It was a very active month for MLB general managers, with a total of 36 trades since June 30 – and when the dust settled, it was clear that the Pirates were in 100% rebuild mode, having been involved in six separate deals. We’ll take a close look at the Pirates after we look at the other major deals of the month. We’ll take them in chronological order, skipping the many minor deals along the way.
-Mets trade OF Ryan Church to the Braves for OF Jeff Francoeur. This may seem like a minor deal, but it has importance beyond the players involved: this was the first sign of the Mets’ true desperation and sad state, a state more fully revealed when this bizarre firing took place. GM Omar Minaya’s team has been decimated by injuries, but he’s also made some of his own bad luck by failing to address the starting rotation this past offseason. Trading Church for Francoeur only further weakens the offense, as Francoeur has no strike-zone discipline and has been an offensive disaster since 2007. Church put up some great numbers for the Mets but was hampered by a concussion last season. Francoeur has hit well thus far for the Mets, but he’s only drawn 1 walk in 19 games. Look for this trade to be a clear win for the Braves as Church regains his form, and look for Minaya to be fired by December.
-Cardinals trade 3 minor leaguers to the A’s for OF Matt Holliday. In the wild-and-medicore NL Central, .500 puts you squarely in contention. The Cardinals wisely recognized an opportunity, and Holliday is a great fit for their team. Offensively they had a lot of holes, and Holliday helps solidify their lineup after Albert Pujols. As for the A’s, their disappointing start to the season made this an inevitable move with free agency looming for Holliday. The key to the deal for Oakland is 3B prospect Brett Wallace, who should be ready to make the club by next season and is considered a top prospect. A stiff price to pay for a 2-month rental, but a worthy gamble for the Cards and I applaud them for taking a run at the division. Good deal for both clubs I think.
-Giants acquire 1B Ryan Garko from the Indians and 2B Freddy Sanchez from the Pirates for 2 minor league pitchers. The story here is that the Giants are announcing their intent to take a run at the wild-card by upgrading their woeful offense. They are 14th out of 16 NL teams in runs scored but their superior pitching has them leading all of baseball in runs against by a comfortable margin. Garko provides a marginal upgrade at 1B over Travis Ishikawa, but Sanchez could provide a large upgrade at 2B if he hits for his typical .310-.330 average. Cleveland received a fairly promising left-hander in the deal, but not a top prospect. Pittsburgh received a very promising right-hander, we’ll get to that later. Overall, I think these were good-not-great moves for the Giants – Sanchez cost more but provides more of an upgrade and will likely vest his 2010 option for next season, giving the Giants more value from him.
-Phillies acquire LHP Cliff Lee and OF Ben Francisco for four prospects, headlined by top P prospect Carlos Carrasco. After being in the hunt for ace RHP Roy Halladay, the Phils made a big splash anyway, landing the best pitcher to move during the month without giving up their top prospect, P Kyle Drabek. The Phillies have had a good season, but the starting pitching has been a concern with the struggles of Cole Hamels and Jamie Moyer (I STILL think Hamels is hurt, and has been since the spring). Lee makes the Phillies favorites to repeat as the NL representative in the World Series, and is also signed next year for a club option of $8 million, a bargain sure to be exercised by the Phillies. Ben Francisco will help provide balance to the lefty-heavy lineup. The Indians were going nowhere and had to re-energize their talent base, and landing four prospects for Lee helps with that. Carrasco and P Jason Knapp are probably the two top prospects received by the Indians in the deal, but I’m a big believer in quantity when it comes to prospects, since some of them will certainly flame out. Cleveland did a good job getting multiple prospects for Lee; Philadelphia did well to land an impact pitcher and still keep the top of their farm system intact.
-The Red Sox acquired C/1B Victor Martinez from the Indians for P Justin Masterson and P Nick Hagadone. This trade is good for Cleveland no matter what – I’m a BIG fan of Justin Masterson and think he will become an outstanding starter for Cleveland. Hagadone is also highly regarded. As you can probably tell, I think Cleveland did very well in their trades. The question for me here on Boston’s side is, are they planning to use Martinez as a catcher, or a 1B? If they use him at catcher, they’ve found at least a short-term upgrade over aging Jason Varitek, and the move was worth it. If they play Martinez at 1B, he’s no better than average at that position with the bat, and they overpaid. Thus far he’s played one game at each position – keep an eye on this as the season goes on.
