Mulder re-signs with Cards

by ubelmann on Jan 10, 2007 6:01 PM EST

ESPN's Peter Gammons reported Wednesday that Mulder will return to the St. Louis Cardinals. The guaranteed deal is for two years and $13 million; if he makes 30 starts in 2007 and 2008, incentives can make the deal worth three years and $45 million.

For a team with the Cardinals' budget, I can see that as a reasonable gamble...sort of. Pitchers with torn labrums have a much, much spottier record of return to success, than say, pitchers with a torn elbow ligament or a broken bone or something. There's a pretty good chance that Mulder is just not going to be effective any more. On the other hand, you know what the upside here is--Mulder was a great pitcher when healthy.

Putting aside what exactly the budget situation is right now (especially considering that we don't know the exact budget situation--the Twins could be sitting on a small bit of money thinking that it might be better spent at the trading deadline or something), a 2 year/$13M commitment to Mulder seems like it would've been a pretty reasonable deal for both sides. On the other hand, it gets to be pretty difficult to fit Mulder in the budget if he gets all the way up to $45M/3yr--indeed, he'd be the highest paid player on the team.

I was holding out a stupid hope that maybe the Twins could snag Mulder at a discount rate, but I was mostly deluding myself. This is a better deal for Mulder than the Twins could have or should have offered.

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I'm happy

All sorts of rumors had him going to Cleveland, which already has three good lefty starters to counter our two young lefthanded superstars.

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Jan 10, 2007 9:51 PM EST reply actions

I really hope...

...that Mauer and Morneau continue this year's success against LHP. They still did worse against LHP than RHP, but that's just life--hitters are going to have platoon splits--the encouraging thing is that they didn't have the huge, Jacque Jones-like splits that they had in '05.

Mauer has such a disciplined approach that I don't expect a lot of trouble with platoon splits in the future. Morneau...I'm not as sure about.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that lefties don't bother me much as long as Mauer and Morneau continue to have normal, rather than abnormal, platoon splits.

by ubelmann on Jan 10, 2007 10:45 PM EST up reply actions

Right...

I am also quite happy he's not an Indian. The Indians have quietly had a great offseason from my vantage point, and I really believe they are our main competition this year.

White Sox and Tigers (especially with Sheff) will both be fairly tough, but the team that scares me easily is Cleveland. I think we'll be battling them for the WC and division, assuming RA can get Silva right and at least 2 of our young pitchers come through, as I expect.

by djskilbr on Jan 10, 2007 11:32 PM EST reply actions

A little

I'm a little surprised that Mulder signed a contract for up to three years that puts the team in charge, but he got kind of a lot.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 11, 2007 12:50 AM EST reply actions

Ya...

I mean, let's say he performs PERFECTLY over that 3 years, makes all his starts, etc. Then he probably is only losing about 6-9 million over the life of that anyway (3 yrs, 51-54 million would be his max I would think). And let's face it, there's no way he's going to perform close to THAT.

He's making out pretty good here I think. Could be a good deal for both sides if everything goes well. I think the big key for the Cards is that they probably get to keep Wainright in the pen, where he can be dominant.

They still have to REALLY be kicking themselves for giving up Haren/Calero/Barton though to get Mulder. That to me, along with the Kazmir/Zambrano deal, is the worst deal other than the Twins' haul over the last decade or two.

by djskilbr on Jan 11, 2007 2:22 AM EST up reply actions

Kazmir/Zambrano...

...was clearly a much, much worse trade than the Pierzynski for assorted goodies trade. A.J. was a valuable player. Liriano was an injury-prone prospect who didn't have the slider that made him so dangerous last year. (To my knowledge, Bobby Cuellar--the same guy who taught Santana his change-up--taught Liriano the slider, or at least overhauled it.) Nathan was valuable as a set-up man, but he's decreased his walk rate by 1 BB/9 and increased his strikeout rate by 2 K/9 or so. Bonser was a reasonable prospect, but he had plenty of trouble finding the strike zone when he was a prospect for the Giants. At the time of the trade, it wasn't that unreasonable to look at that trade and think that it was fairly even.

