Number of club-controlled TOR starters traded: one (Fister). Fister is a horrible gaffe, was at the time, is now.
Number of other good starting arms with issues traded: two (Morrow and Pineda). Morrow has ONE season with an ERA under 4.5, and this isn't it either. Pineda still can only throw 50 pitches, likes to eat like Mongo likes candy, and may never throw another big-league pitch again. Or maybe he'll be great, but either way he's been lost for 2 seasons).
Number of potential Cy Young winners traded: one (Cliff Lee, who was never re-signing).
Am I missing anyone? For Morrow we got an All-Star closer for a coupla years. For Pineda we got a headcase pitcher with a great arm and a lazy batter with tons of potential. We also coughed up Campos, who could be very good but was also injured for a year and is still in A-ball, so that's a hard one to judge.
The big gripes against Jack's trading are that 1) he traded Fister, and Fister is exactly what we fans believed him to be, and 2) he didn't get the immediate results out of the top-10 prospects acquired that we demand. If Toronto had given up Brett Lawrie for Pineda we would never have this....problem... oh wait, Lawrie is as bad as Ackley this year. Seager is mopping the floor with both Ackley and Lawrie.
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I agree with you that in the 5th year I want contention. But 2/5 of our rotation are bottom-of-the-barrel because injuries killed our young TOR guys and because the Ms have cut 35 million dollars in payroll from that 2008 squad the year before Jack took over. Do I think he can put a contender out there for what we're paying? You'd better believe it. Oakland can do it for less.
Hultzen is injured. Not sniffing the bigs because of minor injury a year and a half after being drafted isn't failure.
Toronto got top-tier everything. How are they doing? Ditto the Angels (ignore tonight on that score, we're still better than they are, and they have as many holes as we do with twice the payroll).
*shrugs* Them's the breaks. Sometimes you just need guys to pan out. It's not like we had guys here 4 years ago who STILL aren't panning out. There were VERY few players, minors or majors, worth keeping from the Bavasi era. It's the fifth year for fans but the Bavasi purge wasn't done for the first couple of those.
It's entirely possible that Jack doesn't deserve to keep his job because he can't build a team, just add lots of pieces that he hopes will congeal into a team.
And if this team loses its way this year (like if they keep losing for the next couple of weeks the way they've lost this last week) then he and Wedge may be gone. But the next guy is gonna get a WAAAAY better situation than what Jack was given. The system rebuild is complete. Now we just have to figure out how to deploy and use the assets.
And hope they get healthy, stay healthy, and produce. That production thing has been the bane of Jack's regime so far.
Young players gotta step up, or they'll be doing it for a different coach and GM.
~G
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