General trade tomfoolery thread
DMZ · July 30, 2008 at 11:32 am · Filed Under Mariners
I think the M’s should get in on that hot Barry Zito action. Trade Vidro for him, get Vidro back in the NL where he thrived, give up Silva, maybe…
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“Mets should make a run at Ichiro”
[snerk]
oh, what a surprise …
Piniella hints he wants more
We should only trade Tom Foolery if we get good prospects back. I mean, J.J. just taught him the splitter…
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That article is so ridiculous I actually barked out a laugh as I read it. Usually when I read something funny I just kind of snigger.
I mean, honestly now, Fernando Martinez, Jon Neise, and MAYBE Eddie Kunz? For ICHIRO? I realize that as a Mets beat writer, he has to wear those hideous Navy-and-Orange colored glasses, but the only prospect worth a damn of those three is Neise, and he’s no better than a #3 starter IMO.
Oh, how I love the deadline… so much humor floating around…
MLB Trade Rumors.com says the Marlins really like Arthur Lee Rhodes–and the Mariners are ‘only asking for a mid-level minor league prospect’. . . .
My gawd–Front Office, ask for more than you expect, then work out a deal for someone useful.
Florida is also seeking a catcher and we have three of them, duh!
This FO is CLUELESS!
Tom Foolery is a really good clubhouse/chemistry guy. We need to hang on to him.
hmm. a Japanese catcher with an unwieldy contract, a journeyman 38 year-old, and a number-one draft pick they are not going to move.
Hot Zito Action. That sounds like something that’s illegal in many Bible-belt states.
there are those rumors that Tom Foolery’s real dad was Sidd Finch …
Mariners baseball, according to Jeff Nelson:
Trade Raul now, you can get guys for Raul who’ll be better than the draft picks you’d get next year.
RR-S, it’s really disappointed they sent him down, they didn’t have to do that, they could have made other moves, it’ll just kill his confidence.
JJ must be still hurt, & obviously has no confidence left, you can see it every time he goes out there.
Morrow, last year they had him in the pen by necessity ’cause you didn’t have Sean Green, you didn’t have Mark Lowe.
I know this may make me unpopular, but I’d trade Ichiro if I could get three top prospects in return. That package from the Mets would be attractive.
The unfortunate problem with falling in love with a player is that it complicates possibilities to improve the team. I completely love watching Ichiro play and it would crush me to see him elsewhere.
That being said, he is almost certainly on the decline, and his salary is a big albatross. Getting three prospects and gaining financial flexibility would be a step in the right direction. If only it didn’t mean losing Ichi
“Morrow, last year they had him in the pen by necessity ’cause you didn’t have Sean Green, you didn’t have Mark Lowe.”
And if the M’s followed Jeff Nelson’s advice they wouldn’t have any of those guys, because players acquired in a hypothetical trade are better than high and/or sandwich draft picks.
Can we just keep the ex-Ms off the air, please? They’re starting to make Joe Morgan look like Stephen Hawking.
He’s not really in much of a decline, and his decline is likely to be very long and so shallow a marble would barely run down it. And his salary isn’t an albatross at all. Yes, it would be nice to get a big armload of top prospects for him, but realistically, Ichiro is the kind of player you’re trying to get more of, not less of. We need guys with his much plus at more positions. Getting rid of him would mean going backwards, not forwards.
No one loves to see prospects more than me, but remember, the ultimate goal is not to have a good team that costs no money; it’s to have a GREAT team. That means you don’t collect prospects just because they’re prospects; you collect them in the hopes that (a) one will turn into Ichiro or similar value and (b) you’ll save enough on them to afford the Ichiros you need.
Ugh. The “Ichiro is in decline” discussion is getting as tired as “Willie Bloomquist should start”.
Go find Jeff’s post on LL entitled “Ichiro is Fine”.
Let’s sign Stephen Hawking!
