Moyer to Phillies
Moyer waives no-trade, shipped to Phillies for prospects.
RHP Andrew Baldwin, 24, on the Clearwater Thrashers (High-A)
RHP Andrew Barb, 22, on the Lakewood BlueClaws (Low-A)
(during the game the names were announced entirely differently – I’m fairly sure these are the corrected names)
From Corvalis and Redmond, respectively. Neither were ranked in Baseball America’s Top 10 prospects this year. Neither are on the Phillies’ 40-man roster.
Added later by Dave: Baldwin is the better bet here, despite being older and having the less impressive statistics. He’s a projection kid who hit 94 at times in college, has the classic pitchers frame, and is raw. He’s not anything close to a finished project, but adding a kid like this to the organization is exactly what a rebuilding team should be doing.
Even later add by Dave: Here’s MLB.com’s draft coverage page that has a link to Baldwin’s 6:00 video of him throwing at OSU. When they say he had “no windup”, they weren’t kidding.
You kidding, Oly? You really think dealing two top prospects for a replacement-level “closer” felt good at the time? That deal was inspiring thoughts of suicide — or homicide, aimed Woody’s direction — across Mariner fandom from the minute it was announced.
The fact of the matter is, the only fair way to judge a trade is on the basis of what was known (or should have been known) at the time, because you cannot hold people accountable for things which they could not have known.
Not sure, pdb — I don’t blame Moyer for not wanting to go to Minute Maid (“Our motto: more launches than Mission Control”), but it still seems likely to me that if he’d accepted a deal last year, we would have gotten more for him.
And as low as Moyer’s present and future value is anymore, for all his 5.00 road ERA, I don’t have a lot of hope that we have anyone to throw in who’s likely to do even that well.
200-
Um, 2004 with Moyer as a replacement level P, I’ll give you.
2005 and 2006, not so much. Granted, Jamie’s using the home park as a crutch- but look at how Eddie performed in Cincy once he left. He might give the Phillies some juice.
I’m OK with projectable arms coming back…but this just increases the pressure on whoever the Mariner GM is this offseason to pick the right guys for FA signings, since now it’s going to be two guys for sure, possibly three if we don’t decide to go the “wheel of rookies and NRIs in spring training”.
201: NO, I’m just saying you could have used the same spin on it that 194 is using to evaluate his/her mentioned trades (i.e., we got rid of somebody we either didn’t want, didn’t need, or felt we couldn’t re-sign so what’s the difference?)
But for anyone who didn’t limit evaluation of that trade to the next couple days around it, but was instead thinking about how it would play out in the future, yes, of course there were suicidal thoughts involved. But that’s only because you were looking farther down the road…and really, if Varitek & Lowe had washed out, nobody would even remember the trade.
Regardless of whether you like or dislike this deal (I like it), the fact that Bavasi was allowed to deal a franchise icon would seem to indicate the FO is settled a) on Bill b) moving forward.
It took zero wins against divisional rivals for better than a month, but even Howie and Chuck seem to get that we’ve reached the very end of the era that built Safeco Field. They’ve settled on Bill to rebuild; it could be far worse.
Um Oly….people WERE looking down the road….And people most certainly were not using the “we were getting rid of somebody we didn’t want/need” mantra….
“… whereas you do know that you would have gotten 3 more major league quality starts out of Moyer this year.”
100% meaningless starts. And that’s why any chance of these guys ever becoming anything is far superior to keeping Moyer.
Because it just does not matter if we win or lose here on out… but we would really like it to matter in the years to come.
No brainer of a deal.
Being a Mariners Fan in NJ is extremely difficult as I am in South Jersey. Phils/Yankees/Mets dominate the scene here. That being said I’ve seen both Baldwin and Barb the last 2 years.
