Saturday, November 17, 2018

Derek Jeter traded two MVP in one off season. Has anyone else ... ever?

Not one. Now it's officially TWO!

2018 MVP matrix shows Yelich and Betts likely winners. Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Below is a mix of traditional and new stats. Also a mix of totals and averages. Numbers in BOLD indicate leading the "league". Only values from the top ten are shown.

The American League (AL) has a pretty tight competition between Mookie Betts (Red Sox) and Mike Trout (Angels). Also shown are J.D. Martinez (Red Sox), Jose Ramirez (Indians) and Alex Bregman (Astros). Trout had career highs and AL lead in average categories On-Base, OPS, OPS+. However, Tout played only 140 games and that was the tie breaker for me: AL MVP Mookie Betts.

NL was pretty easy: Christian Yelich (Brewers). I almost had to search for competitors but settled on Javier Baez (Cubs) and Nolan Arenado (Rockies). Hey, they face each other in the NL wild card game tonight.

Yelich had more black ink than anyone on the board. During the 2017-2018 off season new Marlins executive Derek Jeter traded two NL MVP: 2017 Giancarlo Stanton and 2018 Christian Yelich. Has anyone else ever done that?
__________________________

Stanton: born 11/8/1989
December 11, 2017: Traded by the Miami Marlins to the New York Yankees for Jose Devers (minors), Jorge Guzman (minors) and Starlin Castro.

Yelich: born 12/5/1991
January 25, 2018: Traded by the Miami Marlins to the Milwaukee Brewers for Isan Diaz (minors), Monte Harrison (minors), Jordan Yamamoto (minors) and Lewis Brinson.

Stanton took a while to get acclimated to the Yankees but he had solid regular season numbers in 2018 that could reasonably be expected to improve a bit and continue for several more seasons. Stanton games started: DH 85, OF 72. That may have helped him achieve by far the most Plate Appearances (PA) of his career.

.266/.343/.509/.832    38 HR, 100 RBI, 705 PA

In 2018 Stanton played in his first post season games. In the wild card game in Yankee Stadium against Oakland Stanton was 1 for 3 plus a walk. He walked in the 6th when the Yankees scored 4 to go up 6-0. In the 8th Oakland scored 2 and Stanton led off the bottom of 8 with his home run. Final score 7-2.

Against Boston in the five game series Stanton had four singles in 18 AB, 0 BB, 6 SO. Terrible performance. Boston won 3-1 in games.

Jeter was shedding contract money in trading Stanton:
2017 $14,500,000 Marlins
2018 $22,000,000 Yankees
2019 $26,000,000 Yankees
2020 $26,000,000 Yankees
2021 $29,000,000 Yankees
2022 $29,000,000 Yankees
2023 $32,000,000 Yankees
2024 $32,000,000 Yankees
2025 $32,000,000 Yankees
2026 $29,000,000 Yankees
2027 $25,000,000 Yankees
2028 $10,000,000 Yankees

But Jeter took on the money the Yankees owed to Starling Castro:
2018 about $10,000,000
2019 $11,860,000

But the earliest Yelich could become a free agent was 2022 and he was inexpensive: 7 yrs/$49.57M (2015-2021) & 2022 team option 

The Marlins had paid Yelich only $3,500,000 in 2017. In the upcoming seasons he's owed:
2019 $9,750,000
2020 $12,500,000
2021 $14,000,000

Derek Jeter is Marlins President and CEO. In the 2017-2018 off season Jeter traded his entire starting outfield: in addition to trading both Stanton and Yelich, Jeter also traded:

Marcell Ozuna: born 11/12/1990
December 14, 2017: Traded by the Miami Marlins to the St. Louis Cardinals for Daniel Castano (minors), Zac Gallen (minors), Sandy Alcantara and Magneuris Sierra.

Ozuna had a drop in performance:
2017 .312/.376/.548/.924 OPS+ 145, 37 HR, 124 RBI    $3,500,000 Marlins
2018 .280/.325/.433/.758   23 HR, 88 RBI 

Did Jeter know that would happen? Was it because of playing, like Stanton, in a competitive situation for the first time? Ozuna did improve as the 2018 moved along. OPS:
first half: .693
second half: .857

Ozuna estimated arbitration money for 2019: $13,400,000.

So how did the Marlins do in 2018 after trading their entire starting outfield?
2017 77-85 .475 2 of 5 20 GB    attendance: 1,583,014
2018 63-98 .391 5 of 5 26.5 GB    attendance: 811,104 lowest in Marlins history

Attendance in 2017 was 95% higher than in 2018. In their first season the Marlins had their highest attendance ever: 3,064,847.

So in saving his team contract money how much money did Derek Jeter cost his team by that huge drop in attendance? And who knows when/if attendance will increase significantly even if some of the minor league players Jeter acquired for his 2017 starting outfielders become impact players.

Hey, maybe Marcell Ozuna can bounce back in 2019 and be voted NL MVP ... for the Cardinals. That would keep Jeter's streak alive. Jeter would then have traded THREE MVP during one off season.

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