Consider, for instance, what Christina Kahrl, at Baseball Prospectus, said about the trade when it went down:

I'm genuinely surprised the Twins made this move as soon as they have. What if Joe Mauer has a bad camp? What if he breaks a leg? It isn't like the package acquired was so tantalizing that they just had to make this move. Matt LeCroy isn't a real fallback position if anything happens to Mauer, which means you'd be left considering people like Rob Bowen a lot more than you'd like as a contender. Dealing Pierzynski makes sense, but it should have been used as an opportunity to get something the Twins need (like a second baseman) or as part of a package to get rid of something they don't (like Doug Mientkiewicz).

(Emphasis mine.) The first part of it is Ms. Kahrl expressing her aversion for Terry Ryan's risk averse nature, but she seems to consider the trade reasonable from the Twins' standpoint.

Brian Sabean pulled off an outstanding deal to replace Benito Santiago with Pierzynski at the cost of the standard package of promising/troubling arms, but it's just the first fix in what looks to be an incredibly busy winter.

And actually, reading further, we she that she liked the deal better for the Giants than the Twins. Now, I don't really agree with that, but I don't think she's that far off. Right up until Liriano went under the knife, everything related to this trade went wrong for the Giants and everything went right for the Twins. Sabean catches waaaay too much criticism for this trade. He's made a lot worse decisions, even just this offseason.

On the other hand, it was obvious that the Mets were getting the worst end of their deal. They were getting an older, more expensive, less talented pitcher in return for one of the best left-handed prospects in the game.

The Twins at least took on some risk in their trade--Liriano/Bonser/Nathan were no sure thing--but the Devil Rays took on essentially no risk since they were so far out of the race, Zambrano wasn't good, and Kazmir was really good.

by ubelmann on Jan 11, 2007 3:13 PM EST up reply actions

Have to disagree here

Nathan was perhaps the best long set-up man in the NL the year before the trade. He had great numbers, and was a known commodity. Far from not getting what the Twins needed (second base), Nathan filled an immediate hole at either set-up or closer role. I recall thinking that a Pierzinski for Nathan trade straight up was not a bad deal, considering the probable loss of Hawkins and Guardado the same offseason and the eminent emergence of Mauer.

Bonsor and Liriano were bonuses, and Bonsor was a top-three prospect in the Giants system at the time of the trade. Liriano was less known, but he was one of the most highly touted prospects to ever come out of the Dominican. Contrary to your claim, he did have that slider when the Twins acquired him. Cueyar taught him the change-up. The only question on Liriano was health, but he had never had structural damage in either the shoulder or elbow prior to the trade. So there was reason for optimism.

The Zambrano for Kazmir deal was bad, but Kazmir was not even close to ready at the time of the trade. He was slightly ahead of Bonsor at the time. And it was just one washed-up player for one emerging player. Those kinds of trades happen all the time (Romero for Casilla). They are somewhat unremarkable when the Twins make them, but when the Mets give away prospects for washed up guys, it makes big news.

Also, you don't only evaluate trades on the basis of a time slice at the time of the trade. Good trades look good in hindsight because one GM had the presence of mind to project greatness out of players the other GM undervalued. Viewed in that light, the Pierzinski for Nathan, Bonsor and Liriano trade will go down as one of Ryan's best and one of Sabean's worst (especially in light of Sabean having no bullpen for two years following the trade).

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Jan 11, 2007 4:45 PM EST up reply actions

That's just silly

If you think that Kazmir and Bonser were similar prospects, you're just wrong on this. It's not even close.

Comparing Kazmir to Casilla is also just plain silly. They're completely different grades of prospects.

The Zambrano for Kazmir deal was bad, but Kazmir was not even close to ready at the time of the trade.

The year after the deal, Kazmir had a 3.74 FIP and a 3.77 ERA. Kazmir had an ugly ERA in 33 IP in '04, but other than that, Kazmir has been a fantastic pitcher for the Devil Rays in the major leagues and he's younger than Liriano. He's quite possibly the most overlooked pitcher in all of baseball.

Also, you don't only evaluate trades on the basis of a time slice at the time of the trade.

Yes, yes you do. Terry Ryan didn't know that this would happen and he would be the first to tell you that. He got lucky. If you asked him, he would admit it.

No one can predict the future with 100% accuracy, so you can only fairly evaluate moves by whether or not teams made a good decision based on the information they had at the time.

