A Season for Giving

We witnessed more trades and big signings in the last week than we probably will for any other week for the rest of the winter. I’m going to dive right in with my first impressions of each deal.

-White Sox get Javier Vazquez, Diamondbacks get Orlando Hernandez, Luis Vizcaino, Chris Young
My initial reaction when I saw this headline on ESPN was an open mouth, wide-eyes and a slowly shaking head. I remember a couple of years ago when Kenny Williams would be in on every trade discussion, but only had disappointing players to offer in return. He would then pawn off the same assets he wanted to spend on Ken Griffey on Carl Everett or a completely spent Roberto Alomar. Ever since he broke the prospect bank for Freddy Garcia (and those prospects have been duds so far anyway), things have started looking up. Not only do other GMs appear to take him more seriously, but the same players who used to look like failures can now distract other teams with their shiny World Series rings. In the Thome trade, Aaron Rowand was seen as a real asset. Here, El Duque, the team’s one rotational weakness garnered a borderline ace, albeit an ace with leverage on his old team. Even if Jon Garland and Mark Buehrle come back in the direction of league average next season, the difference between Vazquez and Hernandez should offset it. Vazqueuz will continue to give up lots of HRs (68 in the last 2 years), but the Cell isn’t any worse than the BOB in that respect, and his strong K and BB rates should help offset the damage. The purpose of the trade was to get Vazquez closer to his family in Puerto Rico, and it chopped about 950 miles off of the trip, but he’s still more than 2000 miles away, according to this nifty website.

-Blue Jays get Lyle Overbay; Brewers get David Bush, Gabe Gross, PTBNL
I talked about the value of Overbay’s glove to the team’s new groundball specialist on Monday, but didn’t assess what the Brewers got back. Doug Melvin has been remarkably successful at making trades, with success stories like Overbay and Capuano for Richie Sexson, and Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik. Certainly, this one could look really good for him too, as Bush could pitch a lot of average innings, and Gross the performance record (.297/.380/.438 at AAA) to project to an above average major league OF. In addition to this trade and the Sexson trade, Melvin also acquired Jose Capellan for Dan Kolb last winter, indicating a proclivity for almost-Major League ready talent.

-Cardinals get Larry Bigbie, Aaron Miles; Rockies get Ray King
Bigbie and Miles both have nasty platoon splits and face the difficulty of a post-Coors offensive environment. Still, they’re cheap positional talent who can start for many teams, and all the Rockies got back was a reliever with a 23/16 K/BB ratio last year. King is fine, as long as you are really fond of LaRussian situational lefties, pining for those blissful years of Rick Honeycutt throwing 35 innings in 50 appearances. But St. Louis got over its Mark Grudzielanek headache before it even set in and got a viable replacement for Reggie Sanders in the process.

-Cubs get Juan Pierre; Marlins get Sergio Mitre, Ricky Nolasco, Renyel Pinto
Of all of the Marlins trades, this one might have the biggest return on the smallest investment. With the losses of Beckett and Burnett, Mitre might slot into the rotation right next to Scuffy Moehler. Pinto has decent minor leagues stats, but he is too far off to project with any certainty. Nolasco was exceptional last year at AA, going 14-3 with a 2.89 ERA in 161 IP. He gave up 13 HR and 46 BBs against 173 Ks. It might have been easier for Florida fans if they had received a ball of yarn and some thumb-tacks back in these trades, just to be sure they would not be tempted by another decent Marlins squad in a few years. Pierre, for all of his positive press, had to justify his existence to Cubs fans at his introduction by saying that his contributions do not show up in the box score, but you have to be there to see them. “I guess you had to be there,” is never the optimal ending to a story, and it is rhetorically foreboding for Pierre to start from that point.

-Reds get Tony Womack; Yankees get two C prospects
I include this trade to demonstrate that the Reds still do not have a plan. Even with the swap of Sean Casey for a useful pitcher, they are far away from contending, and wasting over a million bucks on the completely futile Womack does not fix that problem. If they really needed a speedy middle infielder, I’m pretty certain there are a dozen of them on the waiver wire for 1/3 the price of Womack. The only thing standing between Womack and the title of “Worst 2005 Major Leaguer” was the Nationals’ lack of a less putrid alternative to Christian Guzman.

-Angels get J.C. Romero; Twins get Alexi Casilla
This is another trade that I do not believe to be particularly important. Romero could be useful to the Angels in the right situation, such as a postseason series against a team with lots of lefty power. But that scenario requires them to compete, which is no longer a certainty, with a downgraded rotation (losing Washburn and Byrd) and an aging supporting cast surrounding Vlad Guerrero. The AL West will be tough enough with the A’s and Rangers both on the rise, but they also face stiffer Wild Card competition from the eventual loser of the Chicago/Cleveland and New York/Boston races, and possibly from Minnesota and Toronto as well. I don’t have anything to say about Casilla except that he seems fast, that I’m relieved at his decent walk rate, and I’m glad that the Twins are piling up middle infield prospects- a position of relative shallowness in recent years.

-Dodgers get Andre Ethier; A’s get Milton Bradley, Antonio Perez
I’ve talked about how the A’s have positional certainty in the past, and this trade shores up about the only position at which they do not have a young stud signed to a reasonable contract. The assumption is that Bradley will not cause a stir by calling Mark Kotsay a Klansman or slapping Ken Macha’s wife, but the talent is definitely there. Bradley has also been an injury risk in recent years, but it looks to me like Beane is taking a calculated risk and going for it all this year. Look for him to shop Zito, but trading him away for prospects after giving up one of the team’s best minor league OFs (.319/.385/.497 last year at AA and monster numbers in the AFL) does not seem like the first step in a rebuilding process. Plus, if Zito walks, the draft picks he will return as a top FA should not be far off of the package they could get by trading him and losing his 2006 performance.

-Nationals get Alfonso Soriano; Rangers get Brad Wilkerson, Termel Sledge, Armando Galarraga
One of my friends told me that he likes this trade for the Nats on the basis of coolness and potential for jersey sales, but I’m afraid the upside might stop there. Wilkerson and Soriano have nearly opposite skill sets: Soriano is a free swinging bopper with surprising speed and zero plate discipline, while Wilkerson draws lots and lots of walks, plays sound defense with versatility and makes few mistakes. There values are nearly equal on the field, Soriano’s horrid defense and inability to draw walks offset his more noticeable abilities, and Wilkerson’s workmanlike persona undersells his subtle contributions. All other things equal, I’d lean slightly towards Soriano for next season in terms of an overall contribution. All other things are not equal, though, as the Nats gave up two more players and will take on about $10 million to pay for Soriano. And that doesn’t even begin to address the positional nightmare Bowden will face if Soriano continues to refuse a move to the OF. I assumed they had already worked out some sort of agreement to get him to play LF before they made the trade, but apparently, nobody told the Fonz, and now Bowden is sending out feelers for Jose Vidro, which was never part of the plan. Even if it all works out, that still leaves the question of whether Soriano’s power will translate from Arlington to RFK. Altogether, a poorly thought out trade by the Nationals.

My favorite trades of the bunch are Texas getting Wilkerson, et al. and the Cardinals getting useful parts in return for Ray King.