Stanton is only 23, and is already putting up crazy numbers, leading some people to call him not only a future MVP, but also Hall of Famer. And the thing is, I tend to agree. When you look at what this kid has been able to do so far, it’s hard not to say those kinds of things.

In a little under 3 full years in the bigs, Stanton has posted a line of .270/.350/.553, .383 wOBA and 140 wRC+, along with 93 home runs. That’s an average of 31 home runs a year through age 22.  The guy has overwhelming power, and is capable of really changing an offense. Last year was his best year to date, putting up career highs in almost every offensive category that matters, including passing the .600 SLG% and .400 wOBA marks, with .608 and .405 respectively.

For reference, his batting line last year was .290/.361/.608, .405 wOBA, 156 wRC+ and 37 home runs.

Now, all that and the fact that he is only 23 and has 4 years of cheap team control means that he in fact isn’t  cheap at all. He may be one of the most valuable players in the league. Its very rare for a young cost controlled talent like this to be traded, because not only are they uncommon, but teams usually have no reason to move them. The Marlins don’t really either, other than the fact that they traded everyone else and could fleece a teams farm system for one player.

All that being said, is Stanton worth it?

Well in a couple words, most likely. This kid is an extremely rare talent and is very similar to Ken Griffey Jr. in that he has been able to succeed at such a young age, and has all makings of a future star.

First of all, we need to figure out what it would take to pry him away from Miami. It’s pretty safe to say that it will take 3-4 top prospects and an MLB ready player to get him. Something along the lines of RHP Taijuan Walker, SS/2B Nick Franklin, LHP James Paxton, 3B Kyle Seager, and a couple C prospects. Told you it wouldn’t be cheap.

Ideally we would swap Walker with Danny Hultzen, but I can’t imagine Miami parting with Stanton for anything less than a package headlined by Walker or Mike Zunino, and I think he is off limits. I have gone back and forth on whether or not I would do this deal. Right now, I would. And believe it or not one of  the hardest parts would be trading Kyle Seager because he has become one of my favorite players. He wasn’t hyped up at all, but he came out, did his job, and was one of the better hitting Seattle had last year. Plus, he gave me his broken bat.

But after looking at it and giving it some more thought and research, I think it’s a deal Jack Z would have to make. Adding too much more could change that, but as is, it’s a good trade.

In acquiring Stanton, here is what the M’s would likely be giving up:

Seager: 4-5 WAR
Walker: 5-7 WAR
Paxton: 3-5 WAR
Franklin:2-5 WAR
Throw ins: 1-2 WAR

That’s 15-24 wins that we would be giving up for a 7-8 win guy. But we now have to think about the people who would replace those players we traded, so we can see who that is and what they bring.

Seager’s likely replacement Stefen Romero dominated both A and AA last year, posting a combined .432 wOBA and 163 wRC+ in his second full year. He looks like he will be a solid major leaguer in the future, but there’s always a chance he pulls a Vinnie Catricala in AAA this year, since both were older for their league and could be overachievers.
I’d put him down for 2-4 WAR.

Walker’s replacement would in a sense be Danny Hultzen. The lefty is a consensus Top 10-15 prospect in the MLB, and looks like a solid bet to be a good #2/3 starter in the future. However, since he would have already been in the rotation, I am not sure he would be considered Walker’s replacement. That might instead be Victor Sanchez, who dominated Short-Season A ball at the age of 17.
Either way, you can probably expect 3-5 WAR.

Paxton’s replacement would be fellow “Big 4″ member Brandon Maurer. He burst on to the scene last year thanks to his 3.20 ERA and 3.05 FIP in 137 2/3 AA innings. I can’t verify this, but I have read that they numbers look even better without his first few starts of the year. He looks like he could have a very similar future to Paxton as a solid #3/4 guy. Hard to tell what’s real about him, but I like him.
3-4 WAR seems like a fair bet.

Finally, we have Nick Franklin’s replacement, who I happen to think is a better player. Brad Miller played great in his first full year, as seen in his .406 wOBA and 146 wRC+ combined between A and AA. Like Franklin there are concerns about his defense, but his seem to be his clunky hands rather than movement and range. He is the reason I have never been a huge Franklin guy.
This may be a little high, but I think 3-5 WAR is reasonable for his future.

The replacement for the throw-ins would likely be other throw-ins. Guys that can come up and be league average are not too hard to come by, so they really become a non-factor to the M’s in this trade. 1-2 WAR.

Oh yeah, and there’s that Giancarlo guy too. Based on his talent and how good he already is, I think he will be good for 7-8 WAR a year. He has averaged 4.3 a year in his first 3 seasons (would be 4.8 if you extrapolate his rookie WAR out to a full year), including 5.8 WAR last year at 22. It’s safe to say he will get even better as he gets into his mid-late 30′s so there may even be a chance for a few 9-10 WAR seasons in there as well, but maybe not in the 4 years Seattle has him for.

If we add all those up, we get somewhere between 19 and 28 wins from Stanton and the “replacements.” Obviously there is no guarantee that any of these guys, both those being traded and those who would replace them, will meet those expectations. Some could bust, but some could also go above and beyond.

But as you can see, the replacements plus Stanton in this scenario make for about 4 more wins, going from 15 to 18 on the low end, and 24-28 on the high end.

The only person that we know for sure of is Stanton, which gives Seattle the edge. You never know what the prospects will do, so we are giving up hope and potential for proven production, with even more potential on top of that. It’s a risk, and a big one at that. But with the depth that this team has in their system, it very well could be worth it to snag a once in a generation player like this before he even hits the market.

