See, Gio is what I want Paxton to be a couple of years from now. If you're trading Paxton + for Gio then it's because you need to move up the timetable and you're willing to pay extra Trayvon-sized pieces to make it happen.
Why do you move up a timetable? To win in the current Felix window, and perhaps to convince a monstrous FA to sign with you in the lonely and win-starved Northwest.
Here’s what the idea of trading fungible assets - even great ones – to add another ace to the staff in anticipation of a Fielder signing to anchor the lineup does to me. It’s Bill Simmons talking about Chris-Paul-to-the-Clippers, but it holds true across sports.
The best thing about following sports? When the stars align and your team wins a championship. The second-best thing? Anticipation. Having a quality team, knowing it's headed someplace, dreaming about the possibilities. Staring at the schedule, circling games, knowing that something like 50 of your next 150 nights are going to be a blast. Glancing at the clock at 3:30 in the afternoon and saying, "Four more hours." Standing in front of your seat 20 minutes before tipoff, watching warm-ups, feeling that buzz, feeling those goose bumps slowly form on your arms.
That's the gift of the Chris Paul trade. And if it comes with a shelf life, so be it.
That’s not why you would reach on a decent player and overpay him…but it’s why you build the team and then lay down the bet on a phenomenal player. To give the games meaning. To give your fans daily excitement about their team and its chances. We get 162 games x however-many-years to believe.
I get it if Sandy and others don’t think the team is properly built yet, and we can’t lay that bet. Lots of folks believe we don’t have the foundational talent yet to support such an acquisition.
If there is some reason that a rotation fronted by The King, Pineda, Gio AND Hultzen, with a lineup built around The Prince, Ackley, Carp and Smoak can’t even compete for a wildcard, I’d like to know it. Too many holes? I don’t see too many holes, I guess. Last year’s black holes aren’t playing this year, or if they are (Guti) then their leashes should be short. Don't believe in the hitters? I get that...but I am a believer in them.
Can you imagine getting the Ms in the playoffs with that rotation? Who cares who starts the 1-game playoff if we just make the 2nd wildcard? You’re telling me Pineda can’t get it done if Felix had to pitch us in? As an opposing team, I would detest working all year to get a high playoff seed only to be staring down the aces barrel of the Ms and hoping that Fielder doesn’t have any late-game heroics to send my “better team” packing.
Some owners are in it for title runs, others for pure profit.
As a fan, I’m in it for the goose bumps...and a Fielder/Gio offseason would be a way to bring them to me, big-time.
~G