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October 18, 2012

Overthinking It

Baseball's Most Immovable Players

by Ben Lindbergh

According to a report published yesterday, Yankees president Randy Levine and Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria have had a casual conversation about the possibility of a trade between the two teams involving Alex Rodriguez. While the Marlins could use a third baseman and Rodriguez has close ties to Miami, it seems unlikely that they would be willing to pay much of the money he’s owed, and although the Yankees would like to avoid the rest of A-Rod’s decline phase, they won’t want to give him away. Even if there’s little substance to this particular report, though, it could be the opening salvo in a series of A-Rod rumors that might make the rounds this winter.

A-Rod’s combination of age, salary, and disappointing performance would make him a nightmare to move, but where does his contract rank among the majors’ most difficult to deal? No contract is truly untradeable if a team decides it’s a sunk cost, but the dozen deals below would find few takers unless a team were willing to help pay the player’s way out of town. (Note: rankings mostly for fun.)

1. Alex Rodriguez, Yankees
Five years ago, Rodriguez was the reigning AL MVP; today, he can’t crack the Yankees’ ALCS lineup in an elimination game. There’s no telling how far he’ll have fallen in another five years—the projections aren’t pretty—but we know one thing for sure: he’ll be owed $20 million in the final season of his current contract. Rodriguez’s decline since 2007 has been steeper than expected, as he’s struggled to stay healthy and hit worse with each passing season, but he’s still owed $114 million, plus up to five $6 million bonuses he can earn for crawling past career home run milestones. He’d have to give his consent to be traded.

2. Ryan Howard, Phillies
The Phillies signed Howard to a five-year, $125 million extension two years before it was due to kick in, an act of largesse that was widely derided even in April of 2010, when Howard was coming off his third straight 45-homer season. Since then, the critics’ dire predictions have come to pass: Howard hasn’t had a two-win season since 2009, and in the first year of his current contract, he played only 71 games, totaling -1.0 WARP. He’s a subpar defender and a painfully bad baserunner, and he’s owed $105 million for his age-33-through-36 seasons (including a $10 million buyout for 2017). Howard won’t be a 10-and-5 player with full veto rights until 2015, though his contract allows him to specify nine teams to which he would accept a trade.

3. Vernon Wells, Angels
Wells’ is one of two contracts on the list that have already been traded, but it’s unlikely that another team would make the same mistake that since-resigned Angels GM Tony Reagins did. Only seven players had a higher salary than Wells in 2012; almost 350 had a higher WARP. He’s signed for two more years for a total of $42 million and has a full no-trade clause.

4. Alfonso Soriano, Cubs
The Cubs salvaged some value from Soriano in his age-36 season, as he played in more games and hit more home runs than he had in any season since 2007. He also posted a career-high strikeout rate and barely managed a league-average on-base percentage, and he’s owed $18 million for each of the next two seasons. The Cubs won’t give him away for as little as they would have last winter, but they will try to trade him this winter. However, he’d likely approve a trade only to a contender, and he’d prefer not to DH, which limits Chicago’s already limited options.