Pagan v. Torres

Yesterday we traded Angel Pagan for Andres Torres and reliever Ramon Ramirez, reports indicate that Torres will be our new everyday center fielder. My belief was that this was a terrible deal and we should have kept Pagan. Let's see what the stats say. First let's look at last year, a bad year for both players:

Player	G	BA	OBP	OPS	HR	SO	WAR	UZR
Pagan	123	.262	.322	.694	7	62	0.2	-14.3
Torres	112	.221	.312	.643	4	95	1.3	9.4

While they both had tough years Pagan was better offensively. He out batted Torres by about 40 points, reached based more often and struck out a lot less, he also played more games. The huge difference is in defense. Torres is an excellent defensive outfielder and Pagan is very much not. Ultimnate Zone Rating (UZR) is basically WAR for defense. Torress 9.4 UZR means his defense prevented about 9.4 more runs from scoring than the average replacement, Pagan's negative 14.3 means he let up that many more than the average replacement. This is a net of 23.7 fewer runs scored if Torres is in center all year and not Angel. Normally I am not a big supporter of defensive stats or the value of defense but I think this probably pushes Torres higher than Pagan in 2011. They both sucked but I would say massively better defense beats out .40 BA points and 30 less K's. Its close but I will give the edge to Torres.

Now let's look at their career stats:

Player	G	BA	OBP	OPS	HR	SO	WAR	UZR
Pagan	541	.279	.331	.750	33	293	10.3	12.7
Torres	415	.244	.318	.721	27	325	5.9	40.8

Here I think Pagan proves himself the better overall player but not by too much. The simplest way to prove this is WAR. Pagan had a 4.4 WAR higher than Torres and at the end of the day more wins makes a more valuable player. The difference between the two is about the same as in 2010 in as much as Pagan has slightly better offensive numbers and plays more games while Torres has insanely better defense. I think Pagan's offense and Torres defense probably cancel each other out (although I always weight offense as more valuable) Pagan gets the edge by being 3 years younger and having played more games.

After reading the stats I feel better about the trade to some degree. The difference between the two is close to nil as far as what they will add to the team in terms of wins and losses. As usual my homer attitude made me believe that Pagan was better than he is and Torres worse. I do think the trade was a bad idea because Torres is 33 and under no circumstances will be of long term value to this team. They should have traded Pagan for some prospects, but at least I can say the trade they made was fairly equitable.