reread my post, I wrote "evaluated". I don't know any other industry, profession, or whatever where "performance" shouldn't be evaluated. you can't evaluate "performance" till after the fact. the evalution of the trade just doesn't depend on the need or perceived value at the time. the evaluation also includes if your judgemnet of value was correct. that's the job in building a team, to project. team's aren't one year projects.
no, no, no - tim purpura dictated what tim purpura gave up - he was under no obligation to make a trade, and certainly under no obligation to trade certain players. that's a complete and utter fallacy that the market dictated anything - what other starting pitcher was traded last offseason that set the market? free agency (in which you don't have to give up anyone off your roster) is in no way comparable to a trade. if tim took this approach... well, that was mistake #1. i don't believe he just misevaluated the people involved in the trade (which he did), but also the people left behind after the trade. he invested in a LOT of question marks - burke, scott, ensberg; he deemed pence not ready... and i should note, and to a degree, defend purpura, because his hands were (likely) tied by the biggio situation. biggio's extension and, let's call it mandated playing time forced their hand with burke. frankly, i thought they should have dealt him as soon as biggio signed his 2-year deal. and i agree with their decision to try and find burke more regular playing time... but it came at the expense of willy taveras, another misevaluation. because starting this year, next year and many years after that, which player would you rather have: taveras or biggio? and i'm asking that strictly from an on-the-field, baseball perspective of trying to field your best team.
The fact that we couldn't get Jon Garland for the same deal (as it was summarily leaked big-time to the media, thanks to the help of our very own comical writer) helped set the market. I also wanted to know how much influence he had from higher up on being coerced into making this trade. Its not like Tim has been some free-wheeling dealer of his own prospects the last 2 and a half years. Sure, he made the final call... and will get all the blame... but I doubt he acted alone. We know he's ultra conservative with his own prospects.
joe morgan is on 610 talking about taveras. he says it was a mistake because the astros needed that added speed. he was asked what he thinks is wrong with the astros.
But the Jennings trade had a lot of us going .."We gave up HOW MUCH?" It was a bad deal, and it was pretty obvious to a lot of people here. DD
that was my initial reaction to it...i warmed up on it when i considered how much we needed a #2 starter. and because i HOPED it would work out. but, yeah...as of right now, it doesn't look so great.
Someone yesterday referred to as "the worst trade in the history of this franchise". Man, how quickly we forget trading away Cammy and Finley, or worse yet the Morgan trade (*shudder*) or even the Don Clendennon/Rusty Staub fiasco. Here's an amateur writeup from a fan that's a few years old (the write-up, not the fan): http://www.astrosdaily.com/files/trans/worsttrades.html
it's certainly the worst of pupurpa's tenure......... what's really frustrating about it, beyond jennings' failure, is that the guys we dealt would really help us right now - taveras at the top of the line-up and in the field, buchholz in the 'pen and hirsh as another viable candidate for the rotation.
I hear you. And to compound your frustration, you saw it coming. You called it. Now you know how Max and others felt when David Carr got his extension!! (I realize the analogy probably falls short, but all in good fun.) Seriously, I didn't expect this from Jennings. I *did* expect Willy's numbers to go up due to the spacious OF and slow IF (IIRC) up at Coors. But I thought Burke would hit and Jennings would fill a Pettitte-type role in the 2-slot in the rotation, and we would contend. (Not to mention Berkman and the bullpen imploding and Roy having a down year--the perfect storm of sucktitude.) What a disaster. 2000 all over again.
For whatever reason, Hirsh has not been using, or hasn't been as successful with, his sinker as a major leaguer. He's one of the most extreme fly-ball pitchers in MLB. Not exactly a good thing in MMP. Jury's very much still out on TB as a reliever, that seems to be where his career path has him headed. He's had some success this year, but it's early. Including Taveras instead of Burke in that deal looks very bad right now. That may change, who knows? The one thing that really, really, hacks me off about that trade is that the Stros didn't get a better additional piece than Miggy Asencio. I had a couple of people, who saw him pitch a few times in RR & would know about these things, tell me that whoever scouted that guy for the Stros needs to be sent packing, post-haste.
i'm not sure i called much of anything; it just seemed like a deal for the sake of a deal in the wake of the pettitte signing. i couldn't for the life of me understand how jennings was enough of an upgrade over hirsh to merit shipping off two other components, including our starting CF. but what really irks me about it is its urgency - why did they make such a drastic, definitive move in december? why couldn't they go into spring training and give their numerous question marks a chance to figure things out first so that they could get a better feel for where they were as a team?
