Over the past three years Fowler's batted .256/.350/.380 away from Coors.
Over the past three years Denard Span has batted .245/.298/.341 away from his home parks.
Fowler is two years younger, and comes wiith two more years of team control. He's been worth about 2.5 more wins than Span, offensively, over the previous 3 years. He was available for a prospect, and we could have almost certainly gotten a better prospect back for Span.
Sometimes I think all Nats fans want to do is complain.
"We need to upgrade the offense"
"Wait, that makes the defense WORSE"
"I want to replace Denard Span, but only with Willie Mays"
God.
the whole point is that dexter fowler is in no way an improvement over Denard Span. All of Fowler's value is in his offense that is tied to absurd Coors Field numbers. so the guy you trade for who is a 2 WAR player with defense, is suddenly worth much less than that since his OPS drops by like 200 points now that he isnt playing in Coors. He is also a little more expensive than Denard Span and the Astros only have one additional year of control. He is not any kind of upgrade over Span since he can barely play CF. Span is a better base stealer. Over the past three years Denard Span has been owrth more WAR than Fowler. Fowler is not an upgrade. The people that were screaming for an upgrade were screaming for a Jacoby Ellsbury not a Willie Mays. Seeing the price of Ellsbury, Span and Goodwin will do just fine.
edit: fowler will almost certainly hit the 9 million figure Span's option is worth in arbitration. idk fowler just isnt very good.
