2008:
Mariners get: Erik Bedard (5 innings of tough-as-nails good pitching when healthy, which was not often enough).
Orioles get: Adam Jones (multiple All-Star), George Sherrill (All-Star), Chris Tillman (All-Star), Kam Mickolio (later traded for Mark Reynolds) and Tony Butler (career sadly lost to injury).
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I'll submit to you that we'll be lucky to get off that easily should a similar trade happen now. This would essentially be:
1) our top young hitter at a glove position (take your pick of Zunino / Miller / Franklin depending on your preference) plus
2) an already-successful bullpenner (Pryor or Farquhar, maybe Wilhelmsen) and
3) TWO of our best young arms in the low minors (let's say Pike and Diaz just because it would hurt)
4) As well as a throw-in heavy hurler, like Carson Smith
I'm going with the Big Four young hitters already on the team because Adam Jones had ~150 plate appearances in the bigs with us before we traded him. It's not like he suddenly surprised us with growth in AA or something.
Back in the day, that emptied the farm. It left us with Triunfel as our #1 prospect, and guys like Aumont, JCR, Saunders backing him up. Some dude named Pineda was also climbing to #1 status, but beyond him we had very little. Mario Martinez was a top-10 guy on Sickels's list.
If done now, it would dent us but certainly not bankrupt the farm. However... we traded prospects 1, 4 and 6 on that list to get our next Bedard - THAT would hurt.
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Said all that to say - if we decide to trade some good prospects for a hitter (or a front-line pitcher for that matter) we'll be giving up better prospects than we have had available in the past. I could protect Miller, Franklin, Zunino, Walker AND Paxton, and STILL cough up a huge chunk of talent.
Seriously, Pike and Diaz are at least as good as Tillman and Butler were in the day. Then there's my favorite bowling ball Victor Sanchez, strapping teen hurler Gohara, Sharkie Unsworth who walked two (yes TWO) men in half-a-season in the Midwest League... and that's just the arms (and not all of em, not even the injured Hultzen). Fangraphs just put out their top 15 for the Ms - no, Choi does not make an appearance there either - And it's not bad even WITH all the hitter graduations. Paxton and Walker are still holding down top spots in the system, but even without them we still have a top 10 with impact talent in it.
It's pretty impressive. Some of that impressiveness will be shipped out shortly though if nobody will sign on the dotted line in free agency. We have money to spend and it's Zduriencik's job if he doesn't spend it well. As he's proven over the last several years, he can restock the farm if he trades off some surplus, blue-chip talent.
What he hasn't proven is that he can make a trade for the right kind of long-term player, or that all the impressive talent he's added can coalesce into major league impact.
That's what this year should show, one way or the other. So if we ship off a bunch in a Bedard-like trade, here's hoping the guy we get back can make the impact Bedard was not able to effect.
~G
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Red Sox - Dodgers MegaDeal
This from Ken Rosenthal a few months back:
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The Dodgers acquired Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckettand Nick Punto for James Loney, Ivan De Jesus Jr.,Allen Webster and two players to be named later, which turnd out to beRubby De La Rosa and Jerry Sands.
The thing I still don’t get — the thing that has yet to be fully explained — is why the Dodgers took on all but $11 million of the $275.69 million guaranteed the players they acquired.
If the Dodgers had said, “Sorry, we want $100 million, not $11 million, especially when we’re also giving you four prospects,” I’m guessing that the Sox still would have jumped.
But Sox president Larry Lucchino, in an interview this week, told me that I was incorrect, that the Sox wanted almost complete financial relief.
The Dodgers, looking to make a statement, were willing to provide it.
The size of their new TV deal increased from a proposed $3 billion over 17 years from FOX to a reported $7 billion over 25 years from Time Warner, in part due to the perception that the team’s new Guggenheim ownership — as opposed to the previous owner, Frank McCourt — was all-in.
So, who am I to quibble over $100 million?
Nearly one year later, the Dodgers and Red Sox lead their divisions.
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CRUNCH: Dr. D hates, hates, hates to be predictable. But this point is worth consolidating. MLB teams do not use the pundits' WAR/$ paradigm as the end of the discussion.
In this case, the Dodgers did not use it as the middle of the discussion, either. Nor the starting point of it.
You've got a massive cognitive dissonance here. The Dodgers' side of that deal made no sense from the fangraphs paradigm. But here they sit, apparently ready to dominate the National League for years to come. The Red Sox deal wasn't the only thing pushing them towards that, but then again, their defiance of fans' wisdom didn't exactly torpedo their efforts, now did it?
The thing to do with a cognitive dissonance is to learn from it. You've got a blind spot, well, open your eyes. It's up to you.
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You might reply, there were meta-considerations here. The TV rights, the value of the team, and so on and so forth.
Such meta-considerations apply in Seattle, too.
CRUNCH: The Dodgers had their own projections for AGone, Crawford, et al. They've got a right to them. That's what makes a ball game.
Here's a win-win scenario, with a capital W-W, and it's one in which the initial, theoretical, WAR/$ returns were dreadfully imbalanced.
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Red Sox - Marlins, 2005
This was the one where the Red Sox grabbed Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, and a quality reliever for 4 prospects. They flipped the reliever for Coco Crisp, same offseason.
In 2007, the second year on, Beckett won 20 games and Lowell had 120 RBI's as the Red Sox swept the World Series in four games. Crisp set internal Red Sox records for center field defense.
CRUNCH: There's value to be had in them thar hills. If you're dealing with Florida teams who are offloading salary, that is.
Heh, heh, heh.
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Reds - Mariners, 2000
The M's sent Ken Griffey Jr. to Cincinnati for Mike Cameron and three players who didn't work out. Even though it was Pat Gillick choosing the trade booty.
CRUNCH: Sometimes you see blockbusters turn out to be --- > much ado about nothing. Neither team's fortunes are vastly affected by the deal. You do have that scenario, too.
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Padres - Jays, 1990
Pat Gillick coughs up two big-name players, Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez for --- > Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter.
The Jays win two of the next three World Series, moshing those two stars off of Devo White leading off, and Dave Winfield / John Olerud backing them up.
CRUNCH: Let's hope if we deal away Kyle Seager, he doesn't turn out to be Robbie Alomar?
No, the takeaway for SSI is --- > just because a deal looks like a wash on paper, doesn't make it one. Pat Gillick has been the master of turning a collection of talent into a ballclub.
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It might seem that, when MLB teams engineer huge trades, that it's going to balance out, merely rearrange the deck chairs. Not by a long shot. The right mega-deal can -- it has the potential to -- shape a team's destiny for a decade.
If we're talking about turning collections of talent into fearsome ballclubs? Jack Zduriencik has a lot to prove, amigo.
Comments
... which shows you how much the final outcome bothered me - even though Bedard's injuries messed up our end, and they wound up clicking on most of their picks. But excellent rundown.
If we deal away a young player and he averages 2.0 WAR for somebody for four years, and becomes a 4 WAR guy in the last year or two ... a young pitcher who totals 4.0 WAR for his five years there ... and a Sherrill-type reliever, then yeah. As long as we get back our Star I'm good.
I'm not hoping to give up nothing to get Giancarlo Stanton. I'm just hoping that he does what he's supposed to do when he gets here. :- )