looking back, I would say atleast 60% here were overall pleased with the trade, maybe closer to 70%. I was among them. While Purpura does deserve blame, and he is fat of course, I think some of you might be unnecessarily crucifying him. There is a difference between making a "bad" move and making a move that just didn't work out. To use a basketball analogy, signing Mo Taylor and Moochie Norris to long term contracts were boneheaded moves on CD's part because they were terrible and indefensible from the start, any way you looked at it. Signing Kelvin Cato or trading for Eddie Griffin, while bad moves in the end, were really moves that just didn't work out as they seemed to make good sense at the time they were made and most people were pretty content. But then of course we have the armchair GM's who were right all along and knew Purpura is fat I mean knew this would be an awful trade. You can't crucify him over this.
believe me i understand your point, but this is in a list of things not going well for timmy. the argument that jennings was a number two pitcher when this trade happened was ignorant from the get go. throwing in willy for a guy who has had one good year is the equavilent to getting bent over. the guy has cleaned out he farm while holding on to pipe dreams.
If you adjusted Jennings' ERA for his home park, then he indeed was a projected #2 for us. Jennings was also know to be a ground ball pitcher and thus a good fit for MM park (versus Hirsch being a fly ball pitcher). Something else to consider is that this was The Contract Year for Jennigs. JJ was super motivated to look like a top of the order starting pitcher to get his big payday. With his injury, JJ will now have to get lucky in the offseason or sign for a less than stellar in terms of years and $$$s/year. Without the injury, Jennings could have shined and Fats would be praised wide and far, until that is Jennings got his big payday elsewhere in the offseason.
The weird thing is that fats has always been known as someone who likes OUR guys....the one's from the minors..... But, he has certainly been quick to trade them for some veterans, which is a bit surprising to me. DD
The problem with the trade was that everything about it was buy-high, sell-low: 1. Trading for Jennings after a career year unlike any other 2. Trading away three prospects / young players who were expected to improve 3. Trading for a guy in the last year of his contract and not signing him to an extension - this limits the upside to 1 year of Jennings Bottom line, we were trading three young guys who we have under club control for 3 years for a guy who we controlled for one year and had a career year the previous year. We also learned midseason that he wasn't throwing bullpen sessions the 2nd half of last year because of arm soreness and that he "chose" to lower his velocity from the low 90's to the mid-to-high 80's to improve his control. The only way the trade works out is if we're significantly improved this year - but it limits the benefits to this year only. And we basically took a 0.500 team, improved the offense with Lee, and weakened the pitching from Clemens & Pettitte to Jennings & Woody (not to mention that Buchholz and Hirsh were in our rotation last year, so we had to go to 2nd choices for the back end too) - so I'm not sure how reasonable it was to expect that significant improvement. Basically, in the overall scheme of things, it was high-risk / low-reward and a buy high / sell low trade. Exactly the opposite of what made us successful the last decade.
Willie Taveras may or may not become good enough to make this the worst trade in club histroy. That remains to be seen. Jennings could have the sam success that Pettitte did with recovery and make this less of a one-sided deal. Not protecting Abreu, Taubensee for Lofton, SANTANA unprotected. Worst move in history. How would do you think the Astros would have done in the WS with Lofton, Biggio, Berkman, Bagwell, Abreu,,Guillen...... Oswalt, Garcia, Santana,Petitte and Clemens........ Qualls,Wheeler,Lidge and Billy the Kid. This ain't just Purpura although he needs to go.
you could say that for every club in every sport. it happens. astros lost santana to protect oswalt. marlins traded santana for nothing. wagner left stros.
I really can't understand how this team would be better off removing Luke Scott (.855 OPS) or Mike Lamb (.822) from the lineup and inserting Willy Taveras. It's just my opinion, of course, but that would make them much worse... not exactly "sitting pretty."
In history?? Joe Morgan says hi. And if you meant history history, Babe Ruth is on line 2. Oh, and Red Sox nation is on line 3 with something about a bullpen guy for the stretch run and a hall-of-fame first baseman.
Chick Gandil is also aggrieved to have been overlooked. Many trades and transactions work out where you give up a good, eventually great, player for someone who doesn't turn out to be so good. I can't think of any other transaction that resulted in half a team getting banned for life.
At least the situation wasn't compounded by signing Jennings to a long-term extention. I know I was one of the few in the camp that was ok with the trade... but was also ok with waiting to see if Jennings would be ultra-productive before giving him the going-rate extention that he wanted (which, in this market, was going to be $12-14 million a year for 3-5 years). Several people AT THE TIME of the deal were against it merely because there was no extention signed... currently, the Astros have to be pretty thankful they weren't moving on that. As for jeopardizing our "future", I'm just not all that worried that the franchise is set-back, or would have been in a precarious position even if Jennings had pitched well. Willy has played his ass off... but he wasn't the blue-chip prospect of either that deal or the proposed Garland deal... that was Hirsh. As it is, the Astros need more front-line starters who are ready NOW, not 3-4 years from now when Oswalt/Berkman start to age a bit. People point to Willy's year as the most regrettable part of the trade, but I still care more about our pitching staff putting up the second worst year of any Astro team ever.
