And Smoak alone would not have gotten it done. The benefits of a bidding war - the other guy has to throw a minor leaguer with 11 K/9 and a 4:1 K:BB into the mix.
Now, Lueke came cheaper because he has the off-the-field baggage. But now that we've had our uproar about it Josh can just pitch for a while, until he becomes famous, and then he'll have another round of it.
And yeah, sure, Beavan's lack of velo and Ks made ability to maintain his performances dubious, while his status as Texas League pitcher of the year gave him value.
The no-doubter you want is the main guy. You want the no-doubt MOTO hitter, not the no-doubt #5 arm. Beavan has Fister-level upside. Lueke could be an all-star closer.
But if they don't pan out, you still have the MOTO hitter you needed.
The Rangers had more 'spects than they needed at certain positions. For them giving up Beavan is like us giving up Carraway - would anybody who's not a minor-league guru even realize he was gone, or worry that we couldn't duplicate his performance elsewhere?
Lueke would be a Pryor or Fields type, assuming those were working out for us. We have half-a-dozen closers in the system doing interesting work, and just drafted a couple more. He's a righty - they can find another. They found one in the same deal, in fact - let's not forget we gave them Mark Lowe to make it work. They just swapped righties with us.
And then there's Smoak, who was one of THREE first basemen they had with approximately the same skillset. We should be so lucky to have so much corner power that we could afford to trade some. They were that lucky. And I'm still grateful for the Yankees for swaggering in to the debate with Montero so that the Rangers were willing to pony up Smoak. We probably would have gotten Mitch Moreland as an offer otherwise, which is still good...but I think Smoak will have the better career by a decent margin when park factors are accounted for.
And the other pieces might not have been as good either. It was as good a deal as I could have ever expected to see for the rental of Lee, but it was right-place, right-time...twice in one year.
Too bad we need Jack to do it again, and maybe one more time after that, just to dig out of this hole.
~G
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