Kuzul

Two years ago, fantasy owners looking for a sleeper second baseman (or, more accurately, a bounce-back candidate) may have taken a flyer on the Toronto Blue Jays’ Aaron Hill.  Those that did were rewarded handsomely, as he had a huge 2009 campaign:

682 AB, .286 average, 36 HR, 108 RBI, 103 R, 6 SB

Of course, those same owners felt bitter disappointment in 2010 when Hill followed up his impressive year with the following debacle:

528 AB, .205 average, 26 HR, 69 RBI, 70 R, 2 SB

We’ve already detailed what went wrong with Hill (click here to read), but the question is: Could another bounce back second baseman follow a similar path? 

Last season the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Kelly Johnson, who the Braves had thrown onto the scrap heap, had a huge year:

585 At Bats
.284 Batting Average (166 Hits)
26 Home Runs
71 RBI
93 Runs
13 Stolen Bases
.370 On Base Percentage
.496 Slugging Percentage
.339 Batting Average on Balls in Play

The comparison is not a perfect one, given the previous track record of Johnson, but the end-result could be the same.

Johnson had never shown the type of power he put on display in 2010. His previous career high was 16, set in 2007. He followed that up by hitting 20 HR combined in 2008 and 2009.

Is there a threat that Johnson takes his 2010 success and, while trying to top it, regress significantly? 

The fear should certainly be there. We saw it from Hill in 2010 as he went homer happy, posting a fly ball rate of 54.2 percent (after posting a 41.0 percent in 2009).

Last season Johnson posted a 38 percent fly ball mark and a 15.6 percent HR/FB. As it is, it is highly unlikely that Johnson repeats that HR/FB mark, which was by far his career high.  he only other time in his career that he eclipsed 10.3 percent was in 2005, when he had just 290 AB.

The BABIP was on the higher side, though he had shown that type of ability in the past (.328 in ’07, .340 in ’08). That’s not to say that it’s a given that he repeats it, however.  If that falls, as one would likely expect, and he can’t improve on his career worst strikeout rate (25.3 percent, though he has just about always been above 20 percent) his average is going to suffer.

A fall in average leads to a fall in OBP, which, in turn will likely lead to a fall in runs.  As you can see, it’s a snow ball effect.

I’m not going to say that it is a lock that Johnson has a crippling fall in production, much like Hill did. It would not be a surprise, however, to see him regress, with the threat of it being fairly significant.

The risk involved makes him a low-end option, at best, and more of a middle infielder in my book (I have him ranked at No. 12 in my most recent rankings, which you can view by clicking here). 

What about you? How would you rank Johnson?  Is he someone you would take as your starter?

**** Make sure to order your copy of the Rotoprofessor 2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide, selling for just $5, by clicking here. ****

Make sure to check out some of our 2011 projections:

• Buchholz, Clay
• Butler, Billy
• Choo, Shin-Soo
• Ethier, Andre
• Freese, David
• Hughes, Phil
• Jaso, John
• Johnson, Chris
• Morrow, Brandon
• Uggla, Dan
• Reyes, Jose
• Willingham, Josh
• Young, Michael

THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO FEATURED ON WWW.ROTOPROFESSOR.COM

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The key to a successful fantasy baseball draft is maximizing the return value on each of your picks. At the start of each draft, everybody will have an equal value’s worth of picks; therefore, unless you target players who could potentially exceed the value of the pick they were drafted with, you will finish your draft in the middle of the pack. One of the best types of player to target when attempting to maximize value is the player who disappointed the previous year. Logically, his value will be its lowest following a poor season; hence the appeal to targeting these players. In this article, I will provide you with four players who should at least be on your radar entering your 2011 drafts. 

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When Gus Zernial of the Chicago White Sox and Roy Smalley of the Chicago Cubs won the inaugural Dave Kingman Award way back in 1950, the level of analysis that went into the award was pretty primitive. 

Did they guy hit a lot of home runs? If so, did he have a really low batting average and also a strangely low RBI total? 

Okay, good. Here’s your Dave Kingman Award. 

As baseball enjoyed its statistical revolution of the last 30 years, the Kingman analysis became greatly enhanced. To home runs and on-base percentage we were able to add runs created, OPS, OPS+, adjusted batting runs, WAR, and a host of other offensive statistics, to say nothing of the tacitly present defensive factor, measured by fielding runs, plus/minus, ultimate zone rating, and defensive WAR. 

