How good has Willy Adames been? And where will Nelson Cruz be traded?

Jun 30, 2021

Happy Wednesday.

Let’s converse.

Nelson Cruz Squares

~ Tom

Before Tuesday’s salty 7-6 loss to the Chicago White Sox, the Minnesota Twins had won seven of their last nine games. They’ve gained 3 1/2 games on the White Sox in the standings since June 16.

But still, the Twins are 11 games under .500 (33-44) and as much as I want to convince myself they’ll be hanging banners this fall at Target Field, Derek Falvey and Thad Levine should sell at the 2021 trade deadline.

There have been discussions on Twins Twitter about whether the team should consider sending right-hander Jose Berrios and third baseman Josh Donaldson out on the trade market. That’s a juicy topic for another RPC edition. Perhaps the most obvious trade bait Minnesota has (that will get no argument from me) is designated hitter Nelson Cruz.

Cruz turns 41 on July 1 and is batting .299/.371/.564 with 17 homers and 42 RBI in 67 games. He’ll become a free agent at the end of the season. The Twins can either hold on to him and hope he can lead a historic playoff run, or trade him away to a legitimate contender and get a few prospects in exchange.

Here’s the problem: The destinations for Cruz are a bit limited.

Cruz is a full-time designated hitter. He hasn’t played a single frame in the field since he played four games (26 1/3 innings) in right for Seattle in 2018.

Who will join the Twins in the dance for Cruz? We’ll start with all 30 teams in the big leagues and work our way down with the process of elimination.

Here’s all 30 potential trade partners. Now, we know MLB commissioner Rob Manfred loves making midseason rule adjustments *cough cough foreign substances cough cough* but he’s not going to bring the designated hitter to the National League this summer. Unfortunately, that forces us to escort half the league out the door, since you won’t catch Nelson Cruz running (or speed walking?) around any outfield.

Ok, down to the American League. Well, the Twins can’t trade with themselves unless the St. Paul Saints are willing to give up Space Ham (the team’s pig mascot) and draft picks. Or maybe they can work out a three-team trade with the Willmar Stingers of the Northwoods League. I realize this is just me rambling and is not helpful at all.

Down to 14 teams. I just realized this compilation of MLB logos I found on Google dot com is using the old, problematic Cleveland logo. I apologize to our readers. I’m going to replace it with the first Cleveland Spiders (the front-runner to be the team’s nickname next season) logo I find online.

Holy crap; that’s actually a dope look.

Now, let's get rid of the clubs who will be looking to sell at the trade deadline. No bad team is going to want to add a 41-year-old slugger to its roster. Goodbye Baltimore. Good night, Detroit. Hasta luego, Kansas City. Sayonara, Kyle Gibson’s Texas Rangers.

Two-thirds of the league have packed their bags and gone home. We’re also going to eliminate the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim because Shohei Ohtani is the league’s Most Valuable Player and he needs to take the designated hitter role on days he’s not pitching.

While the Seattle Mariners are a cute story at 41-39, they won’t be giving up a single piece of their future for three months of Cruz. Plus, they’re the Mariners. Get outta here.

That leaves eight teams.

Four of the remaining squads have their DH spot in good hands and won’t be looking to add a DH-only bat: Boston (J.D. Martinez), Cleveland (Franmil Reyes), Houston (Yordan Alvarez) and the New York Yankees (Giancarlo Stanton).

And, finally, we’ve reached our potential trade partners.

One of the best stories in baseball earlier this season was Chicago’s 28-year-old rookie Yermin Mercedes, who batted .415 with five homers over his first 22 games as the DH. Since the calendar turned to May, however, Mercedes is hitting .199 with just two bombs. Considering the injuries on the White Sox roster to Luis Robert, Eloy Jiminez and now Nick Madrigal, the club will undoubtedly be searching for any big bat with a heartbeat.

Trading with Tampa Bay always seems like a death wish, but hey, it’s worked out great for Milwaukee and one Willy Adames (see elsewhere in this newsletter) so far. The Rays have survived with a rotation of mostly Austin Meadows and Randy Arozarena at designated hitter but are only seeing a .712 OPS from the position. Both players are more than capable at roaming the outfield, so adding Cruz into the mix could fit.

