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Ya, its exiting in the sense that a team is willing to part with two high ranked guys, but you'd prefer two high ranked guys either than these two.
TOTD: Cliff Lee -- > Any Two, MIN variation
Q. You like?
A. No, I'll pass.
It's a reasonable trade, a "pick any two," it sounds like. But as Any Two goes, I can't imagine liking Any Two less than I like this Any Two.
Which is like saying, of legitimate Opening Day starters in the A.L., I kinda like Mark Beuhrle less than most. But he's still Mark Beuhrle. Yeah, granted that Hicks and Ramos would be a Pick Two.
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Q. Some other places think this deal would be a no-brainer, that the M's would be feebleminded not to execute it within 24 hours, etc.
A. One reason for that reaction might be because other places work from the paradigm that says "any average player making $1M is worth more than any HOF'er making a fair salary."
It's an interesting paradigm, one worth discussing, but be aware of the paradigm driving the analysis. This paradigm emphasizes $/WAR exclusively, and emphasizes low-cost club-controls players even over the Best Player In Baseball, which at the moment is pretty much Cliff Lee.
SSI does not agree with this at all -- that the #20 minor leaguer is a more precious commodity than any major leaguer, even Babe Ruth -- but the paradigm is useful. Provided that you're aware that it exists.
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Q. Why wouldn't an $8M player making $1M be worth far more than a $25M player making (say) $25M?
A. For the same reasons that you can't win a rotisserie championship with 23x $4 players you all bought for $1. Figure out why.
There is one, and only one, competitive reason to get cheap club-controls players. It is so you can afford more ML stars making fair salaries.
The $1M-Adam-Jones-is-worth-more-than-a-healthy-$7M-Erik-Bedard paradigm needs to think ahead two more paces: what happens in your ideal, when all your 1st-and-2nd-year players are average-to-below-average ... and you're paying $427,000 times 25 slots? Hm, I'd better spend some money...
On what?
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The Aaron-Hicks-for-Cliff-Lee-no-brainer paradigm needs to ask one more question. What happens when you have 25 Aaron Hickses? (Or, 4 of them in left field?)
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Q. What don't you like about this Any Two?
A. The catcher is not a difference-maker. He'll get lost in the shuffle; he is somewhat redundant with what we have now.
It's a chess Law of Gravity: you'd rather have a light-square and a dark-square bishop, and hit 64 squares on the board, than have two dark-square bishops and hit only 32 squares -- some of which are wasted.
I'd rather have a player who did not duplicate anything that I have now, or at least who duplicated it less. (We do acknowledge the 2-to-make-1 probabilities.)
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Q. What don't you like about the feature player?
A. Hicks is a 20-year-old who has not produced, and who is a huge gamble compared to many other orgs' feature prospects.
We've heard that Zduriencik favors prospects who are much readier to contribute. This isn't a speed issue; it's a probabilities issue. Julio Morban has more tests to pass/fail than Greg Halman does.
Aaron Hicks has a whale of a lot of questions to answer, for somebody who is supposed to be a feature player in a trade for the best pitcher in baseball.
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As a completely separate issue, the Mariners have young, high-upside outfielders:
- Greg Halman is on a pace for 50 homers in Tacoma
- Dennis Raben is an OBP/SLG projectable
- Michael Saunders is starting to jell
- Dustin Ackley will have to play OF if anything happens in the infield, such as Alex Liddi 3b, or Carlos Triunfel 3b, or Jose Lopez 3b
- Julio Morban is rated a 9E outfielder by BaseballHQ -- lotto shot at an MVP candidate (like Hicks is)
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Q. Wouldn't this be more than two draft picks, though?
A. Oh yeah. Fresh draft picks have to pass tests to get to where Hicks and Ramos are at.
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Q. If the M's took this deal?
A. I'd be quite disappointed, because I think it's > 50% that the M's would never see a difference-maker jell out of the deal.
But hey. If the opening bid is a Pick Any Two, I'm pleased with that. The script is executing according to Z's wishes.
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Cheers,
Dr D