Indeed, the statistical revolution has brought us into a new era of Dave Kingman analysis, which is really great, because there have certainly been season in which the Kingman candidates have abounded, and simple reference to home runs and on-base percentage haven’t given us the necessary information we’ve needed to parse the Pedro Felizes and the Chris Youngs. 

Where we’ve needed more, we’ve gotten it. 

And so it is, then, that we turn our attention to the 2010 Dave Kingman Award, with an eye towards determining, once again, who in Major League Baseball more than any other player was truly doing the least with the most. 

Let’s have a look: 

Mark Reynolds, Arizona Diamondbacks 

Reynolds will perpetually be a Kingman candidate because of his traditionally high home run and strikeout rates, combined with his traditionally low batting average. This season was no different for the Diamondbacks third baseman, as he hit 32 home runs, but managed only a .198 batting average with 211 strikeouts. 

After becoming the first player ever to strike out 200 times in 2008, he became the first player ever to do it twice in 2009, and in 2010 became the first player ever to do it three times. 

Reynolds was particularly bad in 2010, however. After driving in 102 RBI and scoring 98 runs in 2009, those numbers dropped to 85 and 79. He also had a 150 hits in 2009, and that number dropped to a shocking 99 hits in 596 plate appearances in 2010. The adage regarding strikeouts being just as detrimental to a player as any other out does not apply, it would seem, to Mark Reynolds. 

Brother needs to put some bat on some balls. 

Nevertheless, Reynolds remains just outside of being considered a Kingman clone for a simple reason: in 145 games, Reynolds took 83 walks in 2010, which raised his OBP a surprising 122 points above his batting average. 

There is value there, and while it is not great, it is enough to keep him out of the inner Kingman circle. 

Carlos Pena, Tampa Bay Rays 

Everything we just said about Mark Reynolds pretty much goes for Carlos Pena. He had the same curious combination of below .200 average and above .300 OBP, he hit a shocking number of home runs for a guy who doesn’t seem to make contact with the ball all that often, and he finished with fewer than 100 hits in 144 games. 

Pena is also a pretty bad defensive player, though this is not his reputation. Nevertheless, in this season, he is too good to win the Kingman. 

Adam Lind, Toronto Blue Jays 

It is simply unbelievable that Adam Lind could have consecutive seasons as disparate as the ones he had in 2009 and 2010. Lind went from 35 home runs, 114 RBI, and a .305/.370/.562 to 23 home runs, 72 RBI, and a .237/.287/.425 without even seeing a significant decrease in playing time. He scored almost 40 fewer runs in 2010 (93 vs. 57) and had 44 fewer base hits. 

I mean, what in the name of Jonny Gomes 2006 is going on here? 

In any other season, Lind would likely have walked away with the Dave Kingman Award handily with 23 home runs and a .287 on-base percentage. Throw in his -8.65 adjusted batting runs (second worst for any major leaguer with over 20 home runs) and his 0.1 WAR (wow), and he’d be a shoo-in. 

As it is, he isn’t even the best Kingman candidate in the American League, nor is he the best candidate (spoiler alert) on his own team…

Ty Wigginton, Baltimore Orioles 

There are certain things that baseball fans never understand, certain pieces of conventional wisdom that all baseball insiders follow but baseball outsiders can’t comprehend. 

For me, this is that thing: why is it that from time to time a team with no hope of making the playoffs will have a veteran player drastically over-achieve their career performance during the first half of the season and not immediately sell high on that player. 

This year we saw that with two players: when Carlos Silva came out of the gate lights out for the Chicago Cubs, winning his first eight games, the Cubs sat idly by patting themselves on the back for having found such a diamond in the rough. 

Even when it became clear that the Cubs season was going to be a train-wreck (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say mid-May even though, for me, it was mid-March) and they were going to be dealing some players, they held on to Carlos Silva like he was found money. 

Had it been me, as soon as he got to 5-0 and I would have been on the horn with every general manager in baseball offering to give him up to any team willing to take his salary off my hands. When a guy like Silva (career WHIP: 1.397) comes out and looks like the next Derek Lowe for two months, you Sell Sell Sell!!! 

