Brandon Moss was traded to the Indians today. For the rundown on the deal go here. I strongly believe in Brandon Moss' potential and just Joe Wendle seemed a little cheap, but before jumping to conclusions I decided to run a projection on Moss. Below are my results.
This projection simply confirmed my thoughts that Moss was given up for far to little. Moss' two positions, 1st base and left field are both payed between $6 and 7 million on average per win above replacement. This means Moss deserves somewhere in the neighborhood of $36 over the next three years but will instead earn somewhere around $12 million most likely, an undervalue of a factor of three. At 31 years old very few quality players are underpaid by as much as Moss. The signing of Moss was one of the most incredible moves he made (Moss was signed to a barely noticed Minor League contract in the 2011-'12 offseason, and proceeded to have an unnoticed breakout season in which his WAR rose 2.9 points from the previous year in only 296 plate appearances). If talking to Beane I would ask him "How did know Moss would improve so much from 2011 to 2012?" and "Why did you trade him away!?"