellsbury). Both in overall performance and value, this was an extremely lopsided trade towards the A's. I guess there is a reason they wrote a book and made a movie about Billy Beane