Would you want a season like the St. Louis Cardinals?
by outoforder87 on Oct 17, 2011 2:33 AM EDT
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Hey all! This is my first fan post. An interesting thought entered my mind that I thought I'd share. I'm intrigued to see what you guys might choose.
So, as we all know. Earlier this season, the Cardinals traded one of their highly touted prospects (Rasmus) to Toronto for a plethora of relievers (Scabble, Dotel) & Edwin Jackson (who came via Chi-town). At the time, the trade was blasted by all the Cardinal fans and pretty much every critic. As Toronto fans, we were rejoicing.
Now, St. Louis is in the World Series and we're not. And before I ramble too much, here's my question. Would you want your team to trade a top prospect (in our case, it's safe to say Lawrie is the equivalent) for a bunch of relievers and then your team went on to play for the World Series that year. Or, would you rather keep that prospect in the hopes that he evolves with Toronto?
I'm not so sure I'd be willing to trade a touted prospect for a bunch of relievers, even if it did lead to a World Series appearance. Of course, some of you may have differing opinions and I'd love to hear them!
Ps. If this is a completely waste of a fanpost, I apologize. haha
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It’s always a situational question. The Jays have done that – they traded Jeff Kent to get David Cone. Kent is likely going into the HoF, but at the time, the Jays needed pitching to clinch the division. Of course it was the right move.
The key thing you need to consider is the core of your team, the challenge that they face, and the pieces that they need. The Jays core is just getting towards playoff contention. The challenge is two teams that have a ton of money and mostly are complete morons, and the pieces they need are more than just Lawrie can bring back. So everything needs to fit into the matrix properly.
So, the answer is, under the right circumstances and with the right team, yes. But in a fugue state, no.
by dexfarkin on Oct 17, 2011 2:55 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
I was with you until you called the Sox and Yankees morons
besides being completely uncalled for – as much as I hate both teams – it’s entirely and objectively false
well, the Sox have acted pretty moronically lately
running Francona (a good manager) and Epstein (a great GM) out of town on a rail. They may do the same with Ortiz and other players before the time is up. They did a similar thing with Manny, for no explicable reason, while he was still a dominant hitter (singlehandedly took the Dodgers to the playoffs the next year).
that’s more the ownership than the baseball people, though. The baseball people on the Yanks and Sox have been great of late, and they have lots of $$$ to play with too. Cherington will probably be a fine GM, but I still don’t really think they should have forced Epstein out.
that's all speculation
yea they fired francona, but maybe that was justified. supposedly they started thinking about firing him at the beginning of september, and i guess the collapse just reinforced that thought.
as for epstein, most of what i’ve read suggests that he wanted the cubs job, not that the red sox forced him out.
the manny situation, well supposedly he was a “clubhouse cancer” and the team had been trying to get rid of him for years. who knows what really happened though.
my impression of the Manny situation
is that ownership/management were largely the ones labelling him as “cancerous”. I think his teammates pretty well uniformly loved him. It doesn’t really make sense to me why management would try to run their best player out of town during the height of his powers, but there have been rumours of ownership meddling/dysfunction in baseball operations in Boston for a long time under the current regime, and I think the latest episode is the latest manifestation of that.
Of course, I have no first hand knowledge of this, its just what I’ve read and such.
Whatever. Both teams have wasted the most amount of money by a magnitude of 10X against any other team in baseball on ineffectual signings. The facts that both have been bailed out by insanely deep pockets doesn’t make them better.
Seriously, run a comparison of $ versus WAR and $ by win. If the Yankees and the Red Sox are the in the bottom third of least efficient teams over the last decade, I withdraw my statment.
but that's not fair
because if you had a replacement level team winning 36 games or whatever they would win and paying $13M per season in payroll, they’d have the lowest cost per win of any team every single year. I’m not saying the Sox/Yanks FOs would be amazing even without their huge budgets, but they’ve for the most part made very good moves
I’d strongly disagree. They have for the most part made mediocre moves – a mix of good and bad signings – but the equivalent moves by a team with less money would be damaging because they have the ability to absorb the cost of a bad signing and replace it with another one. They don’t find themselves locked into the bad deals, and have the freedom to correct it.
‘Morons’ is hyperbolic, certainly, but once you factor in the costing on bad deals, I don’t see how anyone can say that the Yankees or the Red Sox have in the most part made very good moves. They’ve at best been okay, and money has let them roll okay into ultimately very good.
So, according to your definition
a team with a high payroll can’t have a smart, savvy front office even if the team wins a lot of games because of all the available money.
Therefore, the early 90’s Jays also didn’t have a very good front office. It doesn’t matter that the team won 2 championships in a row, the Jays had the highest payrolls in MLB at the time and is automatically disqualified from having a good front office.
