Hot Damn, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim appear to be planning on signing free agent outfielder Josh Hamilton. If true, that would leave the Angels with a seriously stacked top of the batting order, with Hamilton, Albert Pujols, Mark Trumbo, and Mike Trout. It also would give them a surplus of outfielders, with Hamilton, Trout, Trumbo, and Peter Bourjos. Bourjos, in particular, looks a bit redundant; he's like Mike Trout only not as good at baseball. In fairness not many are as good at baseball as Mike Trout is; the point is really that he's a similar style—gifted defensive outfielder, speedy leadoff-type hitter, right-handed outfielder. What the Angels, assuming they do sign Hamilton, are lacking is infielders: they currently project to play Howie Kendrick at second base, Erick Aybar at shortstop, and Albert Callaspo at third. Those players were all quite good in 2012, totaling around 10 bWAR, but none of them were exactly whizzes at the plate, with Callaspo's .331 OBP leading the group and that coming with just a .361 SLG attached to it. The team is also rather top-heavy when it comes to pitching: they've got C.J. Wilson and Jered Weaver to lead their rotation, and a solid core of Ernesto Frieri, Ryan Madson, and Sean Burnett in their bullpen, but not a lot beyond those guys. The rotation currently projects to fill out with Tommy Hanson, on whom the Braves just gave up, Joe Blanton, who, c'mon, is Joe Blanton, and Jerome Williams, who spent half of last year in the Angels' rotation and then the half of it after they acquired Zack Greinke in the bullpen, with a combined 4.58 ERA between the two roles. 

What I'm getting at, in case it wasn't clear, is that I think there's a trade to be had between the Angels and the Mets. The Mets' major need right now is for a right-handed outfielder, preferably a defensively gifted center fielder, and also preferably someone who would provide either power or speed. That describes Peter Bourjos perfectly, and, oh look, he's redundant on the Angels! The Mets, meanwhile, have a boatload of young or young-ish pitchers any one of whom could be a solid back-of-the-rotation Major League starter: guys like Dillon Gee or Collin McHugh in particular, but also Chris Schwinden and Jeremy Hefner. We also have Daniel Murphy, who on our team gets forced into an awkward position at second base because his natural position, third base, is, well, blocked until 2020. Murphy and McHugh to the Angels for Bourjos strikes me as fair for both teams. The Mets would be able to slot Bourjos into center field and the leadoff spot, while putting someone, probably Jordany Valdespin to start with, at second base, and perhaps complementing him at some point in the season with Wilmer Flores. The Angels could make Murphy their everyday third baseman, a position at which he's pretty good defensively, have Callaspo as a utility infielder, and slot McHugh into the rotation, probably in the #5 slot. I think that would improve both teams, and I think it's something both teams could easily agree to. Now, I do not think that Bourjos is worth trading either of the Mets' top potential pitching trade chips, R.A. Dickey and Jon Niese, but Murphy plus McHugh seems eminently fair.

The Angels have just pulled off a stunning coup, if this report is true, and one that leaves them with an imbalance of resources. The Mets just happen to have a neatly complementary resource imbalance. The signing of Josh Hamilton, in addition to improving the Angels, might be able to improve the Mets as well.

Defensive Metrics

Apparently through the first two weeks plus of the baseball season, Mets second baseman Brad Emaus is tied for third in the league at his position in Ultimate Zone Rating, one of the fancier fielding metrics. Yeah. Okay. I've watched really seriously most of the Mets games so far this season. He's not good. He's fumbled more than one simple double play ball, one of which led rather directly to one of the Mets' crushing losses to the Rockies. I'm pretty sure he's messed up other plays, too. And I can't recall seeing him make very many spectacular plays where he got to a ball you never expected him to catch, or made a really strong throw where he needed to spin and fire right on the money to get the guy by a tenth of a stride, or whatever. He seems kind of mediocre. I've seen Daniel Murphy make a couple of distinctly plus-level plays, and I don't think I've really seen him messing up at all, and apparently UZR likes him less well than it likes Emaus. My overall conclusion is that UZR is not very good.

One thing I have noticed is that a whole lot of balls have been hit at Emaus. Ground balls to the second baseman  have been fairly common. Since one major component of a lot of fielding stats is "range," which is defined as plays per inning, obviously that's going to give him an inflated rating. That's part of why I think defining range in terms of number of plays made is a dreadful way to go, because players don't all face the same dispersion of batted balls. The Mets, over the past few years, have conventionally been a fly-ball team, which leads to Jose Reyes getting somewhat below-average numbers of plays, thus hurting his performance on the fancy metrics. Okay. He's still a brilliant defender with outstanding range, in the actual real-life meaning of "range." So these metrics are fundamentally missing the point, at least to some degree.