If nothing else he might manage to get Carlos Silva sucked into a black hole, with only his knowledge of the splitter escaping as Hawking radiation.
Jayson Stark is reporting that Ibanez to the Mets is close to being done.
You trade Washburn for whatever. You release Batista. Next years starting rotation is Felix, Bedard, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Silva (because you’re stuck with his salary) and Morrow. You keep Dickey as a long reliever (sometimes starter). If he’s ready you move Josh Fields (once he’s signed) into Morrow’s spot in the bullpen. You trade Arthur Rhodes and use Jimenez as the left handed set up guy. Maybe even give a shot to O’Flaherty. You don’t need to tweak the pitching much. You can then spend the off-season concentrating on improving the offense. I would even like to see them dump Johjima. Keep Jamie Burke, Clement and maybe even Rob Johnson. They could use those three in various ways so they all get the playing time they need. We’re re-building right? Keep LaHair at First Base, Lopez at second, dump Betnacourt, keep Beltre. In the outfield, you trade Ibanez for a prospect or 2 (then try to resign him in the off-season as your full-time DH). Keep ichiro of course, keep Reed on the bench as he can play all outfield positions and is a good baserunner. You then can focus on Centerfield, Left Field and SS. Shore the bench up with young kids instead of veterans to see what you have. Set a goal of winning maybe 70 games but realistically win about 60-65. Your’e getting experience from the young kids. Good teams are able to bring up 2 to 3 young palyers each year to contribute. (the Angels for example). We need to start doing that. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
#17, Tumwatermike — You realize that you pay just about all of Batista’s salary for next year if you release him right?
Fine, Ichiro isn’t in decline. But he is going to have to start getting on base with enough frequency to compensate for his lack of plate discipline.
Yes I do-but what else can you do. Is he valuable enough to trade? Also I just read the Mariners just got Luis Munoz from the Pirates on waivers. OMG he’s got to be the missing piece. I think that just put the Marienrs over the top. AL West Champs in 2009.
Put him in the bullpen. If he has some value as a reliever/spot starter, that’s better than eating the money. If he still sucks, then you dump him.
You know what I’d like to see if we somehow trade Yunieski and his contract? (Not something that can’t be done IF we can convince someone he needs a change of scenery or some other piece of BS like that) Use Tug Hullet as the everyday SS.
I like the kid a lot, I’ve seen a few Rainiers games at Cheney and he strikes me as that Dustin Pedroia-esque scrappy sparkplug of a middle infielder. He shows a good glove (certainly better than what we’ve gotten from Yuni lately), better than average power for a SS, and enough speed to keep him out of trouble and swipe maybe 15-20 bags a year.
We’re looking at possibly rebuilding next year, right? He’s the type of player who could really grow if given time and patience in the majors, I think.
Maybe Betancourt can be hit with a mysterious ailment and placed on the DL for 15 days. You then call up Hullet and play him. He could at least be a valuble bench player next year if not a starter. I understand Batista might work in the bullpen but he’s been very inconsistent this year. I would eat his salary and give that spot to a young kid and look to the future. I would put money into my scouting system and start stocking my minors with stud players. Look at seriously contending in 2011 (ironically the 10 year anniversary of 116). You have good young players and a few veterans. Maybe get a free agent or two to fill in holes but don’t go spending crazy. The youngsters are going to get us over the top, not expensive free-agents in decline. Buy the best scouts you can and get them out there looking for gems. that’s what the Twins and A’s do. They always seem to have good young players.
not to mention Sean Green was in the bullpen last year.
Paragraphs are your friend.
I know I pretty much skip over any block of text that’s longer than four lines.
Ichiro has the second highest OBP this season of any Mariner with at least 100 ABs (after Bloomquist, amazingly enough). He’s also almost certainly heading for his highest walk total since 2002. I’ll admit that it would be nice to see more than 3.58 P/PA, but I’m not sure a lack of plate discipline is his problem this year.
