When the Cleveland Indians traded Victor Martinez to the Boston Red Sox in July 2009, Tribe fans weren’t very happy about it.
It wasn’t an easy pill for Clevelanders to swallow. Martinez was in the midst of what would end up to be arguably his the best offensive season of his career, and he was under team control with a club-friendly contract through 2010—not to mention he was the Tribe’s de facto captain. Regardless of whether the deal made sense for the organization, it was tough to see V-Mart go.
Perception of the trade, which netted the Indians pitching prospects Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price, remained overwhelmingly negative until this year. When Masterson, 26, began to break out this season (11-9, 3.01 ERA) popular perception seemed to be starting to turn around, but given that this is his first really good season and Hagadone. 25. and Price, 24, have combined for 3.2 career MLB innings, most Tribe fans probably wouldn’t consider the trade an overwhelmingly beneficial endeavor.
However, that thinking is wrong: if Masterson, Hagadone, and Price were all to retire tomorrow, the deal would still have worked out as a huge win for Cleveland, if you consider how much impact the involved players have had on their new teams.
According to FanGraphs, the 5.5 wins above replacement Martinez accumulated in his 10 months in Boston meant he gave his team roughly $22.9 million’s worth of on-field production (based on the value of marginal wins on the free agent market those years); given that he earned approximately $9.7 million with the Red Sox, he provided a surplus value of about $13.2 million to his new employers.
Use instead Baseball-Reference’s estimation of 4.4 WAR, and he was worth about $18.5 million to the Red Sox, for a surplus value of about $4.4 million. Even using B-R’s more conservative figures, he clearly was a good investment (financially, at least)—especially since wins are more valuable to teams that consider themselves contenders.
But that’s nothing compared to the value Masterson has given the Indians. FanGraphs has him at 8.9 WAR in his time with the Tribe, making his contributions worth approximately $36 million. Compare that to the roughly $1 million he’s been paid for his work in Cleveland and he’s given the Indians a tremendous $35 million return on their investment.
Again, Baseball-Reference is more conservative (6.4 WAR, $15.6 million), but even they have him giving Cleveland production worth $15 million more than he’s earned. Either way, he has provided a much better return on investment than Martinez would have.
This is especially true if you consider the circumstances the Indians have been in each year—they weren’t contenders under the duration of Martinez’ contract, but they were in the playoff hunt most of the year in 2011, when Masterson has done most of his damage. Even if their contributions had been equal, Masterson would have been more useful just because of how well the other 24 guys on the roster were playing.
FanGraphs has the marginal value of a win at a little over $4 million in 2009-10 and $4.5 million in 2011; if we assume that an additional win is worth only $3 million to a rebuilding team but $6 to a contender (those numbers are arbitrary, but they seem plausible), Martinez would have provided only $16.5 million of value to the Indians using fWAR ($13.2 million with rWAR), while Masterson has given them $42.9 million worth of production ($22.8 million with rWAR).
Based on this alone, the Martinez deal would be a win for the Indians even if Price never makes the big leagues and Hagadone never makes an impact. Heck, if Masterson were to suddenly blow his arm out, he’d still have given the Indians a fantastic return on their investment, both in terms of talent and money.
Losing a team leader is never easy, and while the Martinez trade made sense it certainly didn’t earn the Indians much good will with their fans. But at least in terms of on-field production, this deal already looks like a huge win.
