Rasmus Trade Ramifications

Yesterday, the Cardinals, Blue Jays and White Sox exchanged players with each team ending up with the following players:

Blue Jays: Colby Rasmus, Mark Teahen, Brian Tallet, Trever Miller, P.J. Walters
Cardinals: Octavio Dotel, Marc Rzepczynski, Edwin Jackson, Corey Patterson
White Sox: Jason Frasor, Zach Stewart

Here is a quick look at how the trade effects the fantasy value of players involved and not involved in the trade.

Colby Rasmus (to Toronto) – Rasmus’s fantasy value probably doesn’t change too much going from St. Louis to Toronto. Here are the main factors I see changing his value.

1. In St Louis, he batted towards the top of the order, 2nd, 5th or 6th. With Toronto, I would not be surprised to see him fall into the the #2 spot. This will give him more opportunities for Runs, but less for RBIs.
2. He will probably be seeing better pitching from the teams in the AL East compared to NL Central. This advantage is less this season than in previous seasons as the NL Central pitching has improved, notably with Milwaukee.
3. Rogers Centre in Toronto (100 wOBA park factor) is friendlier to hitters than Busch Stadium (95 wOBA park factor).

Rasmus’s fantasy value will not be exactly known until the Blue Jays define his exact role. I would not adjust his fantasy value up or down at this point.

Edwin Jackson – (to St. Louis) – Jackson’s move to St. Louis initially looks to improve his fantasy value for the following reasons:

1. He moves out of the 6 man rotation that Chicago was using. He will now be pitching every 5 days for St. Louis, giving his owners more chances to accumulate stats.
2. Busch Stadium (95 wOBA park factor) is more of a pitcher’s park than U.S. Cellular Field (103 wOBA park factor).
3. His ERA (3.92) is a little inflated compared to his FIP (3.21) xFIP (3.42) and SIERA (3.65) and could decrease as the season goes on.
4. Dave Duncan Effect. If Duncan could make Todd Wellemeter an OK pitcher for a season, he should be able to at least keep Jackson at the same production level.

The move to St. Louis looks to only improve Jackson’s value.

Brent Morel – With Mark Teahen gone from Chicago, Morel looks to take over as the everyday 3B for the White Sox. When both players were on the team this season, Morel started 62 games at 3B while Teahen started 23. While Morel’s rate stats look to remain constant, he will see a jump in his counting stats because he will see more time at 3B.

St. Louis Outfield – The trade of Rasmus helps the value of Berkman, Jay and Holliday as each will not have to share time with Rasmus in the field. Skip Schumaker will be the back up OF if one of the big 3 go down, but at this time he is worthless in fantasy baseball.

St. Louis Bullpen (gains Octavio Dotel and Marc Rzepczynski) – With 5 different pitchers recording a save this year, the Cardinals did not have a steady closer at the beginning of the season. Since Salas has taken over as the closer, there has been less fluctuation in the bullpen. I don’t see Dotel or Rzepczynski becoming the closer anytime soon.

All park factors are from StatCorner.com