My observation Baldwin has got a great build and good composure. Looks a lot like a lot like Gil Meche with his delivery. He gets hit at times but he is competitive and a decent athlete. The FB is 90-94, and shows a K pitch with his slider. The key with him right now is changing speeds effectively. Which for the good ones comes in time. As with most minor leaguers command of secondary pitches at times leaves him. Here is what Baseball America’s prospect handbook had to say about him.
Rated 17 in 2005, 23 yrs old
“Baldwin went 5-5, 5.10 as a draft-eligible sophomore at Oregon State(where he also sat on a student-athlete advisory commitee)and impressed Phillies Scouts with a lively 91-94 mph fastball and plus slider in a February appearance before losing his confidence and command late in the season. The Phillies still liked his potential for two plus pitches, and they say his athleticsim and inexperience work in his favor because his arm is fresh and there’s room for projection. His Changeup and breaking ball are inconsistent. Baldwin could emerge as a No. 3 or 4 starter at the major league level, but he’ll need to miss more bats after leading the New York Penn League in hits allowed.”
As for Andrew Barb, I would say he isn’t far behind Scott Mathieson now in the big leagues(being used as a starter but really isn’t) as best pure arm strength I’ve seen out of the Lakewood club in the last couple of years. Mathieson, was a 17th round draft that rose from obscurity to the big leagues in like a 3 year span.
I just saw Andrew Barb when he came in to finish Carlos Carasccos last Sunday. Barb’s fastball sits 91-93 and he has an solid K pitch in his Power CB. That’s why his numbers are so good in the SAL. We’ll see if it plays out as the hitters get better. He is a Power Reliever
Both guys have good arms and solid breaking stuff. Heres hoping they stay healthy and work out with the M’s.
Jamie Moyer is a great professional. Who know’s what could shake out after the season. It was only right to allow him a chance to compete in/for the playoffs. In the meantime the Mariners got a couple of good arms. They’ve heavily pursued pitching and it’s always in demand. In my opinion, M’s got 2 good draft picks with minor league mileage for the price of the 1 they would have received as compensation for Moyer should they have allowed him to walk.
My only concern is that we could have gotten so much more last year. I know Moyer vetoed those trades because the teams didn’t commit to signing him, but supposing the Mariners had made that commitment..to bring him back if the other teams didn’t. Which is what we did anyway.
We’d then have ended up with one or two top level prospects instead of longshots
PS–Clicked too soon.
Also, since the team knew Moyer had to approve the trades, why didnt they work something out well in advance of the deadlines so they wouldn’t have ended up in a time crunch.
Seems like that, and the failure to trade Guardado when he had signficant value but the team was clearly out of it are the major sins to charge against Bavasi–squandering the potential return on the talent he had and which he was going to get rid of in any case
Thanks for the info, Makaveli; I assumed Baldwin didn’t have a change yet, so I was wondering about his breaking ball, and it’s good to know anything at all about Bard. The more I hear, the better the return for Jamie looks, so that’s good.
And Oly, of course we were looking down the road with the Slocumb deal, just as we are with this one, just as you do with any trade; the point is, you can only judge a trade from that look, from how the road looks at the point of the trade, not from the way it looks in hindsight.
Don’t forget at the trade deadline the M’s were trying to be buyers and not sellers. The team has to get as much talent into the system as possible. We are officially out of contention.
Sometimes, I think it’s easy to look at could of, would ofs… , I don’t know exactly how much trade value Moyer had at 42 last year. Other than trying to engage the Red Sox & Yankees who both also had interest last year, in a bidding war. Frankly, the Yankees have been protective of their few top prospects and don’t think much would have been received in return. Red Sox, maybe if they thought the Yankees were serious. But, as I sort of remember both Guardado and Moyer weren’t warm and fuzzy about going to either team. Especially in the case of Moyer without guaranteed money. There was a supposed deal with Houston, and from what I remember this was a team that was in contention and ultimately played in the Series. So, it goes both ways here. Moyer went to St. Joes(PA) and there was a lot of excitement this way when a trade to the Phillies was rumored last year. Tying into the fact that Pat Gillick is the GM who negotiated with him before, it makes perfect sense. Other than the M’s(who could re-sign him after season if he declines contract option)& Phils who else in his comfort zone could would sign him to another deal. Think about it this way, what would you pay for a 43 year old who may be a 3 week rental?