Wow, if there ever was an indictment of a team, this is it.
If you can do better by releasing him, you release him. It doesn’t matter what you’re paying him. That’s a sunk cost; you’re going to pay it whether he starts, relieves, pinch-runs, or sits on his sofa. Once that contract is signed, you use him wherever he’s most valuable to the club. If that’s “nowhere” then nowhere it is. It’s crazy to keep a guy in the rotation or on the roster just because you’re paying him a ton of money.
I know. It makes me nostalgic for the days of Edgar and his career .418 OBP.
Heck, it makes me nostalgic for the days of Phil Bradley and his .369 OBP (which would be best on this year’s team, edging Willie by one point).
Oh, I don’t disagree with this statement in the least. I’m fine with releasing Batista if he’s useless; I’m just not convinced that he is quite yet. I think he could have a fair amount of value coming out of the bullpen.
what do we know about Luis Munoz?
MarinerDan,
Where do you see this report from Stark about Ibanez to the Mets being “close to done”?
I saw the one on the ESPN blog where Stark said the Mets were LOOKING at Ibanez…
Where’d you see this?
We’ve already got about as good a scouting system as you could imagine. Scouting isn’t like a video game where you put more money in and your scouting starts paying out dividends right away. If you asked our scouting director, Bob Fontaine, what he needed, I’m not sure “more money” would be the answer. They’re already working at capacity over there.
At this point it’s not like there’s this vast pool of unknown players that teams can’t afford the scouts to go and see. Everybody knows who everybody is. It comes down to two things: analysis and luck. Nobody knows for sure who’s going to pan out, and even if you do, they get hurt and it all goes away. It’s possible to argue with our scouting choices, but you can’t argue that we don’t have the best people we can find working really really hard on it. Baseball isn’t as deterministic as that.
Where we have failed is not in scouting input but in processing that input. The scouts don’t make the team; the GM does. Scouting + analysis + shrewd trading + personnel management + a smart decision model + a ton of good luck = good decisions. We’ve been lacking on several of these items. Scouting isn’t one of them.
MSB – typical New Yorkers. Clearly they want Ichiro.
Next.
The ESPN trade deadline blog says the Marlins are close to a deal for Rhodes. I’d put up the link but I’m stupid and can’t figure the damn thing out.
HAHA Lets F#@& the world and get Manny!
Mets have backed off Raul
Damn…
Also, Olney is currently screaming that the Yanks just traded for Pudge, but no-one else seems to know a thing about it (or that the Yanks were looking at him, or the Tigers in general), and he doesn’t know what other players are involved.
ESPN is saying Farnsworth for Pudge now.
I want to see something done, but we’re not gonna get anywhere asking for TWO top prospects for Ibanez. And i wanna know who we’re trying to get from the Marlins for Rhodes.
KJR also just reported that Pudge to the Yankees is official, Yanks take on 13 million in his salary
Boy, that Pelekoudas fella.. doing a bang-up job, ain’t he?
Good for Pelekoudas. There is no reason to trade Ibanez if you can’t get two first round pick level prospects for him. Trading players just to trade them needs to be a thing of the past.
Oh and Felix Pie is not a good hitter. At all. Living in Chicago for the past 4 years, I’ve seen him play a bit when he’s up.
hmm. get Pudge to step in temporarily for Georgie, and get the pile of crap that is Farnsworth off your team.
Use Tug Hullet as the everyday SS
If you’re going to advocate for something like that, at least do Tug Hulett the courtesy of spelling his name correctly.
I honestly can’t say I’m a huge fan of that trade. He hasn’t really been that much better than the Molina/Moeller combo, and Farnsworth has been the rock of that bullpen and the only guy in it with real playoff experience (besides Mariano of course).
Actually, just checked Pudge’s stats on the year. He’s done better than I thought, but even considering that I don’t much like the trade from the Yanks’ perspective.
