Peter Gammons on Crane

[WLL1855]

Originally Posted by TDog

Funny, isn't it, that two blown saves in June can sound such panic alarms?

...

Especially since almost every closer has a bad week during the year at some point. Even the elite guys.

[TDog]

Originally Posted by SCCWS

Boston may take the approach that they can sign him beyond this season if they are interested. That may not help the White Sox though in getting a better prospect for him.

Perhaps, but that might be contingent on Crain agreeing to a contract before the trade is completed. I'm not sure what his value is as a free agent and whether what he is looking for is better than a team trading for him might be willing to give him. He is having his best season, but he has never been his team's closer. He is over 30 and has never been a very durable pitcher, never pitching 80 innings. There were GMs who questioned the contract he got from the Sox. But a free-agent year is a great year to have a career year.

If you're going to give up talent you believe you need in your system, you generally want more innings than Crain should be expected to give you. It could be a matter of the White Sox looking at someone specific they want who may be under the radar. Another possibility would be talent considered minimal talent or low minors longshots and cash in addition to Crain's contract coming off the books. Former White Sox minor leaguer Javier Lopez is a very important set-up man in the Giants bullpen in two World Series championship runs. The Giants acquired him late in 2010 from the Pirates for two players with some potential but no place in the Giants plans. Neither has played for the Pirates since 2011.

If you have a player that a lot of teams are asking about, you generally don't agree to get rid of him for a relief pitcher (because they pitch so few innings) if you can get more out of him, even if you don't make a trade for something more. You should be able get more in the offseason. It's a smarter use of your resources.

But GMs sometimes do things that make you question if they are smart.

[Chez]

Originally Posted by TDog

Perhaps, but that might be contingent on Crain agreeing to a contract before the trade is completed. I'm not sure what his value is as a free agent and whether what he is looking for is better than a team trading for him might be willing to give him. He is having his best season, but he has never been his team's closer. He is over 30 and has never been a very durable pitcher, never pitching 80 innings. There were GMs who questioned the contract he got from the Sox. But a free-agent year is a great year to have a career year.

If you're going to give up talent you believe you need in your system, you generally want more innings than Crain should be expected to give you. It could be a matter of the White Sox looking at someone specific they want who may be under the radar. Another possibility would be talent considered minimal talent or low minors longshots and cash in addition to Crain's contract coming off the books. Former White Sox minor leaguer Javier Lopez is a very important set-up man in the Giants bullpen in two World Series championship runs. The Giants acquired him late in 2010 from the Pirates for two players with some potential but no place in the Giants plans. Neither has played for the Pirates since 2011.

If you have a player that a lot of teams are asking about, you generally don't agree to get rid of him for a relief pitcher (because they pitch so few innings) if you can get more out of him, even if you don't make a trade for something more. You should be able get more in the offseason. It's a smarter use of your resources.

But GMs sometimes do things that make you question if they are smart.

TDog, I agree. I think many are overestimating the return the Sox would get for Crain or Thornton. Look at how little KW and RH got from Toronto for Sergio Santos. Santos was coming off a great season and had just signed a team-friendly extension. Sure, since traded he's been hurt for nearly two seasons, but at the time Santos had no injury history and was a pretty marketable asset.

[Tragg]

Originally Posted by Chez

TDog, I agree. I think many are overestimating the return the Sox would get for Crain or Thornton. Look at how little KW and RH got from Toronto for Sergio Santos. Santos was coming off a great season and had just signed a team-friendly extension. Sure, since traded he's been hurt for nearly two seasons, but at the time Santos had no injury history and was a pretty marketable asset.

The Orioles got Chris Davis from the Rangers for a set-up man. You just have to scout well. We scouted poorly (and were basically looking to dump Santos anyway and he was dealt to Toronto, and late-era Williams trades were pretty poor overall).
We will get a good prospect for him. Just scout well, bide our time, and let them get desperate.

[TDog]

Originally Posted by Tragg

The Orioles got Chris Davis from the Rangers for a set-up man. You just have to scout well. We scouted poorly (and were basically looking to dump Santos anyway and he was dealt to Toronto, and late-era Williams trades were pretty poor overall).
We will get a good prospect for him. Just scout well, bide our time, and let them get desperate.

