i love its urgency. the team got proactive - they indentified problems and then they went about trying to solve them today; not tomorrow when the market for available players might look like a grocery isle the day before a hurricane. and in doing so, they set the bar for everyone else in the league. i love that cardinal fans are probably spilling into message boards wondering what their team is gonna do now. additionally, as they did in '04, they got a producitve, somewhat under the radar guy who may wind up being the best bat on the market who they may be able to reasonably resign (as beltran would have been had it not been for an unbelievable october). and best of all, they served notice - and not just to other NL teams, but in their own clubhouse - last year is history; no time to rest on those accomplishments. they option lane on the heels of a horrible all-around game for him; they've also dropped the gauntlet on ensberg - step up, or you'll be gone, too. don't belive us? call jason. and purpura all but spilled that taveras' days are numbered. drayton continues to run a first-class ML operation that should all make us proud. i hope huff comes in and delivers on the promise.
exactly they pulled off the perfect trade in a BUYERs market, instantly improving our line-up ten fold. hopefully ensberg does take notice, and begins playing like the potential MVP he was last year. if not...the perfect trade would be to send ensberg to San Dog for Kottaras. looks like the stros are going to pull off their patented second half turnaround.
I hope Huff becomes our Beltran couple years back... well except for the "leaving us for more money" part.
I don't really want to say what I like most about this deal. Let's just say that it's nice to be continually proven right about this organization.
The sense of urgency is the best thing about this trade. By getting one guy, a fire is lit under the asses of three more -- Lane, Ensberg and Taveras. How much pressure is Ensberg under between now and July 31? Not to mention the bullpen guys have to know that they're on the clock now, too. It would've been easy for management to say "How could we have known Lane would regress, Taveras would regress, and Ensberg would become a .200 hitter with no confidence all at the same time?" and simply stand pat? Way to be proactive and get the big fish off the market before the frenzy. Kinda reminds me of the Beltran deal.
what an excellent point..i really hadn't thought of that. the beltran deal shocked me because it was sooo early. this one is like that, too. and we had no one breaking the story before it happened. there weren't 13 threads here last night discussing a huff rumor.
The best part of this deal is having Lane sent back to the farm to work on his game and getting another guy in here that can play 3rd base so we can sit Morgan down without having to worry about Lamb's defense at first. If Morgan can get some time off to reset, and he can come back anywhere near as good as we know he can be, this team just got ALOT better. Now we need to worry about the bullpen.
Same with the Randy Johnson deal. And Moises Alou. No pub until it's done. Smart. Really freakin' smart.
No doubt... in fact, those are the best deals out there because you don't have to worry about the possibility of it falling through. Frankly, whenever you hear a "rumor", its because it was leaked intentionally... not because it was "close to being done, so they might as well tell people early." And, whenever something is leaked... leverage is trying to be gained somehow... and that inevitably heightens the possibility of everything falling through.
because my thoughts and opinions are important and shouldn't be forced to share space with other, less informed opinions offered up from the masses and people of that ilk. come on - i thought that was obvious...
Actually, Richard Justice posted on his blog last week the Astros contacted the Devil Rays for Huff and he posted the link to the article as well.
nice. but yeah, great post initially.. I was thinking the same--that it's great that we got this done before others started dealing and before the rumors. But totally forgot that this has been the MO from previous years...shoot, I even forgot Beltran was like that! (although your post does drudge up that we could have had the Beltran we're seeing this year for a reasonable amount of $$ if not for an October that didn't end in a championship or WS appearance..)