Sad, Drunk, And Poorly
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - JL
strawman
payrolls, in millions of dollars
1992
jays: 45
MLB mean: 31
2011
yankees: 202
MLB mean: 91
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
damn you and your logic
Sad, Drunk, And Poorly
If you don't like video game music, I don't think we can be friends.
at least they won
the Mets, Cubs, Orioles and other teams have spent tons of money and gotten way less than the Yanks and Sox to show for it.
If we had a season like the Cards we wouldn’t be in the playoffs. The AL East is too tough a division to make it through the back door. Had we not traded our relievers, we wouldn’t have done any better than we did, and we do have the “future of Colby Rasmus” to anticipate
flags really do fly forever
if you are in a position to make a realistic run at a pennant, you should do it as long as the cost is not prohibitive. But you need to be realistic about your chances.
The Rasmus trade seems to have worked out well for both teams. The Jays almost certainly got more value in the long run, but the perceived value of the short-term upgrade was higher for the Cards whereas the short term means way less for the Jays right now.
of course it worked out for the cardinals, but it also worked out for the jays. one of those few win win trades.
good first post!
Did it "also work out for the Jays"?
As far as I am concerned, the jury is still out. We gave up a fine reliever (Frasor), a potentially fine starter (Stewart), and (IMHO) a lefthanded reliever who could have been much more than that if we’d let him (Scrabble). I have seen nothing but some poor production and a season-ending injury from Rasmus.
I think this could be a very good trade, but to say it worked out for the Jays is very premature. In fact, I think it behooves Colby to come to camp ready to provide big-time offensive production. He’s got two years before Gose or Marisnik could be ready to kick him to the curb.
The key word being relievers, we didn't give up much
Frasor was a free agent at the end of the season and likely gone anyway. Rzep is a guy with control problems and Stewart looked like nothing special in his starts. Also, do you think Stewart starts ahead of Romero, Morrow, Alvarez, Cecil, Drabek or a healthy McGowan? Stewart had worse numbers at AA than Alvarez this year and Drabek last year. Romero, Morrow, Cecil and McGowan have all showed more at the Major League level. Stewart at best was another reliever. So basically we traded 3 relievers for a five tool CF. Rasmus had a bad year this year but he was pretty good in 2010, I’ll take that over relief pitching anyday.
Hic sunt fortuna dracones
that's not really what we gave up
we gave up a maybe league average starter in his prime in Stewart
a good lefty reliever in Zep
half a season of a good reliever in Frasor
that’s it, for a guy who is one season removed from 4.3 fWAR in CF at 24 years old. it’s not fair to judge trades with hindsight, because the guys making the trades don’t have that advantage. Colby has the potential to be an impact player at a premium position. the other guys have the potential to be okay players at positions where they’re pretty much a dime a dozen. even if the trade doesn’t work out, relievers for potential All-Star position players is a deal I make every day of the week
by benk on Oct 17, 2011 4:36 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
i wouldn't call zep a "good lefty reliever"
i’d call him a starter who put up 1.7 WAR in his first 125 major league innings, who then got put in the bullpen this season for god knows what reason.
he’s the key to this trade for the cardinals. he’ll almost certainly get put back in the rotation next year, and could easily be a 2-3 WAR per year starter for the next 5 years.
yeah
I was going to call him a decent starter, but then it weakened my argument. still a trade you do any day of the week when you have as much depth at SP as the Jays (read: as many okay starters as the Jays have)
i agree it's a trade we should've done
because pitching is/was our organizational strength and hitting is/was our organizational weakness.
but disagree with anyone that says it’s a clearly bad trade for the cardinals. it is very possible that they get the better end of the deal in the long-term, and it obviously helped them in the short-term.
2-3 WAR SP?
a 2-3 per year WAR starter? Rasmus put up a 4.3 WAR in 2010 as a 24 year old centerfielder. We are comparing a pitching prospect with a mid WAR ceiling potential against a CF with a very high WAR ceiling potential. I’ll make this deal every time and even if Rasmus doesn’t work out, i want AA to keep making these kind of deals. When it comes to young pitching prospects, its always up in the air and i will always trade a young pitcher for a young hitting prospect. Rasmus still has monster talent and potential and i haven’t heard any baseball experts like Keith Law or Rob Neyer give up on him. I expect he’s be more comfortable in the spring and we can only hope, he’ll relax more, stop pressing and return to 2010 form.
"What's so special about Lou Gehrig? Shouldn't EVERY Yankee have a disease named after him? "
by Sean Coleman on Oct 17, 2011 6:54 PM EDT up reply actions
yea he put up 4.3 WAR in 2010, and 0.8 WAR in 2011. he probably projects as a 2.5-3 WAR player going forward.
sure he has upside to be better, but so does rzep! strikes out near a batter per inning and is a groundball machine. if he can lower his walk rate to ~3 per nine, he’s a top of the rotation starter. not to mention he has an extra year of team control.
i’m NOT saying this is a bad deal for the jays. i’m just saying it’s only like a 60% chance in my mind that we got the better end of it, far from the steal that a lot of people here seem to think it is.
you're probably right
but I’d say Rasmus has a pretty god chance of outperforming 2.5-3 WAR just given that he’s so young and so highly touted
How did it work out for the Brewers?