-The White Sox acquire P Jake Peavy from the Padres for four minor leaguers. This one makes the least sense for the ‘buying’ team – the White Sox are very much a win-now club, with an aging roster and a fairly barren farm team. Peavy is a top pitcher WHEN HEALTHY, but he isn’t healthy now and he only made 27 starts in 2008. Peavy has an ankle injury and hasn’t pitched off of a mound since June 13. Even his agent was surprised that the Sox would take this chance in his current condition and with an escalating contract that has him owed $52M over the next three seasons. There’s rolling the dice, then there’s throwing money (and talent) away – I think the White Sox are taking a very foolish gamble here, and that’s even without allowing for the talent they sent west. In two years, expect the White sox to be frantically trying to dump Peavy’s salary as they undergo the inevitable rebuild. GM Kenny Williams has made some good deals in the past few years, and I’ve been proven wrong on his deals before, but I don’t like this move at all.
-Notes on other trades: what are the Reds thinking, acquiring Scott Rolen?? Rolen is aging but a good short-term fit for a contender – which the Reds are NOT and won’t be for a while. Rolen has had a nice comeback season, but this deal makes no sense from the Reds’ side. The Marlins made a solid move, adding on-base machine 1B Nick Johnson for a prospect. The Marlins remain a strong wild-card contender. Jarrod Washburn will help the Tigers, but they needed to do more, as they also are in win-now mode. The Rockies recognized that the easiest area to fix is the bullpen, and by adding Joe Beimel and Rafael Betancourt for almost no cost, they have solidified their surprising status as a wild-card contender.
Now, the Pirates. Since June 30, they have traded Nyjer Morgan, Sean Burnett, Eric Hinske, Adam LaRoche, Jack Wilson, Ian Snell, Freddy Sanchez, Tom Gorzelanny, and John Grabow – and gotten roundly criticized in the process. I think GM Neal Huntingdon said it best – “it’s not like we’re breaking up the ’27 Yankees here.” I fail to understand the outcry over breaking up a team that hasn’t APPROACHED .500 in over 10 years! Now, the quality of talent returned remains to be seen, and if that talent turns out to be poor, Huntingdon will (and will deserve to) be fired – but for now I give the man kudos for having a concrete plan to rebuild the farm system, and actually sticking to that plan. Once he traded Bay last summer, every move that followed made a lot of sense. Even the McLouth trade, which I was wary of at the time, makes sense now – the Pirates wanted a complete break with the recent past.
Of the deals they made this season, I like the Sanchez deal the best – Freddy is a good player, but he’s not worth $8M next season, and to get a top pitching prospect back for him is a great return. I also am very high on the Morgan/Burnett trade – Morgan is never going to be an above-average hitter, and Burnett is just another reliever, while Lastings Milledge could become an All-Star. The Hinske and LaRoche trades I have no opinion on – we got no return but those players had very little value. The trades that concern me a bit are the Wilson/Snell and Grabow/Gorzelanny deals. Wilson and Grabow were goners – I have no problem with that, both were veterans, both were going to net some kind of return, well and good. Trading Snell and Gorzelanny (especially Gorz to a division rival) could be a big mistake – both are young, and both have a LOT of potential. I like the return from Seattle in the Wilson/Snell deal, and Snell probably sealed his fate by ASKING for a demotion – he’s a headcase, and it seems clear that Pirate brass just tired of his act. I can live with that. I’m not sure what trading Gorzelanny did for the Bucs, the return was nothing special and Gorzelanny seemed to have righted himself at AAA.
Overall though, they did a great job of accumulating young talent. As I said earlier, I believe strongly that to build pitching you have to accumulate a lot of young, live arms and see who survives the attrition of minor league development. The Bucs’ system is still very light on power, but it seems clear that Huntigdon is committed to a pitching-and-defense approach. Let’s give him a couple of years to follow through on his plan. I know, I know, we’ve already given the team 17 years – but that was neither Huntingdon’s doing nor the current owner’s. The past is gone, forget it and look forward – and it’s ok to root for Freddy and Jack to make the playoffs, they were solid players and gave a lot to the city of Pittsburgh.
Dave Glass can be reached at buggyracer@verizon.net.