But if you look at it the other way, in hindsight, we were getting a solid #2 for three guys who we didn't deem had much upside at that point. The jury is still out on Taveres and you can also make the argument that Pence+corner outfielder is much more valuable to the team than than the alternative combination without Pence's bat in center. Hirsh and Buckholz were middle of the order guys at best. Now you can make the counter argument that they were still cheap talent under club control for a few more years to fill in spots and you would certainly be absolutely correct. BUT, in hindsight, wouldn't you agree it was a worthy risk given the situation we were in? [which leads to my next point] But isn't that essentially what any team always does when attempting a splash upgrade in talent? They trade away what they feel to be surplus expendable commodities whom they can afford to lose the financial comfortability of keeping (in our case Buckz and Hirsh) when they think they can get a sure thing. Obviously, Jason Jennings is no Randy Johnson, but to illustrate, we lost club control of Garcia and Halama on the cheap. It's just unfortunate in this case with Jennings because it hasn't worked out. As far as his career year, wasn't it safe to extrapolate his road/home splits over to this year? It was a risk, yes, but that's why we only had to give up mediocre talent. If you wanted a sure thing like Dontrelle, you could have given up Patton. We didn't. We gave up average talent to take a risk at what we thought would be a decent #2. But wouldn't people be complaining just as much had we not made the move? They pretty much had their minds made up that they weren't going to resign Andy. At that point, you can either completely rebuild or retool. The second you sign Lee for $100million, you've committed yourself to competing. They backed into a corner in need of a #2 and felt the risk was worthwhile. If you said signing Lee was a bad move, I would agree with you. But if you think they should have signed Lee and then not traded for a #2, I think you're basically in no man's land.
After knowing that they weren't going to be able to re-sign Pettite, I would have gone ape-**** if they had chosen to "stand pat" in this sorry-ass division where an 86 game winner can get hot and win the World Series. Yes, its still sorry-ass... hell, the Cardinals may just win the thing with a barely over .500 record again. Sure, the Astros may be losing out on some talent that has a chance to become marquee in 5 years... but by that time, perhaps Berkman/Oswalt lose a step, and the Brewers youngins may mature to a 100 win team that the Astros have no chance to beat anyways. The Astros gambled for this year... they lost. They likely remain mediocre without making the trade, and still in need of frontline pitching to supplement three guys who are all making over $14 million a year. And don't look now, but Woody Williams, in this market, is actually pitching (and has the numbers) of a $6 million dollar a year pitcher.
But he's only a solid #2 if you assume the best of Jennings and the other guys only have no upside if you assume the worst of everyone you're trading. That's why I said that it was a buy high / sell low situation. If what you described was the "average" scenario of the trade, it might make some sense. But you basically described the best case scenario - at best, that's what would happen. All the risk in the trade is to the downside for us. Sure - but in the case of Randy Johnson, the team was really really good and it was designed to make them great. The case scenario as the Beltran trade. If those were bad teams trading for Randy Johnson, it would have been as dumb as the Jennings trade was. It's like the Pittsburgh Pirates trading marginal young talent at the deadline for $10MM Matt Morris that's about to be a free agent. That had to be amongst the dumbest deadline trades ever. No, because it was a career year. That's never safe to do. 9 games earlier, that mediocre talent was projected as a future #2 or #3 starter - for cheap and under club control. Patton's less highly valued than Hirsh was. Maybe. People complained before 2005 that we didn't go out and get a LF and in 2002 or 2003 when Hunsicker didn't make a deadline move, etc. But those were *smart* moves because the cost outweighed the benefits. The reason the Astros were so successful for so long is that they consistently made smart, reasonable moves regardless of fan pressure. This offseason, they didn't - they did the stupid thing because of fan pressure to do something. I did think Lee was a bad signing, but only because I don't think he's an elite hitter and I'm worried about his long-term health / ability to play LF. But he has been a refreshing surprise and he might be a much better signing that I thought. That said, you got Lee for 6 years - that doesn't mean you have to reduce your flexibility in years 2-6 by losing the young talent in order to be more competitive in year 1. I'd agree with you if you signed Lee to a 1 year deal, but with Berkman/Lee/Oswalt, this team was designed with a 5-year type window.
What was up with Purpura avoiding the question about whether or not they looked at MRIs and X Rays of his elbow before the trade? I mean, isn't that stuff standard? When I heard for the first time ever today that last season, Jennings wasn't throwing between starts because of the injury, I was re-shocked that this trade happened. We got straight up embarrassed.
growing up, he was easily my favorite player, but that changed when biggio and bagwell started to take over. i was ok with the trade when it happened. though obviously it turned out to be a terrible trade, i don't feel like the 3 we gave up are that valuable anyways.