…
Wait, I’m talking about the Yankees. Never mind, great trade, especially if it helps them blow more late-inning games down the stretch!
It’s interesting that the Mets have also popped up as a destination for Washburn. Might we see an Ibanez+Washburn combo deal?
Tom Foolery is a really good clubhouse/chemistry guy
Plus they got him to pinch run for Cairo, so they can save him to pinch run in cases where they used to use Bloomquist, whom they’re saving because… I forget. I mean, without Tom Foolery they’d have to pinch run with Washburn or something. Without his belt. While you’re trying to keep him healthy to trade. Now that’s Tom Foolery.
Hot Zito Action. That sounds like something that’s illegal in many Bible-belt states.
It’s actually a nice Italian meal that got (mis)used as the title of a series of porn movies “Hot Zito Action 4: Giants’ Balls Low and Inside!”
Maybe we can trade Riggleman for Randy Winn…………
D’OH! Sorry Tug!
What?!?! Zito is available? LET’S DO THIS!!!!!!111!1
FWIW, did any of the trade rumoring have anything about Pudge going to NY before it actually came down? Might we take that into account when reading what they all say about someting happening (or not happening) for the Ms?
I am on the side of not making a move just to make it. Rash decisions are how we became the 2008 Mariners in the first place i.e. Bedard and Silva just cause we “needed” pitching. If the return isn’t worth the offering then don’t do it. Getting low balled can only hurt this team even more.
You know, you’re overlooking Tom Foolery’s music career. Seriously, check it out — I’m pretty sure it was a chance to play in that band that got Scott Spiezio to move to the northwest.
I think we should trade Ibanez for whatever we can get for him… This idea of automatically getting 2 draft picks has one large flaw. Ibanez can just take our offer of salary arbitration and then we have to see him suck for 12mm next year.
I think Lee is handling the Ibanez situation fine. GJ there.
Washburn on the other hand is a different story, unless he really is just posturing, which I doubt.
I fear the only people actually believing Jarrod Washburn is awesome are the guys at thebiglead.com and Lee Pelekoudas, and I’m not sure about thebiglead.
Does anyone else remember The Tom Foolery Show?
(Yes, I know I’m old)
obligatory Griffey Jr. mention
[Salutes] General Trade! [/Salutes]
Nods to Tom Foolery as well.
Anyway, with these protracted rumors of possible interest by the Mets in Raul Ibanez and rumors of a few teams supposedly being interested in Jarrod Washburn as well, perhaps packaging them both in a trade with the Mets(esp. if John Maine is out) would be worth exploring?
Hey, offer them Jamie Burke as well. I hear they need bullpen help.
#35
It seems like you contradicted yourself within two adjacent sentences.
Increase capacity!
Both in the scouting and the analysis.
It always comes down to more money.
What about Mike Carp (AA-Binghamton)? Is he untouchable, because if not perhaps the M’s could go that direction if they want a prospect back for Ibanez. Carp is 22 and is hitting 398/383/445 at double-A. He’s played some OF, but mostly 1B and as a LH power bat he murders RHP (319/409/476). It seems he’d be a pretty big upgrade over Lahair right now, and you might get the Met’s to toss in a pitching prospect of some sort (even just a Willie Collazo type reliever). But for some reason Carp’s name has not been bandied about at all.
#56
Allow me to follow up your wonderful KGJ mention with this story that everyone who loves Junior should take the time to read. Seriously. I love that guy and I freaking miss seeing him in an M’s uniform.
I will never understand all this nostalgia for Griffey. I think people forget that our breakup with Griffey was actually messier than those with ARod and Randy. After all, neither of those included claims of death threats.
I wonder if the FBI ever made an arrest in that case?
(Griffey) told the Seattle Post-Intelligencier that he’s disliked by everyone. “The front office, the fans and the media, everybody’s ripped me,” Griffey told the Post-Intelligencier.
Makes me warm and fuzzy just remembering it.
heh.
