The BBA Today #93 – Lou Bayou Traded!

[RonCo]

It’s July 2061, and Bikini Krill GM Ron Collins does a single-seat hot take on the big trade that went down between Boise and Sacramento.


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[shoeless.db]

To me, the problem with having a guy like Bayou when the cast around him is only getting you a slight sniff of .500 baseball is he becomes a golden handcuff. It's the Mike Trout problem. But it's tougher for the Angels than it is for the Spuds to trade their guy away. MLB has real life fanbases. The BBA has 1s and 0s. At some point, a team needs to decide if they want to sell jerseys or playoff tickets. Many times it can't be both.

If a team is reliant on one specific player to either make or break them, their organization is built poorly (sorry for the bluntly arrogant statement).

In the end, Ben and I had talks over four days, including both of us walking away (on good terms) from the table at different points. I had a great time working with him to get this done. It also takes a lot of courage to trade away someone like Bayou. On a personal level, I don't want to have a trade where I feel like I've cheated someone or pressured them into something (sorry, @chicoruiz. I still feel bad about Joe King).

[RonCo]

The Mike Trout problem is a real problem, too. At that peak period he was almost untradeable because his value felt off-the-charts.

Bayou has another thing about him--which I personally kept thinking about as I was trying to talk myself into offering a package for him. The problem is essentially the same as (or related to) Yamauchi. Yamauchi did 4.1 WAR last year, but he is not a 4.1 WAR player. He's a 1-2 WAR player who might get lucky. Bayou did 7.2 WAR last year, but is not a 7.2 WAR player. He's a 5 WAR player who had a huge year...which is still super-good, but that 2 WAR step-up or down is huge.

The future is uncertain, of course, but as I considered adding him the packages I was considering were with him as a 5 WAR, and ended up looking smaller then I think most would have liked to see.

[BaseClogger]

Never want to see a small package.

[DugoutDesperado]

At this point, I would just be happy to see a package.