You pointed out the Cardinals midseason trade – Lets look at the Brewers. They traded Lawrie (wasn’t mid season but was a present gain for future pain trade), who at this point looks like a beast for Marcum who lead them to the playoffs only to have just a horrible, horrible postseason peformance. While they made the playoffs, do you think in the next decade they are kicking themselves for this trade like we do now for trading Michael Young for Esteban Loaiza. Looking at both the Cards and the Brewers this year i think they were in situations that perhaps made the deals make sense for them. Both teams could potentially be losing their best offensive players in Fielder and Pujols. Especially in the case of St. Louis, with losing La Russa and probably Pujols, i think their window was closing and perhaps it makes sense. The Jays are the opposite. Their future looks bright and the window is opening so if you are in their shoes, you don’t make that kind of deal. So to answer your original question, if i was in the position that Cards were in looking at losing Pujols and perhaps realistically this is our last chance at a legit deep playoff run then yes i like the move. Especially since the Cards still have Jay at CF who while not the super prospect Rasmus is, could still turn into a solid player. I am sick of Jays fans who are already turning on Rasmus and questioning AA in making the deal. Do not tell me that any of the guys we gave up are going to be even minor pieces in our future playoff run plans. Sure, Colby could be a bust but he also had tremendous upside and the it was a low risk, high reward move. Cusejay makes it sound like this trade could blow up in our face. Lets say we don’t make the trade. Are we looking any better next year with a 4th or 5th starter at best and a left handed bullpen specialist? Even if Rasmus is a bust and we get rid of him for nothing, I like that AA is going out and making these low risk, high reward type moves. It somewhat reminds me of when we traded Timlin for Jose Cruz Jr. Sure, Jose was never the player we thought he would be, especially the way he lit it up during his rookie season, but if your are the Blue Jays, you gotta make moves like this and take gambles or you are never going to get out of the shadow of the Yankees and Red Sox. Like Cusejay points out, we’ve got Gose or Marisnik in the minors, so its not like Rasmus is the linchpin to our future success but if he turns out to be a good CF who makes a few all-star games then that gives us all the more talent to then perhaps turn around and make a deal with our young CF prospects and get a lot more back then what we gave up to get Rasmus and we have a great CF to boot. It really makes me mad that Jays fans are already ripping the Rasmus deal, and like i said, even if it doesn’t work this is the kind of moves AA NEEDS to make to give us a chance. At least AA is making moves that to me make sense. i’d rather trade some bullpen guys and an average looking pitching prospect to potentially get a really great young player with lots of years of control then rely on overpaying for aging free agents who are past their prime to get us over the hump (yes, i’m looking at you J.P. Ricardi) cough troy glaus cough.
"What's so special about Lou Gehrig? Shouldn't EVERY Yankee have a disease named after him? "
Paragraps are your friends
I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t bring myself to read your wall of text. You might have some very good points in there but it looks just too hard to read.
I agree with most of you guys. The Jays & Cardinals were at different stages of the process. St. Louis’ window apparently “closing” and ours hasnt been opened yet. And I guess if they win the WS, it’ll all be worth it. Cuz as SuckaMD (sick name btw. I hope you are an actual doctor) said, flags do fly forever.
But, if they lose the WS? Is it still worth it?
You bring up some good points.
The Cardinals might be playing their last playoffs for a decade, while we are just on the cusp of starting up.
The way I view it, is if they win the WS, we get a lot of credit for it and they consider themselves winners on the trade. Everybody’s happy. It opens the door to future negotiations with St. Louis and perhaps even gives them confidence.
Whenever we trade a player or players, I always hope they become HOFers because it they will have a good trade relationship with you.
Isn't that last line a little too much?
Personally, I’d hate it if we trade away a player that becomes a HOFer
Sad, Drunk, And Poorly
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - JL
unless I was a fan of the player himself
Sad, Drunk, And Poorly
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - JL
It was a hyperbole
But theoretically if the trade makes both teams better its better for future trades.
If AA made off like a bandit on all his trades, GM’s around the league would get caller ID and send his calls straight to voice mail. To keep the trade route open, its good to have bad players perform above themselves (see Aaron Hill) to make the trade seem like a win win.
I see
Sad, Drunk, And Poorly
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - JL
Now, St. Louis is in the World Series and we’re not. And before I ramble too much, here’s my question. Would you want your team to trade a top prospect (in our case, it’s safe to say Lawrie is the equivalent) for a bunch of relievers and then your team went on to play for the World Series that year. Or, would you rather keep that prospect in the hopes that he evolves with Toronto?
This screams a win-now attitude, I’d rather keep our core and be able to win back to back again than just one and then done.
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