The Orioles also got a relief pitcher along with Chris Davis. It was considered a stupid deal for the Rangers long before the old pitcher the Rangers got didn't pitch particularly well in limited action. The Rangers could have picked up someone that could have given them what Uehara did for much less, and they could have gotten more for Davis. The people who OKed that deal probably don't want to make a similar mistake again.

It isn't just a matter of scouting well. It is a matter of scouting well and finding someone who the organization you're trading with has undervalued for whatever reason. The Rangers could have got more for Chris Davis, even if they internally questioned his future in the organization. Sometimes an organization believes it has scouted well but later discovers there was reason the acquired value came so cheaply.

Santos was worth pretty much what the Sox got for him. It was a matter of finding a player who had a chance to develop in their system. In two major league seasons as a reliever, Santos ceased being reliable in August, and he never pitched 70 innings in a season, anywhere. The Sox knew he was limited out of the bullpen. Other teams knew he was limited out of the bullpen. And I don't think Santos has pitched 10 major league innings since leaving the Sox. Like most trades, Santos for Molina failed to help either team.

It is true that teams have made dumb deals. So many teams have made dumb deals that increasingly more organizations are loathe to make similar mistakes in the future.

Fans look at the rare examples of solid future major leaguers who were acquired for aging veterans at the deadline and seem to believe that is what's out there. The truth is what is out there are your Nestor Molinas. The deals that don't return future major league stars are the rule. The big prospects going for relief pitchers are the exception.

[Huisj]

Originally Posted by TDog

The Orioles also got a relief pitcher along with Chris Davis. It was considered a stupid deal for the Rangers long before the old pitcher the Rangers got didn't pitch particularly well in limited action. The Rangers could have picked up someone that could have given them what Uehara did for much less, and they could have gotten more for Davis. The people who OKed that deal probably don't want to make a similar mistake again.

Could they have gotten much more for Davis? Let's not rewrite history here.

Don't forget though that he hit .192 in 2010 and struck out 150 times in 391 AB in 2009. They'd given up on him essentially by 2011 when they traded him--he was hardly playing and wasn't hitting much when he did. Mitch Moreland was getting the playing time. Davis mashed in AAA, but looked like a AAAA guy whenever he came up. To the Orioles, he was basically a buy-low guy with maybe a chance to turn it around and have some upside with low risk to them since all they gave up was an old middle reliever.

[Tragg]

Originally Posted by TDog

The Orioles also got a relief pitcher along with Chris Davis. It was considered a stupid deal for the Rangers long before the old pitcher the Rangers got didn't pitch particularly well in limited action. The Rangers could have picked up someone that could have given them what Uehara did for much less, and they could have gotten more for Davis. The people who OKed that deal probably don't want to make a similar mistake again.

It isn't just a matter of scouting well. It is a matter of scouting well and finding someone who the organization you're trading with has undervalued for whatever reason. The Rangers could have got more for Chris Davis, even if they internally questioned his future in the organization. Sometimes an organization believes it has scouted well but later discovers there was reason the acquired value came so cheaply.

Santos was worth pretty much what the Sox got for him. It was a matter of finding a player who had a chance to develop in their system. In two major league seasons as a reliever, Santos ceased being reliable in August, and he never pitched 70 innings in a season, anywhere. The Sox knew he was limited out of the bullpen. Other teams knew he was limited out of the bullpen. And I don't think Santos has pitched 10 major league innings since leaving the Sox. Like most trades, Santos for Molina failed to help either team.

It is true that teams have made dumb deals. So many teams have made dumb deals that increasingly more organizations are loathe to make similar mistakes in the future.

Fans look at the rare examples of solid future major leaguers who were acquired for aging veterans at the deadline and seem to believe that is what's out there. The truth is what is out there are your Nestor Molinas. The deals that don't return future major league stars are the rule. The big prospects going for relief pitchers are the exception.

