From goat to hero in 3 moves

[King]

I like that the "clubhouse leaders" next year are actually contributors on the field. Guys like Vizquel, DeRosa were a waste of a roster space. Although DeRosa wasn't too bad for us, IIRC.

[Laika]

How was Thames for Delabar objectively terrible?

 

He means giving Thames the LF gig.

[G-Snarls]

The only way to justify moving a catcher with the success he had offensively was if you believed he'd never stick at catcher. It's inexcusable that the team didn't know that a guy who was in their org for 4 years was a plus C defender.

 

They obviously viewed him as a utility IF at best. Incorrectly.

[Laika]

One of the instances where he valued clubhouse presents over analytics.

 

Still not sure what Aaron Cibia's positive clubhouse qualities were. Did he have a massive unit that made everyone giddy, or something?

 

The guy always strikes me as decidedly arrogant, entitled, and smug. He's really nice if you have Leukemia or something on twitter though.

[Nox]

Sorry, I don't really. Alvarez is the only decent asset we gave up IMO, and he's only thriving because he plays in an extreme pitcher's park in the NL. I still like Reyes and I thought JJ was a worthwhile gamble. No one hated that trade in context, we all loved it. In fact, there was a substantial outcry towards Selig to veto the deal, if you recall.

 

The Miami trade was one of the worst baseball transactions in the last decade. League wide. Depending on the projection model used, it probabilistically set anywhere from $75 to $150M on fire with the stroke of a pen. It was really, really bad. The Dickey trade was almost as bad.

 

The Wells trade was indeed miraculous but ,as has been discussed, he can't really receive any credit for that. A replacement level GM knows enough to say yes to Tony Reagins in that situation.

 

When was the last time he negotiated a killer extension for a player? You'll note that the answer to that is "not since Sartori left to work for Apple". If he gets credit for having Sartori on staff while those extensions took place (he should) he also loses credit for letting Sartori be poached. Front office talent retention is absolutely part of his job.

 

The Donaldson trade is perfectly timed and (very) good in a vacuum but it's not an all-timer or anything.

 

This offseason has been great but to put AA as a top 5 GM in the game is vastly over-estimating the man's intellect/ability.

[Laika]

The Miami trade was one of the worst baseball transactions in the last decade. League wide. Depending on the projection model used, it probabilistically set anywhere from $75 to $150M on fire with the stroke of a pen. It was really, really bad. The Dickey trade was almost as bad.

 

The Wells trade was indeed miraculous but ,as has been discussed, he can't really receive any credit for that. A replacement level GM knows enough to say yes to Tony Reagins in that situation.

 

When was the last time he negotiated a killer extension for a player? You'll note that the answer to that is "not since Sartori left to work for Apple". If he gets credit for having Sartori on staff while those extensions took place (he should) he also loses credit for letting Sartori be poached. Front office talent retention is absolutely part of his job.

 

The Donaldson trade is perfectly timed and (very) good in a vacuum but it's not an all-timer or anything.

 

This offseason has been great but to put AA as a top 5 GM in the game is vastly over-estimating the man's intellect/ability.

 

ilu

 

nohomo

[Laika]

nox = the real wet blanket that everyone needs.

 

simmer down, ladies.

[Dr. Dinger]

Well, Nox has actually met TFG, so he would know best how smart the man is.

[Nox]

nox = the real wet blanket that everyone needs.

 

simmer down, ladies.

 

What can I say, your hate of all things has rubbed off on me!

[TheHurl]

You should have hated the Miami trade in context, and you should definitely hate it in hindsight. The fact that you don't is scary. Are you dumn?

 

But every GM Is baseball would have made that deal

[TwistedLogic]

That's insufficient in explaining a lot of his decisions that were objectively terrible (Thames, JPA, CoCo etc...).

 

I think you mean Snider, not Thames. Thames for Delabar was a great trade, no matter when you look at it. Snider was bad at the time, he salvaged it by turning it into Kratz.

 

Napoli-Franky and Gomes-Rogers remain his two most unforgivable moves in my eyes.

 

Handsome Jake could still be pretty decent. Yunel Escobar was a total wasted asset. DeSclafani and Nicolino are probably going to be cheap long-term, below-average contributors for Miami.

 

If you're going to judge the trade in hindsight, then Escobar's been pretty bad since his first year off the team. He performed terribly this past season, and he embarrassed the Rays league-wide in that stupid brawl he caused.

 

This offseason has been great but to put AA as a top 5 GM in the game is vastly over-estimating the man's intellect/ability.

 

I don't know if I'd put him as top-5 even now, but I really don't see an argument where AA was ever a bottom-15 GM throughout his tenure. With some of the guys that are employed in the MLB, you could have so much worse, it's not even funny.

[TheHurl]

Any GM would have traded Gomes. There was nothing to suggest the impending breakout he has had.

