Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Red Storm
By contrast, compare the fact that we shipped off the proven commodities of Williamson, Sullivan, Heredia, White, Mercker *COMBINED* and only received 1 pitcher who had ever pitched beyond the low minors in return (Belisle) and his value was still deflated at the time because of past injury. Their circumstances were different than Reitsma's, but they were all still viable, valuable and proven MLB relievers - and they netted a total yield of nothing. By contrast to those non-entities, Reitsma's trade landed a motherlode.
|
Yep. We can thank Allen for that. There wasn't a single person in baseball last July/August who wasn't aware that we were moving those guys no matter what. In essence, he turned those deals from the equivalent of an Ebay reserve auction to a no-reserve auction. It didn't take a fair offer, just the best offer. The results were predictable.
Really, though, only the Williamson deal irked me. OK, it irked me to move guys for cash instead of prospects, but we weren't going to hit any jackpots. White and Sullivan were expensive rent-a-players; Heredia was having a good year but would have been non-tendered last winter by anyone but the Yankees; and Mercker was a pure reclamation project. (Before we picked him off the scrap heap, Mercker hadn't had a sub-4.80 ERA since 1997.) But Williamson's a guy we should have received real value for, dammit.
Nonetheless, since last July we've added five young pitchers (Claussen, Harang, Belisle, Nelson, Bong) who at least made it to Triple-A without turning from prospects into pumpkins, and that's a dang sight better off than we were. I want to get to the point where we have a Cubs/A's-like pipeline going, but in the meantime, I'll settle for having enough options that we never again have to spend $2.5 million on the likes of Jimmy Haynes.