Terry Ryan rolled the dice on Rondell White again this year. Will he stay healthy? No one knows that. No one. Judging that move after the season based on whether or not Rondell stays healthy would be ridiculous. The same is true for moves with prospects. You don't know which ones are going to pan out and which ones aren't. But if you keep getting good ones, some of them are going to pan out.

by ubelmann on Jan 11, 2007 5:02 PM EST up reply actions

Read

I didn't compare Kazmir to Bonsor except in terms of how close they were to the majors. The DRays promoted Kazmir because they could. In fact, I wold say they rushed him. (I recall a spring training game last year in which he could not throw strikes to save his life.) Bonsor was held back because the Twins had a lot of depth and aspirations of contending. But at the time of those trades, they were in similar situations in the minors. That's all I wrote. Of course Kazmir is head and shoulders more valuable than Bonsor (or Casilla). My point was it was just a one-for-one trade and a bad one for the Mets. But not an historically bad one.

I suspect Ryan is being demure and humble when he says he got lucky. If Nathan didn't pan out as a closer, the Twins would have been in deep do do. Of course he expected Nathan to be an effective closer. Perhaps not a dominant closer. But he traded Pierzinski for what he projected to be an effective closer. He got lucky it was more than that, but he expected nothing less. When he talks about it, he says he got lucky on Liriano, BTW. I think he also expected Bonsor to eventually be a back-of-the-rotation starter for several years.

Sabean, on the other hand, was clueless. Nathan would have stabalized his bullpen at a time when he also lost Rob Nen and Tim Worell. And Pierzinski was not the only catcher available. I believe Pudge was also available. Just as Shapiro blew it last year losing three important pieces for his bulpen, Sabean blew it in 2004. The fact that he gave up two of his best propsects on top of it is just salt in the wound.

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Jan 11, 2007 5:34 PM EST up reply actions

Bonser

Bonser
Bonser
Bonser
Bonser
Bonser
Bonser

Sorry, but you've been doing that for well over a year now and you're a better commenter than that.

In fact, I wold say they rushed him.

Kazmir's had nothing but success in the majors. How can you possibly claim that they rushed him?

I suspect Ryan is being demure and humble when he says he got lucky.

Or he's just being honest.

Of course he expected Nathan to be an effective closer.

Sure, but there's no way he expected him to start striking out 11-12 batters per nine innings. Nathan has far, far surpassed any reasonable expectations of his performance.

Sabean, on the other hand, was clueless.

Sabean needed a catcher, and he desperately needed someone to hit behind Bonds. Pierzynski was entering his prime and coming off of a 7-win season.

I'm not saying the deal was great for the Giants, and I probably wouldn't have done the deal if I was Sabean, but it wasn't a historically bad trade. It wasn't even close to being historically bad.

by ubelmann on Jan 11, 2007 6:58 PM EST up reply actions

Being that I started this little fight essentially

I'll end it too. I just meant in overall value of what HAPPENED, not at the time of the trade. Arguments can be made both ways on both the Cards and Twins' trade (I agree ubellman not as much on the Kaz trade) but in overall results, I think those have to be the 3 worst (FAR above any others) over the last decade or two.

by djskilbr on Jan 11, 2007 7:20 PM EST up reply actions

Um

Kazmir's had nothing but success in the majors. How can you possibly claim that they rushed him?

I guess when he's called up directly from AA at age 19 and proceeds to walk 100 batters in 186 innings with a 1.46 WHIP in his first full season in the big leagues at age 20, it seems to me he could have used an extra year of seasoning.

Trivia: Who was the last Twins pitcher to walk 100 batters in a season?

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Jan 11, 2007 7:24 PM EST up reply actions

Give up?

Rich Robertson had 116 walks in 186 innings in 1996.

Prior to that, Bert Blyleven walked 101 batters in 267 innnings in 1987.

I'm not going to go through every year. The point is, 100 walks is a rare feat.

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Jan 11, 2007 8:01 PM EST up reply actions

Darn it

I was just about to post that...Honest. The of the ones that I saw were around .5 walks per inning, but when I saw Robertson's 116 I thought holy crap, good thing they have the screen behind home.
To find it, I went to baseball-reference.com. Speaking of that, does anyone else go there and look up at the clock and go "I'm not getting those 3 hours back"? Every time I'm there, I sit and click around forever.

by GACTwinFan on Jan 11, 2007 8:13 PM EST up reply actions

Seriously..l

if there is such a thing as a website that is TOO good, that is it.

by djskilbr on Jan 11, 2007 9:49 PM EST up reply actions

Of course...