Stanton is the kind of player this team needs. Even if the guys that are traded end up reaching the top of their range (24), and the replacements end up being worth their low end (18), Stanton’s impact could reach further than that. Not only does he give Seattle a proven, MVP caliber bat, but he may also help some of the other guys around him, as well as make Seattle a more attractive destination for for free agents in the future. He may even be instrumental in keeping Felix Hernandez here. Those things could very well tip the scale back in the Mariners favor. Keeping a Cy Young-caliber ace in town, and attracting another solid hitter through free agency (Ellsbury? Choo? Granderson?) would be very valuable.

It’s time for Jack to make a big, franchise altering move like this. The risk will most likely be worth the reward.

• According to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick, the Mariners are among at least five teams that have shown interest in LHP Jeff Francis. Throughout his career, Francis has been a consistently average starting pitcher. At 29 years old, injuries have been a significant problem for Francis, as he missed all of 2009 and part of 2010 after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his left arm. He was, however, solid over limited innings last year. He doesn’t strike out or walk a whole lot of hitters, and his fly ball tendencies would benefit him as a left handed pitcher at Safeco.

Moves around baseball

• In an impressive move, the Braves acquired Dan Uggla from the Marlins for the small sum of utility man (and 2010 All-Star!) Omar Infante, and young lefty reliever Mike Dunn. Michael Jong at Marlin Maniac has his thoughts up, and he isn’t thrilled. I can’t blame him. Despite the terrible defense, Dan Uggla has been a consistently above average player, who, even with a raise coming in arbitration, is likely to earn a reasonable amount in 2011. Omar Infante, even coming off a luck-fueled 2.7 win season in 2010, is still nothing more than a solid utility player, and while Mike Dunn is talented and fairly young, relievers can only hold so much value. The Braves are the clear winners in this one.
• The Marlins are also on the verge of signing catcher John Buck, today, to a three year, $18 million deal. Buck is coming off by far his best season in 2010, in which he posted a .345 wOBA and 2.9 WAR. There’s no denying that it was an excellent offensive season for a catcher, but his .335 BABIP indicates that some regression is due, and $18 million is a lot of money to throw at someone based off of one good year.
• The Cardinals re-signed Jake Westbrook to a two year, $16.5 million deal, with an $8.5 million option for 2013. At 33 years old, it’s unlikely he’ll ever return to 2006-Westbrook form, but he was alright in 2010, and has a decent shot of at least earning his money throughout this deal.
• The Rockies released Manny Corpas after a mediocre 2010 season that ended in Tommy John surgery. In doing so, they forfeit the $3.5 million owed to him for next season, as well as club options for the two following years. So yeah, that contract worked out pretty well.

There was absolutely no indication that his good year was a fluke, either. His BABIP was slightly below league average, and his LOB% slightly above, but not nearly enough so to completely discount the 3.77 FIP he posted. The impressive numbers, including the low ERA, were well-deserved. Ricky was no doubt feeling pretty good about himself at the end of 2008. 2009, on the other hand, was a bit of a different story… or at least, it appeared to be.

He got off to an extremely rocky start, sporting a 9.07 ERA at the end of May, had some success in the middle months, and ended the season with a 5.06 mark. Understandably so, a lot of fans were probably wondering what went wrong. Well, frankly, nothing did.

Ricky Nolasco was at least as good in 2009 as he was in 2008 – he was simply the victim of awful luck. While it may be arguable as to what exactly pitchers have control over, I don’t think anyone would disagree that they do control strikeouts and walks – so let’s look at those first. In 2008, Ricky Nolasco struck out 186 and walked 42, good for a 4.43 K/BB. In 2009, he struck out 195 and walked 44, good for a 4.43 K/BB. I think it’s safe to say that there wasn’t any sort of drop off there. Fair enough?

Aside from luck (which I’ll get to in a minute), the only real noticeable difference I can find between Nolasco’s 2008 & 2009 season’s, is the success he had with his pitches. Here’s a chart showing each of his pitches, and their respective run values in each of the last two seasons:

His fastball and curve got a lot worse, his slider got a lot better, and his change stayed pretty much the same. I looked into this, hoping there was a drop in velocity or something that could explain this in a concrete way, but there really isn’t. Aside from a slight drop in zone% with his pitches as a whole, I can’t find any reason that his fastball and curve would have dropped off like that, so I’m just going to write it off as insignificant.

The most prominent reason for his 2009 struggles is pretty obvious, though; luck. Ricky Nolasco was extremely unlucky in 2009. When a pitcher has a tRA under 4, an FIP under 4, and an ERA over 5, that’s a pretty clear red flag telling you that you shouldn’t be paying attention to his ERA, and in Nolasco’s case, the other numbers really back this up. We already covered his K/BB, and the fact that it didn’t change at all over the last two seasons is a pretty good indicator that he didn’t become less effective. There’s also his .336 BABIP – which was .33 points above league average, and the third highest in baseball. In some cases a BABIP this high can be explained by bad defense, but the Marlins really weren’t that bad defensively in 2009, meaning it was mainly just bad luck. And last but not least, you have his LOB%, which, at 61%, was the lowest in baseball by a wide margin. When someone got on base against Ricky Nolasco, they were going to score ALMOST HALF OF THE TIME. That’s pretty ridiculous, and certainly not sustainable.

So, there you have it. Ricky Nolasco was not a bad pitcher last season – there was no huge drop off, he was simply exposed to the scorn of Lady Luck like no other. He’s still a well above average, young pitcher, and I hope that the Marlins front office realizes that.