In the last several days, professional scribes such as Jayson Stark, Buster Olney, and Ken Rosenthal have all reported that the Phillies are again shopping Bobby Abreu. The latest suitor with strong interest is the Boston Red Sox.
Several reasons make the Sox good trading partners for the Phils. One, Abreu's high pitch count and high on-base average fit in great with Boston's offensive style, and wouldn't a 3-4-5 of David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, and Abreu be impressive? Trot Nixon, the current Sox rightfielder, is a hard-nosed player and a fairly good defender, the type of player Phils GM Pat Gillick would probably like to replace Abreu with. Plus, Nixon's contract runs out at the end of the season, which would provide Gillick with some financial flexibility should he choose not to re-sign Nixon. Also advantageous to the Sox is that if they can get him, the Yankees won't.
On the other hand...
An outfield with Manny Ramirez and Bobby Abreu at the corners would leave centerfielder Coco Crisp a very busy man. Also, the Phillies real goal in trading Abreu is to get quality pitching in return. Reportedly, Gillick is asking for Jon Lester, a starting pitching prospect Red Sox GM Theo Epstein is not keen on giving up. Time will tell of that is a deal breaker for the Sox. Perhaps as the trading deadline nears, and perhaps if the Yankees show serious interest in Abreu, Epstein might be more willing to deal Lester away.
But according to Stark, the player the Phillies would prefer to trade is Pat Burrell. Writes Stark:
...[I]t's believed the Padres and Astros both could have interest, the $32 million left on Burrell's contract is "a big problem," says an official of one mildly interested team -- because the Phillies also want a decent player back.
"They'd be better off just dumping his money, if someone will take it, and starting fresh," the official said.
To be sure, between Burrell and Abreu, "The Bat" is certainly the one the Phillies could part with and take less of a hit on offense. Fangraphs.com tracks a statistic called win probability added, or WPA. To make a long mathematical proof short, WPA measures the value of the contributions pitchers and batters make to the outcome of a game. For instance, an RBI single that wins a 4-3 game is much more valuable than a grand slam in a 12-4 losing effort.
Keeping in mind that 50 points roughly equivalent to one win take a look at the Phillies WPA batting leaderboard:
Player WPA Abreu 257.5 Utley 231.8 Howard 217.1 Rowand 83.7 Burrell 52.7 Dellucci 21.9 Rollins -8.4 Victorino -18.3 [...] Bell -183.1
Clearly, Abreu, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard make this team go. Burrell is the player to trade if they can find a partner, even if just to dump salary. Burrell is set to make $30 million over through 2008, and while that kind of money doesn't go as far as it used to in the free-agent pitching market, it's certainly a start.
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More than one phan has noticed the decline in Bobby Abreu's power since last year. In 2005, Bobby hit about one homerun every 24 at-bats, which is about his career average. However in 2006, it takes Bobby approximately 36 at-bats for every homerun. Looking at it another way, from 2002-2005, Abreu's percentage of homeruns per flyball increased every year. In 2006, it has fallen to 15%, down from the 18% of 2005.