The other player we saw that with in 2010 was Ty Wigginton. Hey look, what do I know? There is a chance that when the 30 year old Wigginton came out and hit .288 with a .934 OPS over the first two months of the season with 13 home runs, 32 RBI, and 23 runs scored on the worst offensive team in baseball, it meant that he had finally figured things out. 

Had it been me, though, again I would have been on the horn with every team in baseball that needed a corner infielder for the fourth, fifth, or sixth spot in their lineup. If you think the Orioles couldn’t have gotten a tasty Double-A pitching prospect, or even a middle infield defensive specialist, in return for the hot hitting Wigginton from a desperate playoff-cusp team, you’re crazy. 

And what, possibly, were the Orioles holding him for? Was the 2011 season going to be built around this guy? 

As it was, the Orioles held on to Wigginton, and enjoyed the business end of a four month stretch from June 1st to the end of the season in which he hit .231 with a .640 OPS and nine home runs the rest of the way. Well play, Mr. Angelos, well played. 

Not only did the Orioles not get anything in return for two months of Wigginton hotness, they also found themselves in possession of a Kingman candidate. 

Aramis Ramirez, Chicago Cubs 

The 2010 National League Dave Kingman Award, and 2010 Major League Baseball Kingman Finalist, must be Aramis Ramirez of the Chicago Cubs. 

Not only did this guy suck on both sides of the ball, but he also $16.75 million to do it. 

As they say in melodramatic action movies when either an infectious disease or an object from space threatens to kill everyone on the planet: 

My. God. 

That Aramis Ramirez didn’t suffer one of the worst full seasons of all time is a testament to his second half. We here at BaseballEvolution.com have an Alex Gonzalez of the Marlins Award for the player who tails off the most after a great first half; in 2010, Ramirez was the bizarro Alex Gonzalez. 

On July 8 of this season, just days before the All Star Break, Ramirez had a .195 batting average with a .254 OBP and a .350 slugging percentage. To that point, through 59 games, A-Ram had nine home runs, 30 RBI, 18 walks and 52 strikeouts. 

Aramis was downright respectable in the second half, though, hitting 16 home runs, 13 doubles, and a triple while batting .285 with an .880 OPS the rest of the way. 

Imagine: despite that performance, he was still our Dave Kingman Award Finalist for the National League. The reason why is simple enough: on the season as a whole, Ramirez finished with the third fewest adjusted batting runs of any player with over 20 home runs in baseball, and fewest in the National League, with -7.93. He enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) a negative WAR at -0.7, and his .294 on-base percentage was still terrible. 

Indeed, it was a year of which Dave Kingman would have been proud. 

Aaron Hill, Toronto Blue Jays 

Ah, Aaron Hill. I hate to dog an LSU Tiger like this, but Aaron Hill’s 2010 season was a historic one from a “doing the least with the most perspective.” 

Hill’s conventional stats are bad enough on their own to justify giving him the 2010 Kingman Award. Combined with his 26 home runs, Hill had 70 runs, 68 RBI, 22 doubles, 108 hits, and 41 walks. His batting average was a ridiculous .205, and his on-base percentage followed suit at .271. His OPS was a terrible .665, good for a 79 OPS+. 

His more advanced stats were also terrible: 0.8 WAR, -17.5 adjusted batting runs, and 56 runs created. 

But when you go deeper, you realize how terrible these numbers truly are for two reasons. 

First, in 2010 Hill became the sixth player ever to hit more than 25 home runs and have less than -15 batting runs (Hill went 26/-17.5). The other five were Tony Armas (1983), Vinny Castilla (1999), Tony Batista (2003 and 2004), and Jeff Francoeur (2006). 

Important, Armas and Bastista (twice) both won the Kingman Award in their respective years, while Francoeur was the runner-up, to Pedro Feliz, in the controversial 2006 voting. 

But wait… there’s more. 

In 2010, Aaron Hill also became the second player in the history of baseball to hit more than 25 home runs and have an OPS+ under 80, joining only Batista in 2003 (who somehow managed to go 26/73 in 670 plate appearances). 

And there it is: the essence of what it means to win the Dave Kingman Award. A rare combination of home run power and overall valuelessness. At least by this standard, Aaron Hill had the second best Kingman-clone season of all time. 