...if you completely ignore Kazmir's strengths that year--not giving up HR and striking out a lot of hitters--then you might think he did poorly. There's more to pitching than a low walk rate.

Like I said, his ERA was 3.77, and it wasn't just a fluke, as his FIP was 3.74. Over 186 innings pitched, that has huge value. He certainly was one hell of a lot better than Victor Zambrano. Kazmir would've been wasting his time in the minors.

by ubelmann on Jan 11, 2007 9:35 PM EST up reply actions

Language

You asked how I could possibly think he was rushed. I provided pretty good evidence--he had control problems as a 20 year old straight out of AA. And not just your ordinary run-of-the-mill control problems, but something that happens once in a decade for the Twins. The fact that he still managed an ERA below 4 is something of an anomoly I'd like to ask Jayson Stark about (which starting pitchers in baseball history have above .5 BB/IP ratios in a season and manage ERAs below 4?). My guess is it's a small group. I still maintain that he could have used another year of seasoning to get his control on track. At the very least, it would have saved the DRays a year of service time while their young core was still a couple of years from producing. In fact, I would have kept in in AAA until June of '06 to make sure I still could afford him when Crawford, Upton and others are in their primes.

This whole argument is beside the point. I think Jiminy makes it quite plain. At the time of the respective trades, the Zambrano/Kazmir trade was universally judged to be lop-sided in favor of the DRays. Whereas, at the time of the Pierzinski trade, the jury was out. Only after a couple of years has the Pierzinski trade been revealed as a masterstroke. I apparently was in the minority in declaring it a win for Ryan at the time. That minority accepts the fact that Ryan opperates with an implied salary cap that only increases with the previous year's revenue.

As for Bonser (see ubelmann, I can spell his name right), I don't think what he did in August and September of last year was a fluke. He was not just a league-average pitcher over those two months. He was arguably in the top five in the AL. He was second in August and fifth in September. Though I don't think he'll sustain that pace over the course of a whole season (even Sanana has his ups and downs), I do think he's here to stay as a number 3 starter. I project his career to follow John Lackey's, who is a very similar pitcher in terms of the pitches he throws and his overall approach.

Whatever your judgement of the "crapshoot" was at the time, to get a dominant closer and a number 3 starter for one year of an overrated catcher (cancer in the clubhouse, low average/obp ratio) can be judged after the fact as a steal. That's before you even bring up Liriano, who is still a question mark long term.

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Jan 12, 2007 1:35 PM EST up reply actions

Walks are not an island

The fact that he still managed an ERA below 4 is something of an anomoly I'd like to ask Jayson Stark about (which starting pitchers in baseball history have above .5 BB/IP ratios in a season and manage ERAs below 4?).

First off, it doesn't matter if it's a small group as long as it's a well defined group and Kazmir fits in it.

Nolan Ryan had a 4.67 BB/9 rate far his career and managed a 3.19 career ERA. Why? Because he struck out a lot of hitters and barely gave up any HR. What did Kazmir do in '05? He struck out a lot of guys and didn't give up many HR. Was it to the same degree as Ryan? No, but his ERA was higher than Ryan's so he we wouldn't have expected his SO and HR totals to be as good anyway.

FIP also confirms that Kazmir's performance wasn't that fluky. Yes, he gave up walks, but it was a trade-off for giving up fewer HR and more strikeouts. Different pitchers have different paths to success, and there's more to control than just not allowing walks. Sometimes control means keeping the ball away from the middle of the plate and giving up a walk here or there instead of a big home run.

I apparently was in the minority in declaring it a win for Ryan at the time.

Look, I also thought that it was a solid deal for the Twins at the time, and it wasn't quite as good for the Giants, but there were positives on both sides.

Kazmir was good right away, Zambrano was bad right away. These things were completely predictable.

Pierzynski did worse than you could expect on average, Nathan did better than you could expect on average, Liriano did better than you could expect on average, and so did Bonser. These things were much less predictable. Even if you want to argue that Terry Ryan knew something everyone else didn't know, he didn't know that much more.

