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Well we could, if we wanted to forego all trades or free agents and just start kids all over the place. For the third year in a row.
It's not "giving up" on Montero to trade him for Butler. It's moving a good player to get a good player. Yes, they happen to play the same basic position. But Butler IS doing what we want Montero to do. When will Jesus do it? Could be this year, could be 3 years from now. If we don't make the trade and it takes Montero 3 years to get comfortable at DH and rake like he does as a C then Zduriencik is out of a job, Felix is gone, and we're still talking about the next Jason Bay addition.
Timetables matter. I'm still of the opinion that 28 year old Smoak is gonna be destroying a ball for somebody - it just won't be us. It's taking him too long to put it together.
Replacements matter too - it's Jack's fault that we're not using Montero as a catcher going forward. He's the one trying to add Russell Martin and Mike Napoli and who drafted Zunino as the heir to the throne. He punted Pujols The Catcher off the position. Can't keep Montero if there's no place to play him.
Maybe he can play 1B. Personally I think he'd like that more than DH. He seems like a guy who wants to be in the field, not stuck on the bench except for 4 or 5 plate appearances a game. I'd be trying to make Montero into Paul Konerko right NOW, if we aren't gonna let him catch and aren't gonna trade him AS a catcher.
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But no team will give you anything useful if you take your 6 best prospects off the trade list. Well... we might trade Doug Fister for a handful of scrubs, but SMART teams try not to give up the best player in the deal. If Hultzen, Walker, Paxton, Montero, Zunino, and Ackley are off-limits, what's your pitch? "Here, take this guy who just lit up the Cal League from High Desert, like everyone ever. Or maybe this guy, who is either a SS or a 2B and should probably stop switch-hitting. Or maybe our 5th best pitching prospect, who won pitcher of the year in AA, like Beavan. Or hey, Beavan..."
We have better prospects in our top 10 than we used to. The days of trading JC Ramirez, Aumont and a junk CFer for Cliff Lee just because all of em were in our top-10 list are OVER.
So if we're gonna make a trade, then we do it with the knowledge that every top-10 prospect we trade might be Rickie Weeks, or Billy Butler, or Jered Weaver. That's the problem with a good farm system. And this is why I'm not trading 4 of our top 5 prospects, plus Montero, to get Butler and Myers (thread from earlier).
If we don't like the chance of ever losing a good player, then we'd better keep all our prospects. Of course, since we have a top-10 every year that's awesome, even though we promote a handful every year, we're gonna run out of places to play them. And you might notice that RA Dickey won a Cy Young this year - he used to pitch for us. Travis Blackley was a nice part of Oakland's run to the playoff, and he was ours too. Morse, As-Cab, Choo, Morrow... former Mariners are making an impact all over the league.
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Players play well for other teams. As long as we have as good or better players on our team, who cares? The problem with trading a great prospect (or prospects) is getting junk in return. If you trade Mike Trout for Felix Hernandez, that's not a problem right? For this offseason I would prefer to sign Reynolds (and Hamilton, while we're spending other peoples' money), keep Montero, and flood the remainder of the team with all this talented youth. Ackley/ Seager/ Montero/ Hamilton/ Reynolds/ Saunders/ Zunino/ Franklin/ Guti looks pretty good to me.
Then position Romero to play the OF when Guti's contract is up and call it a day. Simple.
But if we wind up trading Franklin, or Paxton, or whomever to fix this team, then that's a call that will hopefully bring a great player here. Not a decent player, but a great one. Our great minor leaguers deserve to be swapped for a great major leaguer, I would think.
And if that happens, and we don't empty the coffers in the process, I'll have trouble complaining about it. Get great players, whether through promotion, trade, or free agency. That's all I'm asking.
Again - simple. *laughs*
~G