Moe: Any chance they would swap Silva for, say, Milton Bradley? :evil grin:
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That's another one like Grizzly pointed out: if you kept the guy here, he was going to be awful... so you might as well deal him, and not look back...
But. Every Olivo, Guillen, Silva, Choo, Meche, Thornton and Morrow is a thunderous accusation against the Mariners org... not my accusation, but the stats' accusations ...
These are not guys who just happened to be part of the cost of doing business ... In general, most are players who were visibly oppressed (or at least not helped) by the context here...
Would be easy to say:
- Every org sends out some guys who benefit from change of scenery
- Most guys the M's trade do not gain 300 OPS points the next day; only a few do
- Nothing is ever the Mariners' fault
- etc.
But we're not generalizing blindly. Many of these players were fixed the moment they stepped outside the M's org.
Matt Thornton, for instance? We published reams of material demonstrating that his acceleration down the CG was wobbly because he was simply too high. The White Sox traded for him, stated that they lowered his CG, and how long was it before Thornton went from zero to hero?
It's not just a case of seeing it from the 3rd deck when the guys on the fringe of the mound don't. These guys hear the fixes and resist them.
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Miguel Olivo, after a 17-strikeout streak in Seattle, had two hits the day after he was traded.
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Gil Meche? The Royals made two adjustments: land on your toe, kid, and throw more offspeed. He instantly put up two years as one of the best SP's in the AL.
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Brandon Morrow had the briefest of adjustment periods with Toronto, as he implemented their same-week changes ... it took him four, maybe five games, to assimilate Toronto's coaching and then what?
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Not even including Adrian Beltre, or the next in line for same, Franklin Gutierrez, 'cause that's the park. But the essential result is going to be the same -- a player worth $1.00 to everybody else, but who is worth only 40 cents to the Mariners...
For sure, every org is going to have a set of players that it did not help, but for most orgs, these situations are not going to be obvious to the dummy fans even as they develop...
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Not trying to indict the M's org as a whole, and not even addressing a systemic solution ... but as fans: if we know that a Carlos Silva, Brandon Morrow or :shudder: Adam Moore, Dustin Ackley, Justin Smoak isn't going to be able to play well in this org ... well, we might just as well accept the discounted trade and move on...
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On the plus side, MLB general managers are a verrrry smart group. If the M's gain a rep for mismanaging their Gil Meches and Brandon Morrows, it is going to help Zduriencik in his trade talks ...
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BABVA,
Dr D