And for this reason, Aaron Hill is the 2010 Major League Baseball Dave Kingman Award Winner.

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com.

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Almost assuredly the most disappointing performance from the 2010 Blue Jays was that of Aaron Hill. No one expected Hill to duplicate his 2009 performance that saw him hit 36 home runs while batting .286 and putting up a powerful .213 isolated power. That outburst at the plate came on the heals of a disappointing and injury filled 2008. But he was above-average at the plate in 2007 as well, which had Hill looking like a premiere second baseman headed into 2010.

We now know that Hill was anything but that in 2010, but how he fell so far so fast is an intriguing and troubling issue. If and how he can rebound in 2011 is also a major concern, but that’s a topic for another time. There are enough mysteries from this past season to try and figure out before trying to predict the future.

There were bright spots to his season that were mostly dragged down and forgotten due to his other struggles. Hill has never, and will never, be exceptional at drawing walks, but his 7.1 percent walk rate was his best in any season since 2005. Last year’s .286 batting average made up for his career low 5.7 percent walk rate. Hill had his second highest career strikeout rate, going down on strikes 16.1 percent of the time. That’s of little concern though as it was still well below the league average of 20.7 percent.

The walks weren’t what sent his on-base percentage plummeting to .271, his .205 batting average did the damage. Players like Hill who don’t strike out often become dependent on a good batting average on balls in play (BABIP) to hit for a high average. This is even more so for Hill, who also walks less than average. That became a big problem for Hill because he wound up with an almost unfathomably low .196 BABIP.

Complicating matters, Hill managed to hit 26 homers and maintain a .189 ISO, both marks were only bested once in his career (2009). The ISO remained above average with only 22 doubles collected in 528 at-bats. He hit more doubles than that in all four years of his career with at least 400 at-bats.

He managed to keep hitting homers while not hitting much of anything else thanks to hitting flyballs 54.2 percent of the time. Flyballs are good for hitting homers and not much else, line drives are where it’s at for picking up base hits that don’t end at home plate. Hill hit line drives in only 10.6 percent of his at-bats, far and away the worst mark of his career. It was also the worst mark in all of baseball, and by quite a bit too.

The combination of no line drives, and lots of flyballs killed his offensive production to the tune of a career worst .291 wOBA. Even more alarming is the trend continued all season long, he never hit more than 14.9 percent of his balls in play for line drives in any one given month. Likewise, his BABIP never pushed higher than .254, and it’s no coincidence that both those numbers were both in July either.

Whatever it was that had Hill incapable of making sound and true contact, it appears that Hill doesn’t know what to do about it, or what it is for that matter. At the least, Hill can take comfort that his normal exceptional defense didn’t desert him this season too. He had above average defensive stats across the board, like he has many times in the past.

Hill was just twenty-eight in 2010 and should be enjoying the peak years of his career. It’ll be a long offseason for Hill, hopefully long enough to figure out what went wrong in 2010, or just forget about it completely and move on to 2011. Jays fans would probably be better served doing the latter.

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After hitting .286 with 36 HR, 108 RBI and 106 R in 2009, there was little doubt that Aaron Hill was going to take a step backwards in 2010.  Not that his numbers were overly unbelievable, it’s just from a second baseman it is nearly impossible to replicate that type of a season.  Those are elite numbers.  Those are Hall of Fame type numbers.

However, what fantasy owners got in 2010 was a complete disaster.  He didn’t just regress, he fell off a cliff.  Just look at the numbers and see for yourself:

528 At Bats
.205 Batting Average (108 Hits)
26 Home Runs
68 RBI
70 Runs
2 Stolen Bases
.271 On Base Percentage
.394 Slugging Percentage
.196 Batting Average on Balls in Play

Obviously, the BABIP was an unbelievably unlucky number.  That’s just not supposed to happen.  To say that it’s a new standard of bad luck would actually be an understatement.  I researched back to 1995, and no other hitter in that time has posted a BABIP below .220.

Just let that set in for a second.  No other hitter has posted a season with a BABIP since 1995.  Aaron Hill posted a mark under .200.

It’s just not possible to be that unlucky, is it?

