Should the Pirates have kept Jose Bautista?

by Mike Z

In the past couple weeks, a few people in the media and radio talk shows started tearing into the Pirates again for trading away Jose Bautista. Sure, it's simple enough to say "look at what he's doing now" to blast the trade, but very little is being brought up about his statistics at the time to determine whether the transaction was justifiable. That said, I decided to look at Bautista's statistics before the trade, and to provide some other "failed prospects" over the last couple seasons with the Pirates. This should hopefully provide some context over the moves.

With the statistics provided by Fangraphs, I compiled and calculated totals from the beginning of their careers (whether or not they began their career in Pittsburgh), up until the last game they played for the Pirates, as well as their age when the Pirates parted ways with them. The categories I used were Plate appearances (PA), batting average (AVG), on base percentage (OBP), slugging percentage (SLG), home runs (HR), runs batted in (RBI), and cumulative Wins Above Replacement player over the time span (WAR). I added in WAR because it also takes into account the player's defensive metrics as well. Here's my list of 5 players, in order of most plate appearances and let's see if you can guess who they are. Also, from not knowing who these players are, decide which, if any, of these 5 you would keep around.

Player A - age 24

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	WAR
1665	0.269	0.327	0.394	33	167	1.4

Player B - age 27

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	WAR
1562	0.234	0.332	0.361	43	97	-0.3

Player C - age 25

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	WAR
1228	0.225	0.341	0.338	22	108	1.3

Player D - age 25

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	WAR
779	0.258	0.317	0.393	17	81	0.8

Player E - age 25

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	WAR
743	0.238	0.303	0.385	15	78	0.7

OK class, pencils down. Here's who they are:

A=Lastings Milledge

B=Jose Bautista

C=Andy LaRoche

D=Delwyn Young

E=Brandon Moss

Anybody else as surprised as I was that Lastings Milledge out-performed Bautista with only about 100 plate appearances separating the two? With Milledge, Bautista, and LaRoche having a comparable number of plate appearances, I feel they make for a great comparison. I think these numbers make a great case that the Bautista trade at the time, is not only defensible, but almost surprising that anybody would trade for him at all.

Watching Bautista while on the Pirates, it was pretty obvious that he had the capability to hit for power, but the only person who he had a higher slugging percentage than on this list was Andy LaRoche, which in itself is pretty remarkable (I re-checked my calculations 3 or 4 times because I didn't believe it either!)

With 1500+ plate appearances, it looked like Bautista wasn't going to approve much more, and already being 27 at the time, there was every indication that at that time, he looked like nothing more than the 25th man on a roster. The WAR is glaring for him because over 2004 to 2009, his overall play actually cost the team about a win. This is mostly driven by his defense. Although he could play 5-6 positions, he graded only below average at RF, and downright awful at everything else but 1B.

You could make a great case that Milledge would have been projected to have a better career that Bautista. Regardless, there was no way anybody would have predicted THIS. Remember, he was a waiver claim by Toronto, so Every NL team passed on him before he passed through the AL. Even then, Toronto threatened to non-tender Bautista if he took contract negotiations into arbitration (he signed a one year deal instead). Sure, it sucks seeing the guy you had have possibly the greatest career turnaround in MLB history, or maybe even professional sports. There's no way of knowing, or even anticipating, Bautista doing this with the Pirates if he weren't traded. There have been reports that the mechanics of his new swing were suggested by the Pirates coaching staff but that he only decided to accept the changes when he realized that he would be out of the majors otherwise.

It is completely unfair to judge this trade based on Bautista's current production. Almost nobody cared, let alone were upset, at the time of the trade. He was that replaceable at the time and Andy LaRoche was coming in to try his hand as the next 3B. It doesn't look like there was anything else the Pirates could have done, and we just need to accept that, and just enjoy the show that Jose Bautista is putting on. A story like this may not happen again in our lifetime.