Saturday, November 28, 2015

Starlin Castro vs. the Robert Refsnyder/Dustin Ackley Platoon


I tend to make it a habit of staying out of trade rumors and such that I find to be 100% fabricated, made up and generated to simply get you to click on an article. I’m not about that and honestly it hurts the site overall. Clicks are down overall, and maybe that’s just because it’s the offseason and none of the big name free agents aren’t signing yet, but I’m not going to sell my soul to get a few clicks. I don’t hold any ill will towards those who do it because it’s their job, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with it, but it’s just a personal preference of mine to not do it. With that said you now know why I have yet to touch on the reported “Starlin Castro for Brett Gardner” rumors that were on again, and then off again and then never truly on at all. Well, not until now.

Let’s just have a little fun and say that the Yankees were indeed talking to the Chicago Cubs about acquiring Starlin Castro and let’s just assume that it would cost the Yankees left fielder straight up in the deal. No money thrown in and no prospects. Would the trade be worth it to New York and would Castro really put up better numbers in New York than the current platoon option the Yankees have at second base in Robert Refsnyder and Dustin Ackley?

The stats don’t lie. Starlin Castro is a career .281 hitter but has hit .265, .292 and .245 in each of the last three seasons in Chicago. Castro is a shortstop by trade but has fallen out of grace due to his defense in Chicago and moved to second base in an effort to try to recoup at least some value out of that contract. Speaking of that contract, the eight years and $60.57 million deal, Castro has four years and roughly $30 million left on the deal while both Refsnyder and Ackley are either pre-arbitration eligible or still arbitration eligible. Refsnyder will make the Major League minimum of $525,500 this season while MLB Trade Rumors has Ackley projected to earn $3.1 million. Based on salary alone this discussion is over, especially for a team that is trying to get under the luxury tax threshold in an offseason or two, but if the production is there to warrant it than who am I to judge?

That’s the issue, the production. We touched on Castro’s batting average but what about his WAR over the last three seasons? Castro has a WAR, according to Baseball Reference, of 2.7 over the last three seasons including a 0.6 WAR in 2015. Combined, albeit in an extremely small sample size, Refsnyder and Ackley combined for a 0.5 WAR using Ackley's Yankees tenure only. The difference here is Castro played in 151 games and took 578 at bats while the combination of Refsnyder and Ackley played in just 124 games and took just 313 plate appearances combined. If you look at just their Yankees numbers, specifically for Ackley, those numbers drop to 39 games and 104 at bats. So how do you work around an extremely small sample size? Projections?

Again a hat tip to Baseball Reference for their projections for the 2016 season.

Castro:
Year Tm PA AB R H 2B HR RBI SB BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+
2016 Proj. 546 510 53 138 26 12 57 5 28 95 .271 .313 .400 .713
Refsnyder:
Year Tm PA AB R H 2B HR RBI SB BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+
2016 Proj. 224 202 24 54 11 7 25 4 17 43 .267 .329 .436 .764
Ackley:
Year Tm PA AB R H 2B HR RBI SB BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+
2016 Proj. 386 351 43 87 18 10 42 4 27 68 .248 .303 .402 .705
As you can see the Yankees would get much more bang for their buck with the platoon of Ackley and Refsnyder over having just Castro alone. New York can optimize their lineup every single night depending on the opposing team’s starting pitcher while not sacrificing much, if anything at all, on the defensive side. If this trade was being talked about three years ago you make it 10 times out of 10. The bad news for the Cubs, Theo Epstein and Brian Cashman if these “rumors” are true is that this is the year 2015 and we’re talking about playing Major League Baseball in the year 2016. It would take much more than a Starlin Castro to take away Brett Gardner if I’m in charge of these trades.


What say you? Leave a comment in the comments section!

4 comments:

  1. Let me reiterate what has been said by many along with myself; "NO WAY do we do that trade"!

    ReplyDelete
  2. DUMB TRADE.....I stand behind the senior citizen from western New York. So many reasons
    that trade should be shelved, besides being dumb.
    Unless someone, like that * kid from Arizona, falls into their lap....stay with one, or both, of the young
    guys you have now.
    * Sorry, I can not get his name right now. Very young, very good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. * Chris Owings, 2nd baseman. That's his name.

      Delete

Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)