The Big Trade

The big trade between the Tigers, Yankees and Diamondbacks appears to be final.  I decided to wait until I was sure who the players were going to be before committing anything to writing.

Trades of this magnitude are exciting, but I’m not sure that I’m really all that excited for any of the teams involved.  The Tigers’ and Yankees’ thinking is clear to me, the D-Backs’ thinking much less so.

The Tigers obviously dumped salary and got a lot of good young players with many, many years before free agency.  As a Tigers’ fan, I wouldn’t be so thrilled, at least for 2010.  The Tigers just missed the play-offs this year, and it’s hard to see them playing better in 2010 without Granderson and Jackson.  However, it does look like they got some players they can build around.

The Yankees upgraded in centerfield, at least compared to what they got from Melky Cabrera in 2009, and the trade really didn’t cost them any players (Ian Kennedy, Phil Coke and Austin Jackson) they can’t live without.  The risk to the Yankees is that Curtis Granderson’s OPS dropped each of the last two years, down from .913 in 2007 to .780 last season.  Given his age next year (29) and his body type, he will probably have an OPS over .800 next season, but you never can tell.

One thing I don’t like about this deal is that they’ve now turned Cabrera into a player with little value, at least as a Yankee.  He doesn’t hit enough to play the corner outfield positions, but his. .752 OPS in 2009 was the best of his career, and he will still be only 25 years old next season.  The Yankees now have to trade Cabrera, if they want to get real value for him, but they won’t be trading from a position of strength.

In short, I’m going to wait to see what the Yankees get in trade for Cabrera, and what Cabrera and Granderson do over the next three seasons, but I cast any final judgments on this deal as far as the Yankees are concerned.

The Tigers got a good bunch of young players a long way from free agency.  Max Scherzer is the best of the bunch.  He was the 11th player selected in the 2006 Draft, and through age 24 he has a major league pitching line as follows: 3.86 ERA (pitching his home games in a hitters’ park), 226.1 IP, 214 hits and 84 walks allowed, and 240 K’s.  The strikeouts number is extremely impressive and his ratios are excellent for a player of his age and professional experience.

Reliever Dan Schlereth was the 26th pick in the 2008.  He’ll be 23 next year, and while he doesn’t have major league command yet, he’s clearly got good stuff, posting 22 Ks in 18.1 major league innings and 39 Ks in 26.2 AA innings last season.

Austin Jackson also looks very promising.  He’s been rated the Yankees’ first or second best prospect the last two seasons by Baseball America.  In 2008 he had a .773 OPS in AA, and in 2009 he had a .759 OPS in AAA.  Not great, but pretty good for a centerfielder.  I suspect he needs at least another 60 games in AAA, but if he continues to improve at the same pace as he has the last few seasons, he should be in the majors to stay by early in 2011.

The last player the Tigers got, Phil Coke, will be 27 next year and looks to be a capable major league left-handed middle reliever, but probably nothing more than that.

I really don’t understand this deal being made by the D-Backs.  In obtaining Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy, they gave up almost exactly the same thing in Scherzer and Schlereth, except that Scherzer and Schlereth are younger and less expensive.  The only way I can see this deal making sense for the D-Backs is if they think they have a real shot at making the playoffs in 2010.  The pitchers they got have a better chance of helping the D-Backs in 2010 than the pitchers they gave up, but after 2010 I’d much have the pitchers who will now be Tigers, and that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that surgery to remove an aneurysm in his pitching arm limited Ian Kennedy to four AAA starts and one major league relief appearance last year.

If win now is the D-Backs’ reasoning, it doesn’t appear to make much sense.  The D-Backs finished dead last in the NL West last year, posting a poor 70-92 record, and while they finished only two games behind the first-place Dodgers in 2008, their 82-80 record was hardly impressive.  In 2010, the Dodgers, Giants and Rockies all have a reasonable chance of being 90-win teams, and I don’t see how trading Max Scherzer and Dan Schlereth for Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy is going to get the D-Backs to 90 wins next season.

The thing I find most unsettling about the D-Back’s part in this trade is that they are trading two recent first round draft picks for two players who play the same positions.  Most teams try to build their teams around their first round picks and will usually trade a first round pick only to fill a glaring hole at another position (like the Giants trading late first-round pick, pitcher Tim Alderson, for 2Bman Freddie Sanchez at the trade deadline last season).

When a team trades two recent first-round picks like this, it sure doesn’t send a message of faith in the team’s scouting department.  It also smacks of an attack of the grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-mountain or better-the-devil-you-don’t-know.   It’s not the kind of move that makes me think the team making it has clear idea what they’re trying to do or how you go about building a winning baseball team.