well, i'll be.... the article is very good if you haven't read it - i think it'll please both dealers and non-dealers. it could actually be an interesting july - if they fall way off the pace (and/or teams start to just run away with the division and/or wildcard), they have some moveable assets and this is the first indication drayton has given that he'll consider moving them. there's obviously tejada, possibly valverde - and my dark horse: wandy. i'm not sure anyone else on the team would fetch much. but it's good to hear berkman and oswalt will (probably) stay - i think that's smart. lee will, too, of course but that's because he's untradable.
Yea, I read that. I wonder how much influence Wade has had on his thining process since coming over. If it was Wade, that is quite an accomplishment in and of itself, assuming Drayton follows through.
Wandy's an interesting one. What is his contract status? It might be worth going ahead and talking about an extension to see what kind of money he's looking for. If he wants to be paid as an elite pitcher, he's definitely the type of guy you consider moving. If he's willing to sign for several years at a reasonable rate, he's an excellent anchor that doesn't weigh down the franchise.
I like Wandy, but to me, he is a guy you trade while the gettin's good. When he's on, he's one of the best lefties in the league. When he's off, like last night, he's turrible. He's been above average thus far and is a lefty which is always in season around the league. I don't know what he'd fetch, but if that package involved two top prospects, I'd still be on the phone.
How do you feel about Tejada? It's hard to argue that his value will get much higher than it is now, unless a contending team loses a SS in the coming weeks.
Tejada is just a screaming "sell high" to me right now. He's playing ridiculously well and there's no way he'll be part of the team in 2 or 3 years anyway. I imagine the team will probably wait until the deadline to see just how competitive they are, but he's a guy you move as soon as you get a great offer, in my opinion. Who knows what his numbers will be like around the deadline. Since there aren't too many top-hitting shortstops, there are probably also a lot of potential trading partners for him. That said, what we know, everyone else knows. So I don't know how much exactly you'll get for him - but you'll get more now than you would have 2 months ago, and potentially more than you will 2 months from now.
i don't think anyone should get their hopes up that we're going to fleece anyone; as major noted, they know what we know (which is that tejada is almost certainly going to level off, and that may mean playing well below his average from here on out to even the numbers). to me, assuming oswalt is off the table (as he should be, imo), wandy is probably the guy that could potentially land you a decent prospect or two because of the demand for pitching. he's 31, yes? he's a soft-tossing lefty, so he could conceivably pitch effectively until he's 61 - but if you're looking to get younger in the rotation (which drayton mentioned that specifically).... i think they'd be fools not to explore the market for him. i think he's our best asset.
I love his influence on the team and his ability to communicate to the latin players. He's obviously a huge upgrade to AE with the bat. We also have no one ready to play a legit shortstop that is in the minor's. So while I'd trade him, I think it will be hard to get legit value back. I honestly wouldn't mind re-signing him for a two year contract and try to draft a replacement.
Looks like Juicystream was right. Drayton is planning to tank next season so that we can draft Bryce Harper the year after. Drayton is a genius!.... SIKE.
I hear you but I'm more with Major on this one. As far as playing SS, can you imagine how bad his defense will be in 2 years given where it's at now. However much better he is of a hitter is certainly offset to some extent by his poor arm, poor range and average-at-best glove. I remember reading stuff about how much Everett's defense contributed to wins compared to the defense of every other SS in the league. It argued that Everett was by far the best defensive SS over a stretch of a few years and that his defense was surprisingly beneficial to the team's success. Let's take Wandy's first bad start about a week and a half ago (the one where he ended up with 0 ERs because of Tejada's errors). I think it's entirely possible that Everett makes that fairly routine play in the 1st as well as executes that double play in the 4th or 5th and we end up having a good chance to win that game. When you see some of the estimates on how much a hitter like Tejada produces wins over a hitter like Everett and realize that it's only a couple of games over the course of a season, one or two games lost by poor defense starts to hold more significance. I honestly wonder if the positive difference between Tejada and Everett is as much as I once thought it was, if at all.
The light bulb has gone off. Excellent. I do like the quote about being smarter in the draft and having patience with the process being hard for Drayton. That says a lot about his "win now even when hell is freezing over" approach at times.
I hear you on Tejada's range, but I'm still hearing glowing reports on his arm (in fact, one guy I heard said his arm was his last great thing left, and it partly (*PARTly*) compensates for the lack of range). I also still hear good things about his footwork and mechanics. I keep saying "hear" because I haven't been able to *watch* much. So, I'm not arguing with you, just asking. In case you've been able to observe much.
He claimed to be Richard Justice. He looked like Richard Justice and sounded like Richard Justice. He even dressed like Richard Justice. I’m still not sure that was Richard Justice I just read over at chron.com. Not one smart-ass one-liner. No poorly conceived attempt at "stream of concsiousness" meandering from thought to unrelated thought. No blatant flip-flopping from something written, oh, 24 hours ago. No wild-assed speculation, no gratuitous opining without even a shred of actual research to back it up. Just a damn good article. To be fair, I think Justice does this two or three times a year. As much as I'm always whining about Justice (whom Berkman calls the "Writer of Wrongs"), it's only fair that I point out that this article is very well-done. Kudos, Richard.
Wow, where did you hear that? I'm no expert but that sounds like the exact opposite of the truth. I've watched almost every game so far this season and most of the games last season. Tejada's arm has been awful because it is awful. Berkman is reaching in the dirt or stretching out half the time on routine plays. He works hard at it and his footwork/mechanics may be decent (I'm not even sure about that) but even if those things are true, they only slightly compensate for his lack of range. On top of his limited range, it seems like his decision-making isn't always up to snuff. Off the top of my head, there was a play a couple of games ago where he failed to charge a softly hit ball and, as a result, failed to get the out at first. It's not like he was going to make up for the lost time with his arm. He also has a very slow release to go with his weak arm. I don't know of a SS in all of baseball that takes longer to go from glove to hand to 1st base. And that's assuming he doesn't bobble the ball in the process. Without digging into the stats, my guess would be that Tejada is among the worst defensive shortstops in baseball, if not the worst.
wow thanks for that. I had no idea; I think I've been able to catch on TV *mabye* four innings all season.
Don't take my word for it. Those are only my armchair opinions. I may have exaggerated my take slightly for emphasis but I really would say that Tejada is well below average overall, defensively. To his credit, he works as hard as anybody on the field and reportedly does the same off the field. Any deficiencies he has are pretty much beyond his control.
i agree entirely. saying he has limited range is like saying DaDakota has a lot of posts. his range is freaking awful.
Wandy is the most attractive potential trade bait on the team outside of berkman/oswalt. He is still under club control, which makes him incredibly attractive in today's economic environment. As well as he is playing I'm not sure you can trade Tejada without eating most or all of his salary. Same with Valverde. You're probably not going to get an "A" prospect from any of them, but you could get some B level prospects. One thing to consider about Wandy is his age. It seems like he is young but he didn't come up until he was 26. He is old enought that whenever the next great astros team comes around, he'll either be retired or over the hill.
i hear ya...but given that he's not a fireballer, if he can maintain control (particularly with that curve ball) he could pitch for another 8 years or so.
What do you mean by "fireballer"? I would think it's mechanics that limit pitching careers more than age. Unless Ryan and Clemens are the exception to the rule? Soto pitched a pretty long time, did he throw hard? Kerry Wood throws hard, but he also has idiotic mechanics. Hence his DL career.
