Trading Tuesday

I was away this weekend so I hope you didn't mind missing Stat Saturday, Lazy Sunday, and Moneyball Monday. But I'm back for Trading Tuesday!

Recently the Toronto Blue Jays traded Alex Rios to the Chicago White Sox for well hardly anything, Alex Rios was picked up off Waivers by the White Sox. The Jays GM, JP Riccardi decided to keep his best pitcher (Halladay) because he didn't get a good enough of a deal, but that his best hitter could just be taken by anybody.

Salary dumps make sense when you release Jason Giambi, they don't make too much sense when you release Alex Rios. Alex Rios has a lot left on his contract, about $60m until 2014, so he stands to make around $12m a year for the next 5 years. He's having a sub-par this year for sure, but does that mean you should literally give him away? Last year he was worth $24.6m according to Fangraphs WAR to Dollar conversions. In 2007 he was worth $18.9m, and 2006 he was worth $12.1, this year he has been worth $4.9 so far. Rios is essentially better than the $12m he's being paid except that this year he's simply having an off year, and it's not like he won't earn his contract for this year either as he's being paid $5.9m and he's given $4.9m in production.

I also failed to mention that Rios is only 28 and still in his prime. This would be a different story if Rios was 34 years old and was going to be paid handsomely until he was 40. At 28, a down year doesn't mean Rios is entering his decline phase, it just simply means a down year.

The White Sox on the other hand have been in the division race the entire year without an actual CF, and now they conceivably will play Rios there, a huge upgrade even if he doesn't do better than he has. Also, they don't even have to give up a player. Also, they have some old dudes coming off the books next year (Thome, Dye, Contreras) and in 2010 (Konerko, Pierzynski), so Rios' contract won't really hurt their payroll.

All in all it's an amazing move for the White Sox and a horrible one for the Blue Jays. You could make a case that Riccardi's time was done just after the Halladay negotiations, now it's hard to make a case for him to stay.