Within the realm of the quality of prospects that teams would give for Santos, we chose poorly. We didn't pick someone we could develop...we picked someone that I assume we thought was developed; in reality, he was stunted and then declined (which is common). We didn't shop around. It wasn't good.
We did the same thing with the same team for Jackson, which makes me wonder a lot about what we were doing.

I agree that we have to find someone that another team undervalues. But that's always true, really. But it's hard to be impressed with the results of the Sox scouting other teams' farm systems in recent years.

[soxnut1018]

Why trade Crane when we can build around him and Jeff Konerko?

[Tragg]

Originally Posted by Huisj

Could they have gotten much more for Davis? Let's not rewrite history here.

Don't forget though that he hit .192 in 2010 and struck out 150 times in 391 AB in 2009. They'd given up on him essentially by 2011 when they traded him--he was hardly playing and wasn't hitting much when he did. Mitch Moreland was getting the playing time. Davis mashed in AAA, but looked like a AAAA guy whenever he came up. To the Orioles, he was basically a buy-low guy with maybe a chance to turn it around and have some upside with low risk to them since all they gave up was an old middle reliever.

Kind of what Carlos Quentin was. We gave up one of our top prospects for him, although Carter wasn't ML ready at the time.

[Chez]

Originally Posted by Tragg

Kind of what Carlos Quentin was. We gave up one of our top prospects for him, although Carter wasn't ML ready at the time.

And to complete the story, we got next to nothing from SD for Quentin!

[SCCWS]

Originally Posted by TDog

It isn't just a matter of scouting well. It is a matter of scouting well and finding someone who the organization you're trading with has undervalued for whatever reason. The Rangers could have got more for Chris Davis, even if they internally questioned his future in the organization. Sometimes an organization believes it has scouted well but later discovers there was reason the acquired value came so cheaply.

.

I think there is another factor besides scouting well, who you are trading with. Boston is always loaded with position player prospects. Add to that the fact that they are constantly trying to keep up with the Yankees. So a team like Boston may overpay when they see a weakness they have may prevent them from a postseason.
I think it is interesting that Middlebrooks, the guy who made Youk a White Sox, is now stuck on the bench because a prospect behind him came up when he got injured and has hit over .400 for a month. So some teams may overpay because they have several good prospects in the minors that play the same position. Boston traded Josh Reddick to Oakland for a relief pitcher. He is the one that Crane was mentioned as a possible replacement for.

By the way, we don't want Middlebrooks for Crane.

[DonnieDarko]

Originally Posted by SCCWS

By the way, we don't want Middlebrooks for Crane.

Just curious here: I haven't kept up much with East Coast baseball. What's so bad about Middlebrooks? At least when he came up I remember that he was hitting like crazy. What's happened since then?

[Tragg]

Originally Posted by Chez

And to complete the story, we got next to nothing from SD for Quentin!

It was nearly identical to the 2 Toronto trades. We took a AAA pitching prospect who was stunted and then declined the moment we got him.
But on all both Santos and Quentin, I just got the feeling that we wanted to dump them....just get rid of them. I don't know what we were doing with Jackson...we waited and waited and waited and on the last day, we got rid of Teehan's salary, and Toronto got the CF they wanted, and, a couple of months later, the Cardinals won the WS with him.

[SCCWS]

Originally Posted by DonnieDarko

Just curious here: I haven't kept up much with East Coast baseball. What's so bad about Middlebrooks? At least when he came up I remember that he was hitting like crazy. What's happened since then?

.192 avg and 60 strkeouts in 200 abs. He is worse than Viciedo and Flowers. But he has had some injries so that may play into it.

[DonnieDarko]

Originally Posted by SCCWS

.192 avg and 60 strkeouts in 200 abs. He is worse than Viciedo and Flowers. But he has had some injries so that may play into it.

lolwut

Man, I hate to see rookies come on to the scene on fire and then peter out like that. Well, he's still got time left of course, and like you said injuries could be a part of why he's doing so poorly. I guess what I'm getting at is that I think that, even if it's in a place like Boston or New York, that it's good for excellent young talent to come into the league. Ergo, seeing Middlebrooks play like that when he showed some promise is a bit disheartening.

Still have hope for the kid.