Part of the problem may have been that he went homer happy.  After going on a home run fest of his own in 2009 and seeing his teammates (most notably Jose Bautista) get a ton of attention for hitting the long ball, Hill’s fly ball rate took an enormous leap:

• 2009 – 41.0%
• 2010 – 54.2%

Clearly, he was trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark, and it came at the expense of his line drive rate:

• 2009 – 19.6%
• 2010 – 10.6%

When you hit the ball in the air, and not on a line drive, your chances of having bad luck increase exponentially.  It’s easier for a fielder to make a play on a ball in the air, as they have time to make a play.

While you would expect him to be luckier than he was, it really didn’t matter.  With that type of fly ball rate, unless he was going to hit 40 HR, his average was going to suffer.

In turn, the doubles also disappeared.  One of the reasons many people thought a 2009 breakout was possible was that in 2007 (remember, he missed a great deal of the 2008 season), he posted 47 doubles.  Even in 2009 he was hitting two-baggers, as he had 37.

In 2010, he had just 22.

Hopefully he goes to the film this offseason and realizes what he was doing and makes the necessary corrections.  That’s the only chance he has, if he wants to become one of the more productive middle infielders in the game once again.

Could it happen?  Absolutely.  Will it?  It’s too early to tell.  I certainly wouldn’t use an early round pick on him, but with the talent we all know he has, it’s certainly worth taking the flyer if other people are scared off.

What are your thoughts on Hill?  Will he rebound in 2011?  Would you consider using him?

Hill was not the only Blue Jay player to struggle in 2010.  Make sure to also check out:

• Would Adam Lind Have Fantasy Value As The Blue Jays 2011 First Baseman?

Make sure to check out our 2011 projections:

• Freese, David
• Jaso, John
• Morrow, Brandon

THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO FEATURED ON WWW.ROTOPROFESSOR.COM

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

When the Blue Jays started the season, it came as a bit of a surprise that the manager Cito Gaston projected that the Jays lineup would live and die by the home run. 

Gaston suggested that his lineup was packed full of potential 20 home run hitters.

“Bautista has a chance to hit maybe 20-25 home runs because he’s done it before,” Gaston said. “Then, of course, you’ve got Hill, you’ve got Lind and Vernon who hit 20 home runs the year before.

“Then you’ve got (Lyle) Overbay you hope can hit you 20 and you have (Edwin) Encarnacion; he might hit 20. “You’re talking about the first six hitters. If (Travis) Snider makes the club, he might do it, too. I think this club right now, the strength is the hitters.”

After all, Adam Lind and Aaron Hill were the only two hitters to surpass the twenty home run mark last year, with 35 and 36 respectively. 

Now that September has arrived, those numbers and projections no longer look so outlandish.  The Blue Jays lead the majors in home runs by a landslide, with 208, the next closest team the Boston Red Sox with 178. 

So how close are those projections so far?

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Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports has reported that Alex Anthopoulos has signed Ricky Romero to a five year $30.1 million contract extension. This is very odd for Anthopoulos, as he normally gives a bit less money in the early years of his contracts with options for big money later. In this case he gave Romero reasonable money, but this is the largest amount given to a player with less than two years of major league service.

I don’t like this signing at all. It only buys out the first year of his free agency, and I doubt he would get this kind of money in arbitration. My only guess is that there are option years added to the end of this deal that Rosenthal has not discovered.

This continues a trend for Alex Anthopoulos as he continues to lock up the young core of this team. Ricky Romero is definitely a solid pitcher. With a 3.53 ERA in the AL East, he can develop into an ace starter. Indeed earlier in the year his ERA was actually below 3, showing just how dominating he can be.

By locking up Romero to this kind of a contract it will have an effect on the rest of the team. After all, if Romero can get this kind of money why not Shaun Marcum? He is a solid young pitcher, and can develop into a top of the rotation starter. This will also affect the signing of Kyle Drabek once his rookie years end and his arbitration is about to start.

What is important to note here is that Anthopoulos values pitching more than hitting. The deals he gave Adam Lind and Aaron Hill were for less money even though they had outstanding seasons, whereas Romero has not had that great of a season yet.

I hope Anthopoulos has added option years. If he has then this deal can be very fair. If he has not, I sure hope he knows what he is doing. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

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There have been many rumours swirling about the Blue Jays, suggesting who they might be moving before the July 31st trade deadline.  Names like Scott Downs, Jose Bautista, John Buck, and Kevin Gregg are all being mentioned as possible trade chips.  The rumour mill on ESPN even suggests that they might be buyers.  So what are Jays fans supposed to draw from all of this?