 

It's not the trading. It's that he thought he was a 3B and JPA was a top defensive catcher. There was some horrible horrible horrible (have I mentioned horrible) decision making going on around that time. Keep in mind they had JPA as an internal 5/6 defensive rating and Gomes, TdA were below that.

[TwistedLogic]

I have been bashed continually for my support of AA and the Jays front office. 90 % of this board has called for AA,s head for the last 2 years. he makes 3 moves and suddenly he is smart again.

 

Sports fans are a fickle bunch. It took three moves for everyone to go from calling him the ninja to hating him (Marlins, Mets, Gomes) and it took three moves to repair a large brunt of that damage over the past few weeks. Who really cares what people think though, as long as the team does well.

[TheHurl]

No one hated that trade in context, we all loved it. I

 

Just because everyone chooses to ignore BTS, Nox and I, it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. I called it a $100M value loss, Nox that it was closer to $80M and a certain member of the TBR FO thought closer to $150M.

 

You also cannot fully judge the prospects by where they end up but their value at the time of the trade. They could have been traded individually and did better than what he did.

[Laika]

If you're going to judge the trade in hindsight, then Escobar's been pretty bad since his first year off the team. He performed terribly this past season, and he embarrassed the Rays league-wide in that stupid brawl he caused.

 

Holy f***.

 

First off, the trade sucked balls both in context and in hindsight. That's already been said.

 

Nobody gives a soft turd about the baseball fight. That's just a hilarious point to bring up.

 

3.9 WAR in 2013 paid for his entire contract and then some.

Projected for 1.7 WAR in 2015, only getting paid $5M. Should return about $10M in surplus value next year.

[G-Snarls]

It's not the trading. It's that he thought he was a 3B and JPA was a top defensive catcher. There was some horrible horrible horrible (have I mentioned horrible) decision making going on around that time. Keep in mind they had JPA as an internal 5/6 defensive rating and Gomes, TdA were below that.

 

Yes, you can't argue against this point. In fact, internal talent evaluation may be the biggest problem this organization has. And it's not all on AA. Gomes, Arencibia, Thames, Gose, Goins, Cordero... so many players over-estimated and used incorrectly in the last 5 years.

[Nox]

Napoli-Franky and Gomes-Rogers remain his two most unforgivable moves in my eyes.

 

Here's a comprehensive list of people in this world who thought Yan Gomes would evolve into a top 50 asset in baseball:

{}

 

Here's a comprehensive list of people in this world who thought Yan Gomes was a starting catcher:

{Yan Gomes' Mother}

 

In other words, of all the things you can criticize AA for, this hardly seems like the one to single out. If you think this was actually a more egregious transaction than either the Marlins or Mets deals, I can only suggest to you that you need to re-evaluate some things when it comes to the way you think about asset valuation.

[TheHurl]

I've put on some weight since last we met.

 

I'm up 20 since starting school, which is why I need Flag Football to happen, I just can't captain it

[TheHurl]

The guy always strikes me as decidedly arrogant, entitled, and smug. He's really nice if you have Leukemia or something on twitter though.

 

You can get Twitter leukemia?

[Nox]

You can get Twitter leukemia?

 

You'd be lucky if that's all you catch off Twitter.

[HERPDERP]

So are you people judging AA's moves based on what happened at that time, or what has happened since the trade?

 

Y'all could love these Martin/Saunders/Donaldson signings/trades since they are no brainers right now, but when any of them get injured or fall off the face of the earth in production, I must wonder if you'll be criticizing AA for them.

[TwistedLogic]

Here's a comprehensive list of people in this world who thought Yan Gomes would evolve into a top 50 asset in baseball:

{}

 

Here's a comprehensive list of people in this world who thought Yan Gomes was a starting catcher:

{Yan Gomes' Mother}

 

In other words, of all the things you can criticize AA for, this hardly seems like the one to single out. If you think this was actually a more egregious transaction than either the Marlins or Mets deals, I can only suggest to you that you need to re-evaluate some things when it comes to the way you think about asset valuation.

 

I've already made it clear that I don't evaluate the Mets and Marlins deals in the same context as his other transactions. There's enough of a reason to believe that there was heavy involvement from upper management in those moves, so without knowing what went on behind the scenes, I'm not gonna sit here like a keyboard executive and pretend I know what really happened. You can choose to look at it differently and you can choose to think that my opinion on the matter is a stupid one, but that's my perception of those trades and that's probably not going to change until we get some more insight from the FO.

 

I should also point out that at the time, I was among the many that thought the Gomes for Rogers trade was actually a good one, and was probably more worried about losing Aviles.

[Dr. Dinger]

I'm up 20 since starting school, which is why I need Flag Football to happen, I just can't captain it

 

I miss running over girls accidentally, let's make it happen.

[TheHurl]

I think you mean Snider, not Thames. Thames for Delabar was a great trade, no matter when you look at it. Snider was bad at the time, he salvaged it by turning it into Kratz.