The Giants were a little unlucky and the Mets got what they deserved. That Kazmir giveaway was a much, much worse deal.

by ubelmann on Jan 12, 2007 3:05 PM EST up reply actions

I think

I think the difference here is the AJ/Nathan deal ended up being more lopsided end result, with a quality young starter, an absolute elite of elites closer and the most feared name among young pitchers in baseball all for one decent catcher. So from that perspective, that deal ended up being worse.

But that was a lot of luck, so as far as which GM made a stupider decision at the time, from what was known and certain at the time, that would definitely be the Kazmir/Zambrano swap.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 12, 2007 4:34 PM EST up reply actions

However

However, based on the ridiculously high rate of late Ryan has acquired prospects that other teams deem marginal that have become top prospects and talented players (Bartlett, Casilla, Liriano, Punto, Bonser, Liriano, Guzman, etc), I would not be at all surprised if Ryan had this kind of future in mind for Bonser and Liriano.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 12, 2007 4:36 PM EST up reply actions

Certainly...

...Terry Ryan gets some extra credit for hiring good scouts who give him good info on which minor league guys to acquire. It's not like all of them work out, though. (Justin Jones springs to mind. David Gassner was also acquired in the Kielty-Stewart deal, and he hasn't been a major success.) I just don't think TR could've been projecting Liriano as Minor League Pitcher of the year and Joe Nathan as the best closer in baseball. There's no way he thought that, actually. Those sorts of expectations are really too high for any player. When guys do stuff like that, it's nice, but as a GM, you can't sit around banking on it. When TR made the trade, he knew there was a possibility he could get burned. He thought it was low enough to make the trade, and it worked out well for him, but it wasn't such an obvious move that he had to do it.

I'm also willing to live with an interpretation (which by jiminy seems to be suggesting), that Terry Ryan made a good trade, whereas Omar Minaya just made a bad trade, and the D-Rays happened to get lucky that Omar Minaya happened to be stupidly enamored with a player on their team.

That is, I'd be willing to say that in some sense the Twins made a better trade in the AJP swap than the D-Rays made in the Kazmir dump, but that the Mets made a worse trade than the Giants.

by ubelmann on Jan 12, 2007 4:48 PM EST up reply actions

Record

Many of the prospects Ryabn has aquired have seemed like super long shots to ever turn into anything, and been at very low levels when we got them. Literally the vast majority HAVE worked out. With such high-risk, high reward guys, the guys that work out should be the rarity, and as it is, you only had a couple guys to point out as the rare cases where Ryan's trading didn't work.

Completely turnaround of how it should be, and that's quite the record.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 12, 2007 5:57 PM EST up reply actions

Even so...

...it's a pretty small sample size. (We're talking about what, 10 data points? 15 maybe?) He's not going to continue to be this lucky with prospects forever. He'll still do well with prospects, just not quite this well.

On the flip side of the coin, he could stand to have somewhat better luck on the free agent market. Even though I didn't much like the Mays and Stewart deals when they were signed, they shouldn't have turned out to be the disasters that they were. And TR needed to flip a pretty great trade in order to keep Milton's contract from becoming a disaster, too.

by ubelmann on Jan 12, 2007 6:38 PM EST up reply actions

It's not luck

The Twins have the most comprehensive scouting department in all of baseball. Most of the players the Twins acquire in these low-level deals were well known to them long before the trades.

Take Jason Bartlett. He was scouted several times by the Twins before the draft. As it so happens, he was drafted before the Twins could get him. Did that stop them? No. They scouted him in rookie ball and Low A and High A. When the Padres wanted Buchanon, Ryan didn't have to spend much time deliberating about which prospect he wanted. He had personally scouted Bartlett prior to and since the draft. And he had a dozen other reports since the draft from his scouts. He knew he wanted him.

Ryan has said the only thing that has surprised him about Bartlett is how long it has taken to establish himself in the big leagues. No other scouting report at the time from BA or Sickels or BP even mentioned Barlett, which is one reason why he was so undervalued when the Twins acquireed him. But he was not undervalued by the Twins because they do their research and know more about every prospect than just about any other organization in baseball.

It's not luck. It's skill mixed with more hours per scout than any other organization. That's why I object to the characterization of it being a "crap shoot". The Twins tried to sign Liriano out of the Dominican but SF offered more then the Twins maximum for International players. (Same with Santana and Cabrera.) But they never stopped following him. And as soon as he was available, they pounced. That's how they got Guzman and Milton and Buchanon and Ford and Punto and Silva and Bonsor and Casilla and Roberts and Ward and ....

