A’s Acquire Holliday
Dave · November 10, 2008 at 12:14 pm · Filed Under Mariners
According to Jon Heyman, the A’s have acquired Matt Holliday from the Rockies. This looks to be Johnny Damon 2.0, where Beane acquires a free agent to be to help get his team’s rebuild on the fast track, then cashes in on the draft picks to recoup the value of what he gave up.
More analysis when we find out who Oakland gave up.
Do you think the A’s will flip him somewhere else in the next few days?
[Beane]
Rumor has it Greg Smith might be included.
Last I heard over the weekend a deal was close with the Cards for Ryan Ludwick, which seemed odd.
After Hampton’s, Neagle’s and Helton’s giant contracts it seems as if the Rockies are completely gunshy to sign anyone to a long term deal again.
My god, this is a shocker!!
Well, this stinks. Our division just got a little bit tougher, and we have enough of an uphill climb as it is to get to first place.
Holliday or not, that hill is already at a 90-degree incline.
Ah, more scuttlebutt from ESPN.
Among the other players who have been discussed were left-handed pitcher Brett Anderson and outfielders Ryan Sweeney and Carlos Gonzalez.
Funny. ESPN also posts window with park adjusted numbers from last year if Holliday had played ’08 in Oakland.
CBSsportsline has this to say about who the Rox are getting…
“The Rockies will receive outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, left-handed pitcher Greg Smith and closer Huston Street in return, though they may not keep Street. One source said Monday that the Rockies are prepared to turn around and trade him — though to which team he wasn’t sure.”
How is Holiday defensively in LF?
I think this trade works in the M’s favor, right? Holliday is only on contract for 2009. I can’t see the As giving him an 8 yr contract like he wants. The As give up some talent for him.
So for 2010, when the Ms might be able to compete, the A’s become a weaker team.
Am I missing something?
He ranks pretty well for per RZR on THT.
Watching him play this last summer I had come concerns with his routes. However, Coors is huge. It takes a little while to get around out there I’d imagine.
Pretty good, just from taking a glance that THT’s defensive stats.
They will get two first rounders back for holliday because he’s a type A free agent.
He’s good, but not great. His numbers should dip because of the park adjustment.
He’s probably going to be a rental. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s dealt at the trade deadline for prospects.
So for 2010, when the Ms might be able to compete, the A’s become a weaker team.
Am I missing something?
Only they either flip him @ the deadline to the BoSox or Yankees for more prospects or let him walk and pick up draft picks. Whenever Billy Beane is involved I worry about what comes next.
Speaking of Billy. I heard they’re making a Moneyball movie. Guess who’s playing our Fav GM? Why, Mr. Brad Pitt.
Yep. Kind of hard to really form an opinion on this unless we know whether Beane’s paying top dollar or stealing someone’s wallet again.
Beane rarely let’s it go like that and he has a ton of avenues he can explore form this grab. He could pitch Holliday somewhere else at the trade deadline for better prospects then he lost. He could do the arbitration route because he knows someone will sign him this offseason. He could sign him to a modest extension in preperation for the move to Fremont and is getting a jumpstart on getting the best talents availble.
Etc.
But, like I pointed out above, a lot of this depends on who the A’s gave up to get him. If they gave up a few legit top tier talents then it’s hard to imagine Beane recouping the losses through another trade or draft pick compensation.
If you assume his bat stays ~25-30 runs above average and his defensive value hovers around 10 runs above average (as some metrics are pointing out) then he becomes a 4 to 5 marginal win player easily. That’s pretty damn valuable.
If not even steeper than that…say, maybe that little overhanging chunk of cliff in the Warner Bros. cartoons which Wile E. Coyote always seems to find himself careening off of. 😮
When it comes to figuring Beane and the A’s I think the key thing to keep in mind is that they’re running on a long term plan aimed at 2012. They’ll make smart tactical moves in the interim when the opportunities present themselves, but really it’s all about building for the 2012 season when they move into the new stadium and the revenue tap* turns on. At that point they want to be where the Tamp Rays were this past offseason, with a strong base of young cheap guys they can build around with the occasional big-ticket star (as well as signing the best of those guys to below-market long-term deals, a la Longoria).
