Brian argued that the Pirates may have the last laugh in the Jason Bay trade. Let me see if I capture the essence of your argument, Bird.
We have a 3rd basemen who might be a good enough hitter that if he gets moved second base might be top five in the National League? And a pitcher that we hope no longer stinks in A-ball? (But look at the guy's picture... I can't wait to root for that.)
Weaker than the bones of your air-friendly skeleton, Birdman. And you completely lost me with the stats... weren't you the guy just chiding Anthony about sample size?
You're right that Jason Bay has some flaws. But no list of these flaws would include "wasn't a huge trading chip in 2008." Think of it in reverse: if the Pirates wanted to move LaRoche and Morris today for a proven player, what could they get? Not Franklin Gutierrez, and certainly not Cliff Lee, who were offered together by Cleveland for Bay and Ronny bleepin' Paulino. The Pirates thought they deserved more and nixed it.
Oh, by the way - if you've got twenty bucks, I've got a paper and pencil that could be an OK letter someday.
I would be curious to see if we could find one person in the world who predicted the turnaround of Cliff Lee and the emergence of Franklin Gutierrez. They came that far out of nowhere. I know all the sabremetric systems didn't see it. At the time, this was a no brainer to decline. It was an attempted salary dump by Cleveland (from what I remember, they were more interested in Paulino I believe) and the Pirates wanted to see if Bay could recover after a horrible 2007. Both teams regret that non-trade with the benefit of hindsight.
ReplyDeleteA fair point on Cliff Lee, but I don't think Gutierrez has succeeded beyond expectations. He was viewed as a "B" prospect and really hasn't "emerged" beyond that point. That offer was made following the 2007 season where he had 13 homers, 8 SB, and a .790 OPS in 271 AB.
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