“Negotiations are still ongoing between the Mariners and Yankees about veteran starter Jarrod Washburn. The Yankees are offering only a midlevel prospect in return, while the New York Post has offered to pick up the remainder of Washburn’s contract in hopes of being able to run future headlines like “Wash(burn)ed Out” and “Jar-Rod Fails Like A-Rod.”"
Nope. It comes down to choices. The M’s have good scouting and input, but bad strategy and decisions. They did fine scouting, for example, Brandon Morrow and Andrew Miller. But then they made the questionable decision of taking Morrow instead of Miller because they do what Bud Selig tells them to regarding slotting, even when it puts them at a disadvantage to other teams who ignore him.
Then they made the second questionable decison of sticking Morrow, a 5th overall pick, into their bullpen where there is limited upside instead of letting him develop as a starter.
More money would not have helped avert either mistake.
Why Ghost? Why you got to be like that? Is it not enough for you that our current team is in the cellar, our front office is in shambles, and there are very few really likable guys wearing Mariners uniforms?
Now you got to go dragging your mud over the best player this city has ever had? The one who gave Seattle fans something to brag about nationally. The one who was the hero for an entire generation.
Are you really going to be that guy who posts one negative article to prove a pessimistic point instead of any of the hundreds of positive articles written about him?
Come on.
Sorry for the tangent, everyone. I just can’t let Grif get done like that. Back to Tom Foolery.
I hope you mean .298. I don’t want to think about how you can hit .398 with a .383 OBP.
Lots of sac flies.
I can’t believe someone referred to Kyle Farnsworth as “the rock of that bullpen” and “the only guy with playoff experience (besides Mariano)”.
One, Farnsworth is terrible. He’s been mildly ok this year, but he costs a lot and has a 99 career ERA+. Two, Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez both pitched for the Yankees last year, and Damaso Marte was a member of the 2005 White Sox, who, obviously, won the whole shabang. Three, how much does playoff experience matter, anyway?
So in return for nothing, the Yankees get a roughly .5-1 win upgrade. Plus, Farnsworth is a Type B FA while Pudge will almost certainly be a Type A.
Did anyone else notice how much more enjoyable this past weekend’s broadcast was with Joe Morgan away at the HOF? I didn’t even have to put “mute” on!
not to mention an ass.
dang. somehow I had missed that the noted authoress Ana Maria Callejeo Guillén had checked in on Los Marineros back in May
We should trade Arthur Rhodes to the Giants just to see if he’ll plunk Omar in batting practice.
Ya, so much nicer to listen to Rizzs and other commentators that have never played the game.
What have you guys got against people who have actually walked the walk? Is the pontificating and grandstanding of internet experts THAT much more impressive?
I don’t like it when people are wrong about things. Jeff Nelson is frequently wrong.
A Joe Morgan defender? Should I take this one, or let someone else handle it?
Looks like someone did (thanks, edit feature!)
Holy CONCACAF, this is hilarious!
“Hot slippery malodorous mess” is a good start.
Most of the guys who “walked the walk” who have broadcast or print jobs now have those jobs solely because they used to be players; they don’t have any analytical or journalistic skills at all for the most part, and some can barely form sentences.
Boy, something about this thread really brought out the lower phyla. We haven’t had a “people who actually played vs you internet experts” troll in a while. Or maybe the mods are just taking the day off.
Wait, are you telling me you don’t enjoy Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver? That’s crazy talk!
You’d miss gems like this from McCarver – “Roy Oswalt is a drop and drive pitcher. What is a drop and drive pitcher? He is a guy who drops and drives. Very simple.”
It’s simple, it’s elegant, and it is very VERY insightful. Good thing we don’t have more Dave Neihauses out there. He just doesn’t contribute anything.
-This post has been brought to you by Sarcasm
People need to remember when talking about Ibanez and keeping him to get 2 prospects that we have to offer him Arbitration and then hope he signs nowhere else. He’s gonna accept the arbitration, count on that.