What else would that accomplish besides them already knowing that "we need more pitching?" They knew that as soon as Pettite wasn't going to re-sign here. Certainly, they couldn't anticipate Oswalt, Berkman, Qualls, Wheeler, and Lidge all having the seasons they've had thus far... if they did, there would have been no deals being made. Once again... it was a risk... but its not like its something they have zero chance at recovering from. In the long run, if Willy Taveras is the only player that truly blossoms in this deal (but still not necessarily an all-star), the franchise won't be having a Kenny Lofton/Curt Schilling/Johan Santana-like remorse. Beyond that, Willy doesn't make this team all that much better this year.... now, 2007 Willy + Oswalt being Oswalt + Berkman being 2006 Berkman + Lidge/Qualls/Wheeler all dominating may have been something to build on.... but you replace 2007 Willy with 2007 Pence, and 2006 Jennings (something they were expecting a little of)... and all the other things stay true to form as expected... I don't see why the expectations would be less.
I don't think anyone has really claimed it to be at the level of horrible, worst-in-history type trades. But that shouldn't be the standard either. Looking at next year, here are things we need at a minimum: CF/RF, 3B, C, SP, SP, RP, RP (7 positions) You'd also like to improve your outfield defense and add a leadoff-type hitter. Of that, if you had Hirsh/Buchholz/Taveras, you have the good outfield defense & leadoff hitter, your outfielder, a SP, and a RP - all at the low cost of under $1MM. It massively reduces the number of holes you have to fill in the team, letting you focus your resources on 4 positions (3B / C / SP / RP) instead of 7. That's what makes it a bad deal. Even if only 2 of the 3 end up functional MLB players, that lets you focus on 5 positions instead of 7.
And what if only 1 of the 3 are functional? Hell, only 1 out of the 3 (Taveras) right now would represent any type of upgrade on this team. Hirsh and Buchholz aren't guaranteeing you a quality SP and RP any time soon... and it means nothing if they don't reach their "potential" till 2, 3, or even 4 years from now (assuming they reach a potential determined solely by minor league stats/hype... less by "stuff"). By that time, Oswalt and Berkman are approaching the final years of their contract (and their mid-30's), Lee has the potential of being a big question-mark due to weight issues, Lidge-Qualls-Wheeler are all long gone (or are being overpaid by us). The above is the "core" of this team... and summarily get paid as such. If you're not planning on attempting to build a winning team with those guys, why sign them to the big deals in the first place? Just be like the A's and pick one guy (Chavez), and let the rest go in favor of the younger arb-elgible ones. And its that core (with the exception of Lee) that was counted on to be something that they are not this year... and simply not doing the trade wouldn't have changed that. (and as far as the payroll goes... the Astros have similiar if not better options to Hirsh/Buchholz in the minors right now... they couldn't do much worse).
but you're arguing what it would take for the astros to be contenders. i'm merely supposing that (and i think major would agree with me), rather than being 15, 16 games under .500 and in last place... the astros would be... 4, 5, maybe 6 wins better had they invested in taveras and pence instead of burke and scott. but more importantly, they'd be better positioned to address what are still glaring needs on this team heading into 2008. with taveras, without taveras - it's still a bad baseball team.
nick, reread major's post - we're trying to build a winning team around the core. we feel it would have been easier if they had kept those three; taveras, alone, addresses two GIANT needs while the other two are cheap arms that cost you next to nothing to find out whether they have it. instead, you're looking for a lead-off hitter, looking to upgrade your defense, looking for young arms to step up... in addition to all the other problems the team must address.
Then you'd be 1 player better than you now will be going into 2008. I'd say Hirsh would be an upgrade over Woody Willliams and maybe Jennings right now. I'd say Buchholz would be an improvement in the backend of the bullpen right now. Who's talking about guarantees? If you have questionmarks at the back end of your rotation, would you rather hope 2 out of 4 people turn out functional, or 2 out of 6, especially when 1 of the added people was your top prospect last year? You're assuming guys would take 4 years to develop? Based on this standard, we should just dump ALL of our prospects. None of them are going to be stars within 2 years, so why not trade them all, no? Taveras is developing now. Hirsh/Buchholz would likely improve in their 2nd and 3rd years in the majors - that's also now. They would likely keep improving if they are going to become really good players, but they would start that process and be functional players over the first few years. Again - we're talking 2008, not 2007. Really? Who? From the description of Patton - apparently our best prospect - he's at best a #3 and possibly a bullpen guy. Again - why on earth would you judge a pitcher, of all positions, based on their first year in the majors? Or in the case of making the decision in the offseason, based on their first 9 or 10 starts. Unless your decision making is Oswalt-or-crap, you can't know much more about a pitcher with 9 starts in the majors than you did the day they came up, because the vast majority will take a year or more to get settled.
nick, sincere question: what's your beef? i can understand defending the trade under the guise of it being a priority at the time it went down... but 6-7 months later, seeing what a bust jennings has been, seeing how desperate this team is for a taveras-type in its line-up, looking at all the work that needs to be done in 2008.... what ground is there left for you to be standing on? would you, right now, trade jennings for taveras, hirsh and buchholz? and if by some incredible stretch your answer is no, then why the h-e-double hockey sticks not?
