Trades, Relative Value, and Daniel Murphy

If you stipulate that all teams will evaluate the quality of all baseball players the same way as each other, and that all teams have the same needs as one another, then trades could never happen. How could they? Team A would never give up Player X for a player or players of lesser value, but Team B wouldn't offer players worth more than Player X. Therefore, the fact that trades do, in fact, happen means that different teams evaluate different players differently, or that teams have different needs from one another, or both. Really it's both, but I think the different needs of different teams is the primary motivator. There's the short-term/long-term divide between teams trying to "win now" by acquiring established players in exchange for prospects and teams looking to the future by trading their established players to acquire prospects. But sometimes teams just have different holes in their rosters. We have four outfielders but need a pitcher, you have a few young starters coming up to replace your veterans but are shaky in the outfield, let's make a trade.



So let's consider the case of Daniel Murphy. He's a great hitter. This year he's hitting .319 this year, third in the league, with 28 doubles. But in the early stages of his minor-league career with the Mets, he was a third baseman. That position is blocked on this team by a guy named Wright. So he keeps being shifted around. In 2009 he started out in left field, which was a debacle, but then took over first base when Carlos Delgado went down, and did admirably there for the rest of that season. Then as the incumbent first baseman entering 2010 he got hurt in spring training, and by the time he was healthy Ike David had emerged as the long-term fit there for the Mets. So he tried to learn second base, but got injured turning a double play and was out all year. This year he's played some second, some third, and some first, depending on how many of the Mets' corner infielders were injured at the time. He's a decent infielder everywhere, but at second or first he kind of seems to have trouble dealing with the base itself. That's a problem: without getting rid of David Wright there's really nothing to do with him that doesn't create a defensive liability.

There are three possible solutions to this problem. One is that the Mets decide to stick him at second base next year, with Davis at first, Wright at third, and Reyes or Tejada at short. Two is that they force the National League to start using the designated hitter starting next year, in which case he becomes the ninth man in the lineup, either playing third and letting Wright DH or being the DH himself. But the third is that the Mets should trade him. Think about it: Murphy is a valuable player who fits into the Mets' team really, really badly. That is exactly the kind of player you should trade. A team that needs a third baseman and a good hitter (which all teams need) ought to value Murphy more than the Mets ought. So they ought to give the Mets a package in return that will be worth more than Murphy is worth to the Mets. It's a shame, 'cause Murphy is likeable, but the truth is that if you have a good player who doesn't fit onto your roster, you trade him for players of equal objective, but greater relative, value. And that may end up being what the Mets have to do with Murph.