Yeah that is a serious concern. The team would basically have to beg him to not resign while simultaneously offering him arbitration. Good luck.
I suppose, however, that telling him he WILL be a DH and will not sniff a glove again could help push him out the door
Fixed. And you’re probably right about him accepting arbitration.
Also, is he guaranteed to be a type A? If so, the classification must of slipped a tad. He’s a contributor, no doubt, but he’s hardly a top-two-shelves kinds of player anymore, which is what I’ve always interpreted type A as before.
Dudes! You aren’t paying attention here, are you?
“The chance he accepts arbitration is slim to none.”
Dave Cameron, July 22, 2008
Why Not Trading Ibanez Might Make Sense
<blockquote>Also, is he guaranteed to be a type A? If so, the classification must of slipped a tad. He’s a contributor, no doubt, but he’s hardly a top-two-shelves kinds of player anymore, which is what I’ve always interpreted type A as before.
I think your interpretation may have been a little off.
The classification of Tye A and Type B (and previously Type C) free agents is based on rankings of the past two seasons numbers run through a formula by the Elias Sports Bureau.
The formula does not remotely resemble anything designed to rank players ni ay reasonable method and stats like Games Played(!) and RBI, for instance, carry plenty of weight.
Defense is not factored into the formula but is – sort of – considered by breaking the players into position groupings which further screw up rankings.
OF, 1B and DH are grouped together (depressing most CF rankings) and 3B, 2B and SS go together (a good reason Beltre is a lock to be a type A too) and SP and RP separated out and Catchers get to go on their own.
The top 20% in each group are Type A and the next 20% are Type B.
Last year the rankings included 117 outfielders with the top 23 being Type A free agents. Raul was ninth, just ahead of Grady Sizemore! Replacing 2006 with 2008 is not going to see him slide to Type B or worse.
Fun bonus fact: Emil frickin’ Brown ranked 47th as the last Type B (1B, DH and OF group), one spot ahead of Richie Sexson.
Cheers Matt. I remembered it was a fairly screwy system, I’d just forgotten HOW screwy…
Apparently the Bosox have spoken with the M’s about Putz. Take two prospects and be done with it!
Interesting… depending on the prospects, could be worth it. One pitcher and a lefty corner infielder would be what I’d want, personally.
Been thinking about this rumored BoSox-Marlins-Pirates three-way for Manny (my, that sounded dirty…), and came up with a thought on what *could* get it done:
Marlins get: OF Manny Ramirez (Boston), C Ronny Paulino (Pittsburgh)
Pirates get: OF Josh Willingham (Florida), LHP Hunter Jones (Boston)
Red Sox get: OF Jason Bay (Pittsburgh), LHP Chris Sedon (Florida), OF Jai Miller (Florida)
Marlins get both the stick they need in Manny, and the upgrade at catcher they want with Paulino (not much stick-wise, but he can run a staff and won’t hurt you defensively).
Pirates get a body to plug in for Bay that I believe they control for at least one more year, and a good closer-type prospect for their rather thin bullpen.
With Bay, the Sox don’t lose much, if anything, by trading Manny (and in fact wind up a fair bit better defensively I believe), and get two fairly solid, though probably not spectacular, prospects that could contribute within the next 2-3 years.
Thoughts? Doable?
Doable maybe, but I’m betting Hermida and not Willingham will be involved. Upside is king in these deals.
From what’s been reported, Hermida would only be the guy if it’s just Boston and Florida, and even then the Marlins are hesitant at best to include him. With the Pirates in the picture sending Bay to Boston, including Willingham as a dish to the Buccos is much easier, especially with them getting a closer prospect, which they’ve been looking for one of for awhile (apparently they don’t like Capps long-term, or want to trade him this offseason *shrug*)
Ah, McCarver — yet another honors graduate of the Ron Fairly Institute of Sports Journalism.