Well, it certainly suggests that GM Alex Anthopoulos isn’t content to sit back and hope that the Jays regain the top spot in the American League East.  Toronto is currently 12.5 games back from the Yankees in the division and 9.5 back from the Tampa Bay Rays for the Wild Card spot. So, although they might gain on Boston, due to all the injuries the team has sustained lately, it is unlikely that Tampa and New York would struggle enough in the second half for the Jays to overtake them.

If the Jays are buyers, as ESPN suggests, who might they be after, and are they still dealing these names that are mentioned?  The Jays look like they are set with their pitching rotation, although Jesse Litsch has been struggling, so they could be after another arm with perhaps a little more experience.  But this seems unlikely, considering the young pitching depth that the Jays have.

So in what positions could the Jays use an upgrade?  Well, they have a few set positions right now filled in by the players that the team is going to build around.  Aaron Hill, Adam Lind, Travis Snider, and now Yunel Escobar are the Jays’ future and Vernon Wells is signed long-term and seems to be the leader of the club.  Both Fred Lewis and Jose Bautista are young enough and play important roles that could allow them to be a part of the Jays’ building. 

Then you have Brett Wallace and J.P. Arencibia tearing up Triple-A ball, waiting to get called up to fill first base and catcher.  So what does that leave?  Well, if Snider takes over right field in his return, that pushes Bautista to third base, which leaves Edwin Encarnacion the odd man out.  Encarnacion certainly has a powerful bat, and he is heating up lately with a nine-game hit streak, but on defense is where he struggles.  So if it is between Bautista and his league-leading 27 home runs, and Encarnacion’s streaky play, you can likely figure out who is going to win that competition.

Of course, this still doesn’t determine in which area the Jays need to improve the most, and if they were to be buyers, what would they be looking for?  With Snider’s inexperience, and Lewis’ streaky play at times, the team could be after another outfielder who could hit for average and be a threat on the base paths.  There is also the possibility that Wallace could still use some seasoning in the minors, and with Overbay becoming a free agent at the end of this year, they could deal their current first baseman for a more long-term solution, like they did in acquiring Escobar. 

Granted, this all seems rather unlikely.  The Jays are attempting to go with a youth movement right now and seem to want to allow their players to develop, and give their prospects a chance.  So if they make any moves, it would likely be dealing their veterans on expiring contracts for more prospects and draft picks.  If ESPN is right, and they want to be buyers, you can be sure that they would be pursuing a player signed for several years.  There is no sense in the Jays acquiring more players with expiring contracts for what would seem like an unlikely playoff run.

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Yunel Escobar is the main player Alex Anthopoulos acquired when he dealt Alex Gonzalez away. Anthopoulos had stated that his plan to build (not rebuild) the Toronto Blue Jays is to get young, controllable players—players whose salary we can control for several years.

When we got rid of Gonzalez, we got rid of a player who is old, whose salary we cannot control beyond next year, and who is having a career year. I have already written why this trade works out great for the Blue Jays, so let’s not go there.

Instead, let’s look at the fact that we can only keep Gonzalez cheaply for one more year; after that, if he keeps up this torrid pace, he will command a much higher salary.

Escobar, on the other hand, is a player whose rights we control for three more years. This means that we can sign him to a contract similar to Adam Lind and Aaron Hill, a small amount of money now with potential for big money later. The thing is we are in the Yankees’ and Red Sox’ division, so we cannot spend as much as them, but we can control these younger players and how much they make.

If we control their salaries, then we can keep saving the money needed to get more top-flight prospects into our system whose salary we can also control, so by the time these guys are being paid big money we have other cheap rookies to offset the cost. In a division that spends so much money, this could be the only way to compete. Kudos to Anthopoulos for doing this.

One of Billy Beane’s most brilliant techniques was smart drafting and getting rid of players as they are about to come to contract years for lots of prospects. Anthopoulos decided he does not need to get rid of his players. Instead, he can structure their contracts to keep them in Toronto for the prime of their careers. Rich teams like the Yankees can have them when they’re old—like say, 35. This could be Moneyball Anthopoulos style.

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