Okay, so… What if the Angels never traded Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera to the Blue Jays for Vernon Wells, who then moved Napoli to the Texas Rangers for Frank Fransisco. This is very rudimentary but - all things remaining equal - should fairly accurately reflect what the 2011 season may have looked like for these two teams had the Angels not made this trade. This might be nothing new for any real baseball fans, but was still more interesting than studying.
Here we go:
Angels lose Mike Napoli = -5.8 wins
Angels gain Vernon Wells = +0.3 wins
Angels must* play Jeff Mathis= -1.0 wins
Angels lose Juan Rivera = -0.7 wins
total = -7.2 wins
Rangers aquire Mike Napoli = +5.8 wins
Rangers lose Frank Fransisco = -0.5 wins
total = + 5.2 wins
Rangers finished the 2011 season with 96 wins
Angels finished the 2011 season with 86 wins.
If the trade never happened:
Rangers lose 5.2 wins to end season with 90.8 wins
Angels gain 7.2 wins to end season with 93.2 wins
Angels most likely to win AL West title.
*Mike Sciocia is a stupid moron.
All figures base on WAR calculations from www.fangraphs.com