So while Beane obviously wants to put butts in seats and field a “competitive” team in ’09, it’s more about who he’s giving up (players he doesn’t think would be helping in 2012 anyway) and who he’ll be getting when he flips Holliday (or takes the draft picks).
* This assumes the stadium plan goes ahead (it’s already been delayed once) and that the economy in 2012 makes those revenue taps viable.
Yep, looks like it’s Greg Smith/Carlos Gonzales and Huston Street heading east in exchange for Holliday.
Holliday’s consistently been amongst the best defensive corner OFs, so he’s a valuable player (despite the Coors effect). Not really sure what the plan is for CF, but Cunningham/Holliday and Ryan Sweeney is pretty good OF. Replacing Holliday with Cust saves a good 20 runs on defense alone.
Really not sure what this does to the A’s rotation, though Smith was never a guy who had great stuff. Guess they’ll go with Gio Gonzalez and see if a great offense can carry them.
Cust only played just over 600 innings in the outfield last season, whereas Holliday had over 1200. So, while moving Cust completely out of the field is good, it’s not as if he’s a fixture out there (pun not intended).
In other words, no big loss for the A’s. The Cardinals rumored offer was better then this.
It’s still a win for the As…if they keep him, that’s good…if he walks, they get two picks…if they trade him, they get guys that are probably better than what they gave up…
Beane’s at it again…
Agreed, TIF.
I wonder if the Cards ever actually agreed to trade Ludwick or if the rumors were based on what Colorado *wanted* – not what was actually on the table.
Gonzalez may turn into a nice player, and obviously the price is right (poor man’s Adam Jones?); perhaps this is the best Colorado could do given that they’d basically sworn off keeping Holliday.
Most of the sportswriters here have written off Holliday returning since Spring Training. I don’t think their expectations were real high for a return on value.
oh, and
Acquire, not Aqcuire 🙂
bako,
Not sure I agree that this is a stroke of Beane genius…
pretty sure Boras is not going to let that happen…
using joser’s 2012 theory, I guess this is possible–trading three useful players this year for one or two potential ones four years in the future, but given the odds of two picks at any level winding up with the big club?…
for that to be the case, then the Rockies had a better offer in the table now (e.g., Ludwick et al) than what they accepted from the A’s. If there were better guys available, why didn’t the Rockies take them? (Sure, pennant fever in July could boost the return, but no guarantee).
Of course, Beane may have some devious plan beyond the minds of mere mortals, but I’m not absolutely convinced.
Of the three reported players going to Colorado, only Carlos Gonzales should be considered a big loss. Greg Smith is an overrated flyball pitcher with bad control who benefitted greatly from Oakland’s defense and Network Associoates Colloseum. Houston Street is a damned good relief pitcher, but as we’ve discussed here, relief arms are easy to replace. Gonzales though, has some upside potential even if his skill sets don’t fit into the typical Oakland mold.
There’s another rumor floating about that Street would be flipped somewhere else. If the Rockies felt like they could get more by trading not only Holliday but Street as well, that would trump most other reported deals.
I wouldnt be surprised if Beane goes against his philosophy and signs Holliday to a long term deal. With a new ballpark around the corner (once Fremont, CA gives final OK to begin building) they should be able to have a higher payroll. Matt Holliday is a young star in this league with a nice track record so he could be a long term cornerstone for the franchise. I have heard/read that their payroll may rise into the league of $80 million next season.
He’ll be 29 next season. I know that’s not exactly “old”, but signing him to a huge long term deal that takes him deep into the 30s is a really stupid idea.
TIF,
Not saying that Gonzalez, Smith and Street are all-stars…just that it seems like a stretch to me that two draft picks will likely project to be better than a member of the rotation, a starting OF, and a very good closer.
And I saw the Street speculation, too…but I raised this not to question the benefit to the Rockies, but to the A’s. Unclear to me why it necessarily follows that the players Beane gets later for Holiday are better than the three he gave up to get him.