When I wrote my “salary dump” comment, I didn’t know the M’s were sending money to the Phillies. That makes the trade even harder to comprehend for me. I just don’t see how they got enough in return to justify either giving up the money or take the PR hit. It just looks like more evidence that Bavasi doesn’t have a clue.
Buy low, sell high. ’nuff said.
and I ask again. when did Guardado have ‘significant value’ in the last two years?
My comments weren’t as much about the Moyer trade in particular as they were/are about the trades Bavasi has made in general. I’m okay with the Moyer trade, if only from the standpoint that it’s a good deal for Jamie. Do I think it’s a good deal for us? It probably ends up being a nothing for us. We pay his salary for the rest of the year either way and if either of those kids makes Tacoma, much less Seattle, well, that’s just a bonus I suppose. (I don’t see it happening personally, but hey, maybe the Phillies suck at recognizing talent worse than we do and let some amazing stuff walk out the door with this).
What I had hoped to initiate was a more generalized discussion on methodology with which to evaluate trade success/failure. Clearly if a team is in contention, as is Philly, their timeframe with which to evaluate the trade is shorter (i.e., does this trade help me NOW and possibly hurt me later, and is that worth it) versus a team like ours, where we have been, since Bavasi has been at the helm anyway, always looking down the road. Always looking YEARS down the road (i.e., does this trade help me 2-3 years out and not hurt me so much now). I also wonder how you’d fit things like what Makavelli said about the draft pick we would have got in compensation if we’d just let him walk, or about salary dumps, or roster clearing into a sort of decision-making and/or evaluation matrix. Sorry, it’s the way my mind works, always trying to look at the way larger picture and figure out how to be consistent, how to identify patterns and corrections. That’s what I was hoping my comments would initiate.
To answer an earlier question, no, Andrew Baldwin isn’t related to James Baldwin — but he is John Hiller‘s nephew.
Also, BA has Barb at 21, not 22 — and apparently he’s another raw, projection-type guy, as he was primarily a catcher until he turned pro in ’04.
The more I read and think about this trade, the more I like it. If you’re bashing it, just pretend Gillick had made the deal on behalf of the M’s, and not the other way around:
“There goes Gillick, stripping our farm system cupboard bare for a few weeks of a proven starter.”
As I see it, Bavasi is taking advantage of the other guy’s weakness as a GM.
213, you’re worried about a PR hit at the end of a losing season?! Really? You care more about that than getting two prospects (even if they’re marginal?)
What’s your favorite Jamie Moyer moment? Is it when he threw that no-no? He didn’t throw a no hitter? Oh, ok, well…was it when he pitched us to victory in that World Series Game? Oh, he’s never pitched in a World Series? Well, at least he had that Division Series winning game against the Tribe in 2001…five years ago.
All I can remember about Jamie Moyer is that 9 out of 10 times I’ve gone to a game, he’s been starting and I’ve been severely dissappointed. Watching Moyer pitch is like watching paint dry.
I’m tired of milk-toast players like Moyer that bear the label of “crafty veteran” and “community pillar”. The “pillar” stuff is nice, but I DON’T WANT “community pillars” on the Mariners, I want BALL PLAYERS. I’m tired of the “nice guys only” attitide of the Mariners and their pathetic fans.
I wan’t a forearm shiver and a brushback, accompanied by a lot of numbers IN THE WIN COLUMN! Everything else amounts to inane platitudes and a “try to be competitive” attitude. I’m sick of it.
I read thru as much stuff as I could find. Here is a link to an article on the pitchers that the Phillies consider the best at every full season minor league team they have.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/102-08202006-700275.html