The Teixeira Trade – Time to Move on Folks
By Fred Owens
Jul 26, 2015; Minneapolis, MN, USA; New York Yankees designated hitter Mark Teixeira (25) in the dugout in the sixth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
If you’re not watching the World Series you’re missing some great baseball. After playoffs that featured starters with stat lines like middle reliever’s, the series has been dominated by starting pitching – okay not game three but it was an anomaly. There are tons of things that link our Braves to the series even if they aren’t playing. Here are just a few that rattled around in my head – yea I know nothing to stop them – starting with a nightly tweet that goes something like this: man we really got taken on the Teixeira trade.’ Actually that’s not quite right.
The Mark Teixeira Trade
Every time Elvis Andrus makes a nice play at shortstop or Neftali Feliz enters the game, some Twitter Critter spits his/her anguish over the Mark Teixeira trade. Last night someone opined, “I really miss Andrus.” Really? How can you miss a player who never played above A ball?
Look, I understand. It would have been nice to have Andrus at short instead of Alex Gonzalez and Feliz in the bullpen or rotation last year. I know it’s easy to parrot what you’ve heard but, the trade simply wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be. It comes down to the way you remember 2007 and whether that’s accurate or whether you could have predicted 2008,9, 10 and 11. (If you could have please go buy me a lottery ticket.) To get a better picture of what happened and why let’s take a step back to the 2007 trade deadline.
In the last week of July 2007 the Braves were three games out of first in the division; in third place behind the Mets and Phillies. They were there in spite of starting staff that included such luminaries as Buddy Carlyle, Kyle Davies and Chuck James supporting Tim Hudson and John Smoltz. Our Bullpen included Bob Wickman, Oscar Villarreal, and Tyler Yates along with Rafael Soriano, Peter Moylan.
Looking back it’s easy to say that the staff was underpowered to win a division much less get far if they did. In the heat of the pennant race however players, fans and most critically the front office all thought we had a chance. After all we started the year 16-9 and were in first as late as May 15th, the Mets weren’t running away from anyone and neither were the Phillies.
In retrospect we probably needed a starter – Kyle Lohse went to the Phillies about that time- as well as a bat but, the decision was made that a bat and more bullpen arms would be enough. They started by reinforcing the pen with Octavio Dotel and Royce Ring. The best bat on the market and one fit at the our lineup perfectly was Mark Teixeira.
The Need
The starting infield at the deadline consisted of Chipper Jones, Edgar Renteria, Kelly Johnson and and either Matt Diaz, Julio Franco, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Scott Thorman, Craig Wilson or Chris Woodward. Diaz only had two at bats and Woodward 14. Defense aside, here’s what our rotation of first sackers did offensively compared to Teixeira’s production after the trade.
| G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | BAbip | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mark Teixeira | 54 | 208 | 39 | 66 | 9 | 1 | 17 | 56 | 27 | 46 | .317 | .404 | .615 | .336 |
| Matt Diaz | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .500 | .500 | .500 | 1.000 |
| Julio Franco | 10 | 35 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 8 | .257 | .325 | .343 | .321 |
| Scott Thorman | 79 | 244 | 32 | 52 | 15 | 0 | 9 | 31 | 13 | 58 | .213 | .260 | .385 | .240 |
| Jarrod Saltalamacchia | 14 | 44 | 5 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 11 | .182 | .245 | .364 | .188 |
| Craig Wilson | 20 | 54 | 6 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 23 | .185 | .302 | .278 | .300 |
| Chris Woodward | 4 | 14 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | .214 | .214 | .286 | .333 |
| Team Total | 162 | 601 | 84 | 149 | 32 | 1 | 29 | 99 | 54 | 152 | .248 | .318 | .449 | .282 |
Here’s a summary of the difference between the group output and Tex including the rWAR
| AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BA | OBP | SLG | BAbip | HR | RBI | rWAR | |
| Not Tex | 393 | 45 | 83 | 23 | 0 | 12 | 43 | .209 | .283 | .342 | .262 | 12 | 43 | – 1.8 |
| Teixeira | 208 | 39 | 66 | 9 | 1 | 17 | 56 | .317 | .404 | .615 | .336 | 17 | 56 | 2.2 |
Unquestionably Tex was a significant upgrade at the plate. He also played gold glove defense tightening up the infield and limiting errors. That’s exactly what they though the would do for the Braves lineup. In addition to Tex we picked up another bullpen arm in lefty Ron Mahay. Mahay appeared in 30 games for the Braves pitching 28 innings and finished with a 1-0 record, a WHIP of 1.250 and a K/9 of 7.4 and a rWAR of 0.8.
Adding Mahay to Ring and Dotel and eliminating Will Ledezma and Kyle Davies from the Braves pitching increased team WAR 2.2. The everyday lineup rWAR increased by 4.0 giving up only Salty from the day to day roster. The Teixeira/Mahay trade then did exactly what it was supposed to do, significantly increase the probability of winning down the stretch. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. We finished the year still in third place, but that wasn’t the fault of Teixeira or Mahay.