Double Plus: The Sounds of “Trumbo”

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk of you again
Because a trade softly creeping
Hit its bombs while I was tweeting 
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of “Trumbo”

Search this here website for “Mark Trumbo.” Seriously, go ahead. I’ve broached Mr. Trumbo in these pages time and time again. And I hope, with these finals words, to put an end to all of that.

On Wednesday, the Seattle Mariners traded Trumbo and minor league lefty-hander C.J. Riefenhouser to the Baltimore Orioles for 1B/C Steve Clevenger. Riefenhouser is a non-prospect lefty reliever who’s not pitched well in two short stints. Clevenger is a poor catcher who can’t hit. Mark Trumbo is a 1B/DH type who offers power and nothing else, but will cost Baltimore about $9 million in arbitration. The Mariners weren’t interested in paying his salary and dumped it on Baltimore in exchange for a bench player. At this point, that’s all Trumbo was really worth, and they had to throw another guy in the deal just to complete it.

And while we can point and laugh at the situation, we really shouldn’t. The Diamondbacks came within another poor Jack Z decision of being in the same position. Instead, they dodged a bullet midseason and spared themselves from being the butt of the joke (at least until they unveiled their new uniforms). As other have noted, baseball teams just aren’t willing to spend big money for one-dimensional baseball players any more. The game has changed and poor-fielding, slow, un-athletic sluggers are going to have a hard time staying employed. The Adam Dunn‘s of baseball are being phased out, one at a time.

If we want to trace the movement of Mr. Trumbo, it might go a little something like this:

• Diamondbacks get 1B/OF Mark Trumbo from the Angels, give up LHP Tyler Skaggs and CF Adam Eaton
• Diamondbacks trade 1B/OF Mark Trumbo and RHP Vidal Nuno to the Mariners for C Welington Castillo, RF Gabby Guerrero, SS Jack Reinheimer
• Mariners trade 1B/OF Mark Trumbo and LHP C.J. Reifenhouser to Orioles for 1B/C Steve Clevenger

Let’s just get this straight. Mark Trumbo was worth Skaggs and Eaton, a couple top-100 guys. Then, essentially, he was worth Castillo (who looked lost at the time), Guerrero and Reinheimer – basically an MLB fill-in and two okay-at-best prospects. Now he’s worth a little less than Steve Clevenger who’s barely a major leaguer.

Of course, that doesn’t take his salaries into account. The Angels got three years from Trumbo at the league minimum. Entering his first arbitration season, one in which he earned $4.8 million, he netted Skaggs and Eaton. By the time he was, or rather is, entering his third arbitration season when he’ll, again, make about $9 million, his value is at an all-time low. And we really have to ask: why is that? Is Mark Trumbo significantly worse than he was before? Why has his value dipped so sharply?

To answer the first question, no, he’s not markedly worse than before. He actually “rebounded” somewhat nicely in the final months of 2015 and put up a final offensive line like he did in 2011 and 2013. Sure, he played out of position in the outfield again, but that’s not his fault. He is who he was, mostly.

The answer to the second question is much more complicated and must more important. His value has dipped because his salary relative to his production has gone from “favorable” to “questionable” as he’s climbed the arbitration ladder. In arbitration, stats like home runs and RBI’s are overvalued. Trumbo can rack these up in the right scenario and they overshadow his warts. Even though his team has to deal with the whole package, they’re overwhelmingly paying for his best attributes while not getting credited for his worst. That’s arbitration in a nutshell – an non-nuanced process that distorts salaries.

So, what can we learn from all of this? I mean, Arizona was almost the team left holding the bag after all. The main takeaway is that one dimensional players are dropping in value and being stuck with them is something to avoid. This should tell you why no one’s knocking down Arizona’s door for Peter O’Brien. A secondary item may be thinking about which types of players are undervalued in arbitration – guys like Ender Inciarte who are productive but who’s selling points aren’t the traditional stats rewarded by arbitration. This extends to avoiding arbitration-eligible closers, like Addison Reed, as saves distort arbitration prices.

It’s hard to declare winners and losers of trades in the span of just a few months, but unless Steve Clevenger goes on to win the AL MVP or Vidal Nuno outpitches Felix Hernandez, the trade of Mark Trumbo to Seattle was a landslide win for Arizona. With that sentence, it’s time to stop writing about my old friend. It’s not, however, time to stop thinking about this all could have played out had the Mariners not bailed out the Diamondbacks. Would you rather have Castillo, Guerrero and Reinheimer, or Steve Clevenger? Wow, talk about avoiding a near-disaster. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.