Tejada is a 34 year old SS in a contract year. Good luck getting anything of real value. Lee has a full no trade clause that he has stated he will not waive under any circumstances. Besides, he is fun to watch.
Didnt watch the game but heard we lost. Cardinals win in comeback fashion? Ill stick to the latter of my statement.
Freddy Sanchez, Orlando Cabrera, Scott Rolen are all worse and less attractive trade-deadline players than Tejada. So you can compare value there. Cabrera fetched San Fran's #4 prospect - and that was for a mediocre SS with a sub-0.700 OPS. Sanchez got a single-A prospect, so it's hard to say what he'll become, but he was a 2nd round pick last year, so he wasn't garbage. Rolen cost 3 players, including a MLBer in Encarnacion who has a pretty solid MLB career, a pitcher who just came to the majors recently but has done extremely well so far in relief (2.7 ERA), and a 22 yr old pitcher who's already in AAA and has put up a sub 2.00 ERA at every level in the minors. I think it's pretty safe to say Tejada could have fetched talent that realistically would be projected to make an impact at the MLB level.
Rolen is not an FA at the end of the year. The Reds have another entire year to get him to be a fixture in the clubhouse and work an extension with him. Tejada would be a very expensive 2 month rental. Totally different situation.
But the point of a deadline move (except in the Reds' case) is to make an impact *this* year. That's why teams tend to trade primarly for rentals - they don't entail a long-term financial commitment. That's part of what makes Tejada so attractive. Guys like Freddy Sanchez and Orlando Cabrera are available every offseason. They were traded for specifically because teams needed them now.
Tejada is most comparable to Freddy Sanchez in that he is a guy most teams would really like to have and while his salary was 14 million its pro-rated at this point so its only roughly 1/3 of it, so really its 4.5 or 4.75 million. Stros could have gotten something roughly similar to Tim Alderson and I would have been estatic! Dream street would have been Tejada for Masterson from the Sox but after seeing him in the Indians deal for Martinez don't think they would have gone for that.
Complete nitpick, but it was Sanchez who fetched Alderson from SF(the #45 prospect in baseball going in the season by BA). Alderson would have certainly immediately become one of the Astros top 5 (probaby 3rd)prospects. The astros might have had to eat Tejada's salary to get it done, but I'd imagine there was some value out there to be had. I also realize you can't sell when you're 4 games out, but I hope if they fall out of it this month and if they don't think they can offer Tejada arbitration, that they revisit trading him when he passes waivers.
I get the whole 4 games out argument but if Oz is going on the DL and Berkman is still a week or more away this team is heading for 7-8 games out by the end of next week and its obivous that the Holliday/Derosa moves have energized the Cards and Ramirez coming back was like a deadline move for them along with Grabow. I have been reading that August trades will increase since teams dont want to get stuck with additional salary if they block a move so I would say there is a really good chance Tejada and Val are both gone by Aug 31st.
Whoops - I flipped Cabrera/Sanchez, I guess. I agree on the last part - it's hard to sell when you're so close to the division lead. But in the long-run, I think they will regret missing the opportunity, especially given that this year was a real sellers' market. In the last few years, you've had relatively few acquisitions and it was consistently a buyer's market, but this year, it seems like just about every contending team was making trades to improve. That's when you can get the most value. It would have been nice if the Astros were either solidly in contention (good for this year) or solidly out of it (good for the future) instead of this no-man's land.
Game Time is almost here!! Wandy needs to step up big time! Paulino may start Tuesday because Bazardo is out of options, didn't know that so it is understandable they want to make sure he has a spot in the rotation before he gets called up! Hampton has to be hearing footsteps and one more bad start would do it for the vet!
Is this game on TV? In Austin, MLB Network has the Cleveland Indians vs. Detroit, despite it being listed as Houston vs. StL.
Its on my20 in Htown but I think your watching the Alternate game for MLB Network try going up or down a channel thats how my Directv is for me.
How in the hell has this happened? He's 25 and I have never heard of him. When has he been in the majors?
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/B/Yorman-Bazardo.shtml Apparently, he's been with the Marlins (2005) and Tigers (2007, 2008) for a grand total of 28 innings. Who knew?
Has he made any highlight reel, flailing body, near impossible because he got a late break catches yet?