 

Snider is one of the biggest fails of this administration. There are reports that from 2010 they didn't believe in Snider. 2010 Snider being traded would have caused a huge backlash as he was seen as the saviour (with me leading the charge) but he was probably a top 100-150 trade chip in all of baseball. Instead they held on until his value was Brad Lincoln.

 

And did you really give them credit for turning Lincoln into Kratz when they had no clue where Kratz's value was?

[Nox]

I've already made it clear that I don't evaluate the Mets and Marlins deals in the same context as his other transactions. There's enough of a reason to believe that there was heavy involvement from upper management in those moves, so without knowing what went on behind the scenes, I'm not gonna sit here like a keyboard executive and pretend I know what really happened. You can choose to look at it differently and you can choose to think that my opinion is stupid on the matter, but that's my perception of those trades and that's probably not going to change until we get some more insight from the FO.

 

Couldn't we then assume that these recent moves were also because his hand is being forced by upper management? Does upper management deserve credit here if they get blame there? There's actually much more evidence now that things have been partially steered from up top than there was in 2012.

 

Regardless, it's all speculation. And for that reason, I think given the information you have to work with I would remain agnostic on upper management's degree of meddling.

[TwistedLogic]

Snider is one of the biggest fails of this administration. There are reports that from 2010 they didn't believe in Snider. 2010 Snider being traded would have caused a huge backlash as he was seen as the saviour (with me leading the charge) but he was probably a top 100-150 trade chip in all of baseball. Instead they held on until his value was Brad Lincoln.

 

And did you really give them credit for turning Lincoln into Kratz when they had no clue where Kratz's value was?

 

No offence, but I really don't want to get into a debate about baseball administration with you. It's virtually impossible to break through your biases towards this FO, so I'm not even going to try.

[TheHurl]

I've already made it clear that I don't evaluate the Mets and Marlins deals in the same context as his other transactions. There's enough of a reason to believe that there was heavy involvement from upper management in those moves, so without knowing what went on behind the scenes, I'm not gonna sit here like a keyboard executive and pretend I know what really happened. You can choose to look at it differently and you can choose to think that my opinion on the matter is a stupid one, but that's my perception of those trades and that's probably not going to change until we get some more insight from the FO.

 

I should also point out that at the time, I was among the many that thought the Gomes for Rogers trade was actually a good one, and was probably more worried about losing Aviles.

 

He was given $130M to spend the year before the Marlins/Mets deal and couldn't get the guys to sign, so he decided to keep that increase in his back pocket. So they pursued the same guys (or at least two of them) a year later giving up assets instead of more cash (yes he got Johnson too), it's just a lack of common sense at points. Beest may have been involved but don't think that ownership or Beest made him make that deal.

[TwistedLogic]

Couldn't we then assume that these recent moves were also because his hand is being forced by upper management? Does upper management deserve credit here if they get blame there? There's actually much more evidence now that things have been partially steered from up top than there was in 2012.

 

Regardless, it's all speculation. And for that reason, I think given the information you have to work with I would remain agnostic on upper management's degree of meddling.

 

The difference is that upper management almost always has a large hand in moves of that calibre, with the payroll implications that it had. Illitch with Fielder and Moreno with Pujols/Wilson come to mind. All of those were dumb moves by guys that are considered decent (Dipoto) to very good (Dombrowski) GM's. I'm just going off of Beeston's composure throughout his interviews that were documented in "Great Expectations" and making a deduction based on that. Like we've both said though, all of this is limited to simply speculation, so there's no way of really knowing, and people are free to conclude what they personally believe is the most realistic scenario.

[G-Snarls]

He was given $130M to spend the year before the Marlins/Mets deal and couldn't get the guys to sign, so he decided to keep that increase in his back pocket. So they pursued the same guys (or at least two of them) a year later giving up assets instead of more cash (yes he got Johnson too), it's just a lack of common sense at points. Beest may have been involved but don't think that ownership or Beest made him make that deal.

 

These seems plausible

 

He had money and was getting desperate because the free agents he wanted wouldn't sign at the $ he was offering. All Marlins players DON'T have no-trade clauses so he didn't have to worry about Reyes or Johnson nixing the trade. He bit.

[TheHurl]

No offence, but I really don't want to get into a debate about baseball administration with you. It's virtually impossible to break through your biases towards this FO, so I'm not even going to try.

 

I am biased, I don't like the front office no doubt. But I'm a pretty level headed guy overall (maybe who tends to lean towards the negative in general). I gave AA credit for almost every move he's made this off-season. I love value moves (and I'm old, this isn't the way I've always viewed baseball), Nothing the Jays did from 2011 to 2014 appeared to be made with value in mind.

 

I still think that if you give certain people around here (Nox and JFaS are the two obvious ones) the 2011 Jays and tell them that you have and extra $50M to play with they are going to build this team into a playoff team before this point. Of course JFaS would have been like 15 at the time.