Sure, Ryan has taken his share of fringe prospects over the years (Rodriguez, Kinney, Gassner, Korecky, Jones etc.). But those deals are the exception. More often than not, he gets the players he wants. When he does, they are better than the independant scouting services say they are.

At some point people will stop saying Ryan got lucky and start syaing Ryan and his staff showed that skill and hard work pay off.

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Jan 12, 2007 10:36 PM EST up reply actions

*clap

I applaud you sir.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 12, 2007 11:56 PM EST up reply actions

I just really, really...

appreciate that post. That is exactly what makes me so giddy to be a Twins fan, and just damn proud to like them so much.

by djskilbr on Jan 13, 2007 12:24 AM EST up reply actions

Let's just see

How thin we can make this reply thread. Have I written enough yet for us to get a good idea? :-)

You can't dust for vomit.

by twinstalker on Jan 18, 2007 4:31 AM EST up reply actions

We've

We've done this before, it gets well thinner.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 18, 2007 12:43 PM EST up reply actions

Yes!

Thanks, Ubelmann. That's exactly what I would have said if I had managed to think it through that clearly.

The best and worst trades are not necessarily one and the same.

Worst trade of the decade: Minaya's Zambrano for Kazmir.

Best trade of the decade: Ryan's 3 for AJP.

The D Rays just did the obvious so deserve no particular credit.

The Giants justifiably gambled uncertain future benefits for desperately needed, proven, immediate help. They needed a catcher; Bonds needed offensive help; they were old and built for the present; and who were they to worry about character when they were built around Bonds!

But boy, could they have used Nathan, Bonser, and Liriano the past few years. It probably cost them at least one pennant. (Sorry, Kevin!)

by by jiminy on Jan 12, 2007 10:10 PM EST up reply actions

The Giants...

may have needed a catcher, and AJ is a very good player, but what adds to the trade being a bad one for the Giants is the way they reacted when they discovered that AJ was a jackass. They acted surprised! Who knew he was such a pain in the ass?

by wcooley on Jan 11, 2007 7:31 PM EST up reply actions

yeah but

He didn't exactly bring down the white sox in '05.

Or the Twins. He's not a GUARANTEED disaster.

To pursue your pain in the ass metaphor,
he may be an asshole, but he mostly craps on the other team.

He may be a huge fart, but unless someone lights it, he doesn't usually make the clubhouse explode.

OOOookay, maybe that's enough of that...

by by jiminy on Jan 12, 2007 10:31 PM EST up reply actions

I'm not saying

he was a disaster for the Giants, I'm just saying that they acted surprised to find out that he was difficult to work with. Any scouting at all, or just reading that Sports Illustrated article on the Twins, would have clued them into this.

When the White Sox acquired him (for cheap) Kenny Williams was upfront with the team and media about the whole package that comes with AJ.

by wcooley on Jan 15, 2007 1:01 PM EST up reply actions

very true

especially if the reason they cut him loose after one year was his attitude, because they threw away three guys with, at the very least, lots of cheap years left, to get one guy it turned out they didn't really want.

No excuse to be surprised by something like that. Ryan wouldn't be!

by by jiminy on Jan 15, 2007 2:08 PM EST up reply actions

Scouting?

Scouting? That's for the Giants.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 15, 2007 6:06 PM EST up reply actions

Kazmir trade worse

When the Mets traded Kazmir for Zambrano the response was a unanimous howl of horror. I don't remember reading or hearing anything other than astonishment. Kazmir was considered one of the top prospects in the game. Zambrano was a mediocre, overpaid, injury-prone, control-challenged, inconsistent pitcher with a poor era. To no one's surprise he promptly got injured, and to no one's surprise Kazmir was a better pitcher not just in the future but immediately. The Mets were laughingstocks because they made a tiny run just before the trade deadline, mortgaged their future to shoot for the playoffs, and were out of the race ten days later. (Remember they also traded for Benson at the deadline, then had to overpay him to avoid the shame of seeing him walk at the end of the season.)

