A's Hit the Jackpot

The A’s traded Matt Holliday to the Cardinals today and got a lot more than I expected.  In my mind, all the Cardinals had to do was give the A’s more than than the A’s would have gotten if they had kept Holliday, offered him arbitration and then took the two draft picks when Holliday signed as a free agent for someone else.

Here’s my previous post on the topic.

The A’s ultimately received at least one more good young player from the Cardinals than what would have been a good move for the A’s.  The A’s will pay $1.5M of Holliday’s remaining 2009 salary, which means the A’s save $4.5M on what they would have had to pay Holliday had they kept him.

Aside from Brett Wallace, who’s likely better than any player the A’s could have drafted with a free agent compensation pick, the A’s received two more highly drafted, young players, right-handed P Clayton Mortensen and OF Shane Peterson.  Mortensen was the 37th pick of the 2007 Draft (a Sandwich pick) and Peterson was the 59th pick of the 2008 Draft (second round).

Mortensen is 24 this year, and knocking on the door of the big leagues.  As a former 1st round draft pick out of college, he has been rushed through the Cardinals’ minor league system.

Mortensen has a career minor league ERA of 4.31, which isn’t good.  However, at AAA Memphis so far this year, he has a 4.37 ERA with 103 hits allowed, 11 HRs allowed, 34 walks and 82 strikeouts in 105 IP, which suggests that he’s close to being a big league pitcher.

Shane Peterson has also been a little overmatched in the minors because he has been promoted rapidly.  His career minor league OPS is only .795 in 589 ABs.  However, he is a 21 year old player now playing in AA ball, which means he’s a legitimate prospect.

I didn’t think that trading for Matt Holliday last off-season made a lot of sense for the A’s.  I was pretty sure his numbers would drop off in a big way moving from Coors Field to the Oakland Coliseum.

Still, you can’t blame the A’s for trying.  They thought their young players might be ready this year and Holliday would provide a big bat and a veteran presence for a possible pennant race.  That turned out not to be the case, but the A’s have at least turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse, getting as much as they could get for Holliday when the getting was good.