More intriguing is rrwrayii’s suggestion that maybe it’s a new day in Oakland…that they’re suddenly willing to spend to keep Holliday. I’m sure Beane loves his reputation for alchemy in making ‘something out of nothing’…but eventually, doesn’t he want the chance to play on equal footing against the big boys?
FWIW, Mychael Urban wrote about the A’s spending money today, and Rosenthal talked about it several days ago
Is Billy Beane losing his touch. I think he got too little for Rich Harden, and now he gave up too much for Matt Holliday.
The A’s gave up on Carlos Gonzalez and Greg Smith after just one year each. This sounds like the M’s giving up on propects like Adam Jones and Chris Tillman.
Greg Smith and Chris Tillman are about as dissimilar as pitching prospects get. Smith is more akin to Ryan Feierabend than Tillman.
The centerpiece is Gonzalez, and while the a’s sold low, they’re acquiring a great defensive corner OF with a much, much better bat than Gonzalez. They’ve already got Cunningham who’s likely to be a better hitter in the short-medium term anyway, and they’ve got a wildcard in Travis Buck for insurance. Gonzalez had always played in great hitting environments, and while young, just put up an OBP 40 points less than Jones while spending a lot of time in the corners, not CF. SO FAR, it’s not close.
I’m not sure about the Harden deal, though you’ve gotta admit other teams were discounting Harden due to his durability, so that may not be on Beane. But this is a very nice deal for the A’s.
It comes down your evaluation of Carlos Gonzalez: tools goof or tools monster? He looked completely overmatched at the plate last year, and while he was young, he wasn’t superstar-breaking-into-the-majors young. But there’s no denying his defense and arm, which are already top notch, and the potential for 30-HR power.
What’s interesting is that the A’s had a glut of outfielders (Sweeney, Buck, Gonzalez, Denorfia, Davis, Cunningham), none very good at the moment but some with the potential to be quite good in the future. So it was no suprise that they included an outfielder. The identity was a surprise though.
Looking back on it, it’s fascinating to compare Aaron Cunningham with Carlos Gonzalez. Cunningham is six months younger than Gonzalez and has a 311/384/496 minor league line compared to .286/.340/.473 for Gonzalez. Cunningham has also sustained his success through the high minors while Gonzalez had most of his success in the low minors. It wouldn’t be a shocker (although it’s no slam dunk) if Aaron Cunningham made Carlos Gonzalez expendable. It’s hard to fathom at first, and Gonzalez certainly has the potential to be the much better player, but I’m beginning to come around to the idea that this is the key to Oakland’s thinking.
Having said all that, it will be sad to see Huston Street go. He is an excellent pitcher, certainly underrated, and still very young (he’ll be 26 in August). Bullpen arms are more fungible than other player classes, but Street’s a good one.
.
I actually have been hearing this as well … it seems like they might make Holliday the face of the A’s franchise. He is the anti-Boras and would take less money to keep winning.
Uh, only I think he’s a Boras client.
I think that’s exactly right, Sal.
If you think Gonzalez is an above average bat in the future, this deal is more of a win-win (A’s trading from depth). If you think Gonzalez is the product of great hitting environments, not so much (A’s trading on hype).
I haven’t seen as much of Cunningham, but I think you’d have to be pretty bold to assume that the A’s just screwed this up. Cunningham’s minor league numbers are quite good considering ARL and park.
galaxieboi he is Boras’s client but they are saying he is the anti-Boras if that makes sense.
He told the rockies he would take less money to stay, apparently they only offered him 4 years instead of 6. Boras’s clients usually will not take less money ….
That doesn’t make any sense. If he was ‘anti-Boras’ he’d fire Mr. Boras.
The Rockies, IMHO, low balled him. They knew they didn’t have a shot with him being a Scott Boras client, made a token offer so they could tell Rockies’ fans, ‘Hey! We tried, he and his agent are greedy and causing a distraction!’.
Boras has been willing in the past to place a player where they will be happy, vs. where he will make the most money.
I think it is so he has an example to point to when accused of only pointing players to the biggest payoffs.
Sheehan evaluates it as a win for the A’s, without factoring in anything beyond next year (which is probably a win either way — they sign him or they take the draft picks).