Trade scenarios, and why they piss me off
June 21st, 2009 | by joelucia |Baseball fans, and it seems especially true in the case of Braves fans, love to throw out completely off the wall trades and act completely serious about them. Why is that? Fans bust out some of the most ludicrous, horribly one-sided trade proposals I’ve ever seen, often times for players that would never in a million years be traded. My favorite one, that I just read this morning, involved the Royals trading Joakim Soria for…Jeff Francoeur & Manny Acosta. Oh, and the Braves throw in Kris Medlen too. I mean, seriously? How does that make the Royals a better team in any way whatsoever? I swear to god, people just say things like this to get a rise out of people. I know I do it, but at least with mine, I throw out words that make it completely obvious I’m kidding, like “grit”, “scrappy”, and “heart”. Some of these guys are totally serious. Another one I read this morning involved a fellow wondering why the Braves haven’t inquired about Nelson Cruz. Well, maybe its because Nelson Cruz is the Rangers best outfielder, and the Rangers are in first place. Just a hunch. I’m pretty sure I remembered people talking about Ryan Braun a month or so ago like he’d be available.
This cute little Jose Guillen scenario that Mark Bowman threw out there yesterday confuses me even more. Bowman is a Braves beat writer, and he knows that the Braves can’t take on any payroll. Why would he even consider this as a viable rumor, unless the Royals were so desperate to replace Guillen with someone thats even worse than him, but younger and cheaper, that they’d eat his salary?
If the Braves are going to make a move, its going to be a lateral one that sends Francoeur out of town for someone making roughly the same about of money, like a Luke Scott type player. I’m not a horribly huge fan of Luke Scott, but hell, he’s better than what the Braves are trotting out every day in right field (except for today thank god, and we’ll see how that goes). Like Frank Wren recently said this week, there aren’t a lot of good impact bats out there, let alone a cheap one. If the Braves really want to acquire an impact bat, they’d have to beg Liberty for some more payroll, or deal someone making a good chunk of change, like one of the starting pitchers (which I don’t advocate at all). Regardless, its going to be an interesting 6 weeks, as the Braves are still in the NL East hunt with the struggles of the Phillies and Mets.
Tags: Jeff Francoeur, Kris Medlen, Manny Acosta
By fandave on Jun 21, 2009
Joe, in my capacity as GM-pretend, the first damn thing I do is stomp into Terry McGuirk’s office and demand he go to ownership and find me an extra $10 M. That would open open some legitimate options for us.
Otherwise, I’m with you all the way.
Keep up the good work.
By joelucia on Jun 21, 2009
I agree with you that it SHOULD be done, but lets be honest here…if he does do that, Liberty is just going to laugh at them.
By jrum on Jun 21, 2009
“hey why dont we trade our worst players for the other teams best players” – baseball fans
good column joe
By Stephen on Jun 21, 2009
I agree with you about the lateral movement. I’ve been hearing maybe Jeremy Hermida which would be a lateral move in my opinion. I think Luke scott is better than Francouer in every sense of the game besides defense. Not a ton better bor some. I could see making a swap for Hermida just to see if either club can turn the hitters’ luck around.
By GotGuts on Jun 22, 2009
I wish Braves fans would listen to what you spoke of about what Frank Wren spoke of last week. FW basically said what few big bats that are out there are NOT in our price range, and why pay double for a player, that we could wait and possibly, and most probably get a good deal on a free agent before next season. My ? is why can’t our fans that KEEP talking trade situations everyday “Get it” and read the writing on the wall? FW and JS have told us…We can’t get a BIG bat until the season is over, and the reasoning behind that decision. Unless, we get a steal or someone donates enough money to buy a player…..
WE are NOT getting one. We including myself need to face the facts and shut up!
I am so sick of it…..I just want to puke…
By The Accountant on Jun 23, 2009
I stopped reading after the first two words in the title to this post, and it got me thinking… Why don’t the Braves just trade Greg Norton to the Cards for Pujols? They could put Jeff Bennett to sweeten the deal.