Orange County Register

One way to exise Gary Matthews, Jr. would be a bad-contract swap, like when the Angels traded Steve Finley for Edgardo Alfonzo in 2005. MLB Trade Rumors helpfully lists the contracts teams might be eager to unload. Let’s subtract from each contract the $23 million still owed to Matthews and ask whether the player would be worth acquiring at that adjusted price.

For instance, Aaron Rowand is owed $36 million over the next three years. If the teams swapped, the Angels would have Rowand for three years at an adjusted total of $13 million. Would you want Aaron Rowand at that cost? Probably.

..

Text

(One-year obligations, at more than $10 million/player, include those for Eric Byrnes, Dontrelle Willis, Eric Chavez, Jeremy Bonderman and Jose Guillen.)

Looking at that list, Wells, Zito and probably Soriano look untouchable at the prices remaining. I probably wouldn’t want Hafner or Helton at that price, and while Michael Young could get that much on the open market it wouldn’t be from the infield-rich Angels. Pretty much everybody else looks like a good deal — or a total bargain — once you subtract Matthew’s money.

What this chart tells me is that it won’t be as easy to swap bad contracts as some fans are hoping. The Reds aren’t going to trade Francisco Cordero for Matthews for a real savings of just $2 million. The Cubs probably won’t stoop to trading Milton Bradley — still a league-average hitter even in his career-worst season — for GMJ and a bigger contract obligation.

Oliver Perez is an interesting option — the Mets are still weak in the outfield. Kyle Lohse is an interesting option, if the Cardinals bring back Joel Pineiro and John Smoltz and consider Lohse unnecessary. Carlos Silva might be the fairest swap, dead weight for dead weight and little hope for either. Little desire for either.

Otherwise, unlike Finley-for-Alfonzo, virtually any swap would require significant cash or additional players in transit, as well.

* 2009 value is according to Fangraphs, based on Wins Above Replacement. Magglio Ordonez figure assumes his 2011 option vests. He needs 562 plate appearances in 2010 to guarantee that.

Gary Matthews, Jr. wants to be traded. Barring that, he’d like to be released “to go somewhere to play for an organization that believes in my ability to play every day. ” I’m assuming he doesn’t mean the Fullerton Flyers, but an actual Major League team. But if he were actually a free agent right now, how sure should he be that he’d even get a Major League contract offer?

Consider:

Read the rest of this entry »

Say you see an ad in the newspaper. Radiohead is playing at the Hollywood Bowl. You go out and buy the best tickets you can afford, $500 a pop but you hope it’ll be a good show. You get to the venue and, once you’re inside, they tell you that Radiohead isn’t coming. The concert is actually going to be a guy standing on stage with a boombox playing Cotton-Eyed Joe over and over for two hours. You’re furious, but what else can you do? You take your seat and an usher comes over to you and asks you to please leave. They’d like to re-sell your seat to another customer.

That’s kind of how this is, right? I mean, it’s one thing to say privately you’d like to be traded. It’s another to say publicly you’d like to be traded. It’s still another to publicly ask for a trade and imply that you’re going to invoke your limited no-trade clause to keep the Angels from getting the most possible return for you. But it’s a whole ‘nother level of chutzpah to ask to be released from having to show up to work every day while you’re being paid $10 million per year.

“It shouldn’t be (difficult to find a trade partner), definitely not as much as it was a year ago,” Matthews said.  The outfielder will be paid $23 million over the next two years. In 2009, he was worth NEGATIVE $5 million, by wins above replacement.  So, yeah, as long as the Angels don’t mind picking up about $30 million from the $23 million remaining, and they ask for nothing in return, should be a piece of cake.