Royals - Acquired Crisp

While I appreciate the fact that Dayton Moore is willing to trade reliever at the height of their value, but this is kind of puzzling.

The Royals, a team that has a lot of needs, has had this organizational obsession with making one of their best players, David DeJesus, much less valuable to the team. While Moore has done a reasonable job on a pure value-for-value standpoint, he's yet to do another important task of GMs. Put most simply, a GM should be able to identify organizational strengths and utilize those strengths as much as possible. The Royals have not been a team overflowing with organizational strengths in recent years, but one of them has been DeJesus. As a centerfielder, he's one of the better defensive centerfielders in the league and hits enough that he's a borderline star as a centerfielder. Moving him to left dilutes his strengths. DeJesus isn't a valueless player in left, but as a leftfielder, the value his glove can bring to the team is diminished and his offense becomes merely adequate. Simply put, DeJesus is not an organizational strength as a leftfielder.

Offensively speaking, Crisp isn't really a starter if he isn't playing in centerfield. Should Coco Crisp be in centerfield?

Let's play 'One of These Things is Not Like the Others.' Crisp has played in centerfield in at least 50 games in every season in the majors but two. Here are how his zone ratings in center would rank him among qualifiers (he didn't qualify all years).

Year      ZR           Rank
2008    .826      19th out of 19
2007    .911       3rd out of 18
2006    .837      21st out of 21
2004    .865      15th out of 22
2003    .865      14th out of 21

The Royals lose this trade unless they get something substantial in trade for Teahen or DeJesus. Crisp simply downgrades the team wherever he plays full-time, so the Royals need something worth Ramirez, the opportunity cost of Teahen or DeJesus, and compensation for the significant downgrade of actually playing Crisp.

Thumbs down for Royals.

The Red Sox, unlike the Royals, have a strong organization with no gaping weaknesses staring them in the face. So they had the luxury of picking and choosing whatever the best value they could get for Crisp, nearly regardless of position. Crisp probably didn't have a lot of trade value and even if it's more efficient to grow your own bullpen, a serious contender with money to invest can choose to be a little less efficient in order to be a little more risk averse. Ramirez, if he repeats his 2008, will give the Red Sox a ridiculously good 6th-best reliever.

ZiPS Projection - Coco Crisp (CF)
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              AB   R   H  2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB   SO  SB   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS+
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2009         434  63 116  22   3   7   49  39   68  20 .267 .327 .380   85
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Top Comps:  Brian McRae (I swear!), Randy Winn

Oddsinator (Based on 471 PA)

Offense %
STAR    9
AVG     48
REP LV  92

OPS+    %       OBP     %       3B      %       Hits    %
>160    0       >.400   0       >10     0       >200    0
>140    0       >.375   2       >5      20      >150    0
>120    1       >.350   20
>100    21      >.325   57      2B      %
>80     71      >.300   88      >45     0
>60     98                      >30     9

BA      %       SLG     %       HR      %       SB      %
>.350   0       >.550   0       >50     0       >70     0
>.325   0       >.500   0       >40     0       >50     0
>.300   8       >.450   5       >30     0       >30     13
>.275   36      >.400   40      >20     0       >10     90
>.250   76      >.350   85      >10     29

ZiPS Projection - Ramon Ramirez
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            W   L   G  GS   IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA   ERA+
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2009        4   3  66   0   65   62   29   5  29  56  4.02   116	 
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Top Comps:  Jay Powell, Turk Farrell

Oddsinator (Based on Projected Batters Faced)

ERA     %
Top 1/3 30
Mid 1/3 42
Bot 1/3 28

ERA+    %       BB      %
>150    16      <11     0
>140    23      <14     0
>130    32      <18     6
>120    44      <22     18
>110    57      <25     31
>100    70      <29     48
>90     83
>80     92      HR      %
>70     98      <4      28
                <7      73
K       %       <11     93
>65     26      <14     100
>58     43
>51     68
>43     94