I'm not sure what Saunders' contract situation is, but if he has multiple years under club control, he can be of value. Career 4.3 ERA-ish guy in the AL usually translates to an ERA of 4 or so in the NL, which could be very solid for a No. 3 or 4 in a rotation. If they have Saunders under club control and can get that kind of production for a reasonable rate, he can help.
Jon Heyman: Buster: via Buster: My bad -- in my initial reaction to Joe Saunders, for some reason I thought he was in his late 30s. He's 29.. more reasonable than I first thought.
Neither is considered to be a top prospect and they didn't even crack the Baseball America Top 15 prospects of the Angles. However, the PTBNL is expected to be a top prospect. http://twitter.com/nickpiecoro/status/19525646315
The Angels have acquired Dan Haren from Arizona in exchange for Joe Saunders, Patrick Corbin, Rafael Rodriguez, and a player to be named later, according to Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News (via Twitter). The player to be named later is a top prospect, a source tells Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (via Twitter). They will choose the PTBNL from a short list, tweets Jon Heyman of SI, but it won't include 2009 first-round selection Mike Trout, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo (via Twitter). great news for us. that sounds like exactly the type of package we are looking for. something tells me roy goes to the yankees, and we get montero.
Woah Angels just cockblocked NY just like the Rangers did hopefully the Yankees do the same to the Phillies, but I don't think so unless they know Pettite retires after this year
The Yankees have to look at it like "who will be our 1-2-3 in the playoffs?" 1. Sabathia After that, they have Burnett, Pettite, Hughes and Vazquez to choose from. Burnett has been wildly inconsistent. Great start to the season followed by a horrible stretch. Pettitte is a lock to be the #2 or #3... if healthy. He's on the DL right now so that may factor into their thinking a little. Vazquez has been largely disappointing and there have been multiple rumors of them looking to move him. Hughes has been pretty good but also up and down and he's young with minimal postseason experience and none as a starter. Roy is a proven 2nd half performer and has had postseason success. If they believe in... 1. Sabathia 2. Oswalt 3. Pettitte (or swap 2 and 3) then maybe they pull the trigger. But that means they use Hughes out of the pen again as they've done in his only 2 postseason experiences. It also leaves the question of what to do with Burnett and Vazquez. It's hard to see anybody wanting either of those guys. One because of the size of his contract. The other because his contract is expiring and he's not in demand. I just don't see the Yankees willing to sit Burnett or use him in a minimal role given that they're going to be stuck with him for several years for better or worse. I think that may be the critical factor in whether or not they are serious about pursuing Oswalt or any other top of the line SP. Then again, the fact that they were reportedly interested in Lee and Haren means they may be willing to bump Burnett out of that postseason rotation. That, or they are just using the trade talks to scare some of their pitchers into performing better. I have a feeling this may be the case.
Yikes that is a terrible package. None of the named prospects are even B level and the Angels only really top prospect (Trout) isn't on the ptnl list. I'd be severly disappointed if that's the type of return the Astros get from Oswalt. The Yankees aren't including Monero in a trade. Out of the teams mentioned, I would be happiest with a packaged centered on either Miller with the Cardinals or Singleton with the Philly.
buster olney just said that sentiment was that they got a good trade, and that corbin is a B+/A- prospect.
i read somewhere haren didnt wanna leave the west coast, and wouldnt waive his no trade clause, so that severely limited who the d-backs could trade him too. not sure if its true or not though.
Going into the season Sickels rated Corbin as a C+ prospect and 22nd in the Angels system. He was the 12th rated prospect in the Angels system by Baseball America. He's had a good year in A ball so I'm sure he's improved his stock some, but he's not what I'd consider a "top prospect" Assuming the ptnl is Skaggs, none of the prospects are a top 50, or even top 100, prospect. So perhaps it wasn't a "terrible" package for Arizona. But it was a mediocre package and is pretty far from what the Astros are asking for.
Reading the tweets from people like Buster Olney & Jon Heyman, whatever people around here think, the general perception of the national sportswriters seems to be that the Diamondbacks sold cheap and didn't get the best deal.
But the thing with prospects is you can pretty safely assume a high failure rate. Every year, there are a ton of blue chip "can't miss" prospects who fall on their face. If you trade Roy for three top prospects, it is entirely within the realm of the possible that one becomes a journeyman, and two of them never play a game in the majors. So in that instance, what is better? Trading Roy for a roll of the roulette wheel, or trading him for a good proven young player. If you take the proven 25 year old, you can sign him to a long term deal, or if that won't work, you can still flip him for prospects after a couple of years. There's more upside on the prospects, but also a whole lot more risk. If the Astros get 10x more value than they expect, they could end up package of some top 50 rated blue chip prospects like Eric Anthony, Daryl Ward, Scott Elarton and Carlos Hernandez. There was a time when all of those guys would have been considered coveted young prospect centerpieces by themselves in a trade for a front line pitcher like Roy O. Kemp is young enough that if you like him, you can arrange to have him around when the team is good again. Trading for him as part of a package would effectively be a hedging bet on the gamble of prospects.
But neither of your options helps the Astros all that much over the long haul. If you sign him to a long-term deal, that's something you could have done without trading for him (whether it be Kemp or another similar player) - and you're stuck paying him. If you flip him for more prospects, then you face the same situation you have now with the riskiness of prospects - but you delay the rebuilding by a couple of more years while waiting for those guys. If you were going to trade Kemp for more prospects in 2012, why not just trade Oswalt for the prospects now? At the end of the day, when the Astros are hopefully good again in 3-4 years, they'll most likely have a combination of good cheap players and good expensive players. Your idea works if you are looking for your expensive players now. But you can always get expensive players later through free agency - what the team should focus on first, in my opinion, is collecting as many cheap players as possible that could be cornerstones of the team. Then once you have those in place, you spend the money to fill in the holes. The exception would be if no one is willing to trade any prospects for Oswalt. If that's the case, then yeah, you look at a Kemp. But I don't think the Astros should *prefer* a Kemp over a prospect or 1st year major league type player that you control for 5 more years at least.
I disagree. Both options help more than the worst-case and less than the best-case for your preferred outcome. And therefore they have value for being safer. It isn't a rotisserie league. There is value in having the guy around and seeing if he fits with your staff. Maybe he comes here, feels very comfortable, falls in love with the place and signs a very team friendly deal. But if he never falls in love with the place, when you sign him he asks for a whole lot more money. Alternately, maybe the Astros decide to sign him to a free agent deal in two years, but if they had traded for him they would have learned about his secret cocaine habit, penchant for beating up hookers and the subtle ways he causes strife in the clubhouse, and would have avoided giving him that big contract. If signing other team's free agents = signing your own free agents, teams would never make trades. Well, among other things, the Dodgers apparently have a pretty piss poor list of prospects. If you take Kemp and one or two prospects that you like, you can then trade Kemp, maybe even as soon as this winter, to another team that has prospects you like better. What if the options are Kemp, or prospects you don't particularly believe in? Would you still want the "prospects" your scouts doubt will ever see the majors?
