Let’s round up the analysis of Walt Jocketty’s big deadline trade….
—Baseball Prospectus, in a post they titled “The Worst Deadline Deal”:
[T]his was not good business for the Cincinnati ballclub. Rolen’s having a good year, but …
a) Rolen has averaged just 106 games the past 4 seasons.
b) Rolen’s once-intimidating power has been largely extinguished by his injuries (27 HR in 07-09, just over 300 games).
c) Rolen’s BABIP this year is .347, against a career mark of .314, helping him get a career-high .320 AVG.
d) The Reds are no longer competing (realistically) for the playoffs in 2009.
e) Rolen will be 35 in 2010.
f) Rolen is due $15mil in 2010, plus the remainder of the 2009 $11mil salary. The Reds aren’t on the hook for all this money. St. Louis is reportedly still responsible for the $4mil bonus in 2010, and “undisclosed†cash went from Toronto to Cincy in the trade.—
We’ve all seen herds of pitching prospects fail. There’s a real chance that the Reds will look back and wonder why anyone doubted them, getting an upgrade at 3b for a few dollars more. But there’s also an outside chance that this will be looked upon as a disaster of Liriano/Nathan proportions. The final outcome is highly likely to be somewhere between, obviously. But with the current inflated market value of prospects – especially pitching prospects, who are always somewhat dicey – GM Walt Jocketty certainly undersold his assets. Badly.
Go read the entire piece. Lots more in-depth analysis.
Man-crushes can die hard….Rolen doesn’t make the Reds a contender next year, and he certainly doesn’t make them one this year. He’s a good player, but I just can’t understand this from Cincy’s perspective. Toronto must be be ponying up a lot of cash. Even if they are, I still can’t quite wrap my head around this.
–John Fay says it’s a risky trade, and wonders aloud whether it could backfire. Surprised to see a beat writer question a move, even mildly.
–As usual, Justin’s analysis is among the best around. Here’s part one and here’s part two.
–Doug asks where we go from here. Since I mentioned Doug, I should remind you to listen to our latest podcast, where Doug joined me to talk about the Reds top ten prospects. Please ignore all the wonderful things we said about Zach Stewart, who is now a Toronto Blue Jay.
–In case you missed it, here’s the Redleg Nation trade evaluation.
–In the interest of equal time, here are the comments of our delusional general manager about the trade.