In Oakland, Mitch Moreland has been horrendous. Signed to be a big left-handed bat in the A’s lineup, Moreland has slumped to .233/.285/.367 with just five homers in 52 contests. That’s good for an 84 OPS+, his worst mark since 2014. Adding Cruz to the middle of the lineup which features Mark Canha, Ramon Laureano and Matt Olson would significantly boost Oakland’s offense.

Toronto doesn’t have a full-time designated hitter. The Jays could definitely use one. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Rowdy Tellez have been platooning at first base and DH this season, with no player seeing more than 19 games at DH.

According to MLB.com, the Rays have the deepest farm system in baseball, even with No. 1 prospect Wander Franco playing in the big leagues. Toronto is the next-best option on that list at seventh, and Chicago (16th) and Oakland (26th) are far behind.

It’s something to keep in mind as the Twins begin to fly the surrender flag and trade away their contributors -- getting great value for Cruz could be harder just due to the fact he can only start at designated hitter.

Willy, Freed

~Curt

WAR is a good statistic.

It is, when formulated and calculated properly, among the best publicly-available value-based statistics in all of professional sports. I know it’s sexy to pick on its downfalls, but what would you rather use to measure player value? RBI?

A former coworker of mine was one of those folks who had an extensive beef with WAR. His argument went something like this: if a guy pitches 70 innings on the year, but 60 of those are in tie games or save situations where the game is on the line, he should get more credit than a middle reliever for throwing a scoreless outing. Or if a guy hits 15 homers but 10 of them give his team the lead, he’s worth more actual wins than he is getting credit for.

Glaring misconceptions about what WAR is, what it measures and how it does so aside, I have gone on to better see his point. WAR--as it should--is treating a solo shot up 7-1 the same as a three-run blast to tie the game late--when, in actuality, those have immensely different impacts on a game and, thus, to their team.

This is, in a sense, the Willy Adames Effect.

Adames is 10th on the Brewers in plate appearances this year. He is 14th in games played.

Adames is first in win percentage added--or, basically, the sum of how much win likelihood his outcomes at the plate have been worth--by a longshot.

Adames sports a WPA on the year of 1.86 since coming over to the Brewers. Including his time with the Rays, he has the highest Clutch rating (a FanGraphs stat that, tbh, I’m not sure how they calculate exactly) in all of baseball (2.11). His season-long WPA is the same as Jesse Winker, who has a 167 wRC+. With the Brewers alone, Adames’ WPA is higher than Nick Castellanos and Max Muncy and Trea Turner and Adolis Garcia and Carlos Correa and Kris Bryant.

It’s worth noting that the league WPA leaders are usually the players having some of the best seasons. That tracks; the dudes who come through with productive hits the most often will likely have a bunch of those hits in critical spots.

Adames has no doubt been excellent, worth 1.2 fWAR with the Brewers.

But to go back to the context argument my coworker would make, the timeliness of his hits have certainly given the Brewers more than one win over what a replacement player would be worth.

Here’s a look at Adames’ six home runs as a Brewer.

Trailing 3-2 in the seventh, a three-run shot in a game the Brewers won, 6-5.
Trailing 1-0 in the sixth, a two-run shot in a game the Brewers won, 3-2.
Ahead 3-2 in the sixth, a two-run shot in a game the Brewers won, 7-5.
Trailing 5-4 in the ninth, a two-run shot in a game the Brewers won, 6-5.
Trailing 4-2 in the ninth, a two-run shot in a game the Brewers won, 5-4.
Ahead 7-4 in the eighth, a three-run shot in a game the Brewers won, 14-4.

Of Milwaukee’s five biggest homers by WPA this season, four have been hit by Adames. He also has the team’s third-biggest double by WPA and, much like Peak Taylor Swift, three of the top 14 singles.

While WPA and stats of the like aren’t the best way to evaluate performance with the future in mind, they do a pretty good job at describing what happened and how critical it was in the context of that specific game.

And in that context, Willy Adames has done some pretty special things.Here, watch some filth