In contrast, I must confess that at least one person (me) was angry at the time of the Pierzyinski trade! A friend who is a Giants fan just sent me an email I sent at the time, to my horror. But I doubt I was alone in seeing this trade primarily as a salary dump. To me it meant not only getting rid of a proven, all-star catcher to save salary, but positioning themselves to cut loose what had been a very effective bullpen tandem as well, just to save salary. Nathan was a good middle reliever, but he was nowhere near the "sure thing" Guardado and Hawkins were at that time since he had no experience as a closer. So it looked like AJ, Eddie, and Hawkins were being replaced with minor leaguers and a converted middle releiver to save money.

We had just had our butts kicked by the Yankees in most depressing fashion, and the way that series went, it seemed like winning the lowly AL central meant diddly squat when it came to facing off with the mighty Yankees -- we looked like a little league team playing men. We clearly needed to upgrade to be competitive in the playoffs, and here we were dumping three of our better players just to save money. I remember saying the new guys might be fine, but it sure didn't look like our chances of beating the Yankees were going to be better the next year. The trade just left the impression we would never be able to compete with the big boys. (Which is why my respect for Ryan now verges on awe.)

I give Ryan complete credit for picking those three guys to roll the dice on, but it was certainly not perceived in the same light as the Kazmir deal at that time. Unlike Kazmir they all had real question marks. No one knew how Nathan would handle closing; Liriano had had injury problems; and Bonser was considered a pitcher with limited prospects by most, even on this very space, up to the middle of last year. He was described as having two pitches and mediocre control, a guy who perhaps might be decent but would never be great.

Frankly I think people are now too excited about Bonser. I would be very surprised if he did not regress some this year. I don't get how be became such a sure thing to so many and is now a proven stud, etc. He's pitched half of one season. I fully expect the league to catch up with him somewhat and I don't know if he has enough of an arsenal to adjust when they do. An ERA of 4.5 would have to be considered good from him.

I considered posting a provocative entry titled TRADE BONSER, arguing that his trade value probably would never be higher than it is now. But while that might be true in the abstract, the Twins need him too much to even consider that. Replacing him in this market would be nearly impossible. He may be overvalued but every pitcher in the world is overvalued even more! And he's young, cheap, and pretty damn good. Let's hope the doubters were wrong; I'm not saying they were right, just that it's pretty early to consider him a known stud.

comparing the trades: I think the general and reasonable consensus at the time was the AJ trade was more balanced than the Kazmir trade because of the unknowns involved. And I think this is exactly where Ryan earns his immense credit. Being able to pick which unknowns might pan out as having more value than everyone else thinks is the single coolest thing a GM can do, and in this case he was three for three. So I give him all the credit in a world; this was a brilliant, brilliant trade. The D Rays didn't have to be brilliant to unload Zambrano for Kazmir; the Mets just had to be stupid. But to spend your life scanning the same thousands and thousands of players as everyone else, and pick right a statistically significant percentage of the time, is just plain awesome. Best trade of the decade!

by by jiminy on Jan 12, 2007 11:19 AM EST reply actions

Bonser

If you look at patterns in Bonser's peripherals through the minors, he'd struggle when he first got to a level with higher walk and home runs allowed numbers, but then they would drop by certain percentages the next time through and he'd come back down to good performance. This happened at several stages moving up through the minors for him. The EXACT same peripheral change happened when he came to the majors, and then when he finally cam back around after adjusting, the exact same peripheral adjustment in control and homers happened again. I'm not saying anything is for sure, but there is certainly a pattern in Bonser development in moving up levels, and it makes me very optimistic on him, to the point I think an ERA around 4 is pretty realistic and 4.2 is likely.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 12, 2007 12:00 PM EST up reply actions

I'm also a pessimist on Bonser...

and as much as I like him/hope he succeeds (we definitely need him to this year), I too would trade him WHEN we get a chance if he continues to exceed what maybe his actual value is, which may be 2008.

If Bonser can sustain success this year, he could probably fetch something very good in a trade for 2008, and we could very well have a staff of Santana, Garza, Liriano (I like to split Liriano and Santana up), Slowey, Perkins/take your pick, which would be pretty ridiculously good.

If we could get a stud 3b or CF for a year or two in a deal with Bonser by 2008, that could really make us a dominant, special team for 2008. But alas, we will have to wait and see what happens.

by djskilbr on Jan 13, 2007 12:23 AM EST reply actions