Laika

And if they think Kendall Graveman is more of a #3 a la Henderson Alvarez than just a backend SP, that swings things quite a bit. ZiPS doesn't like Lawrie nearly as much as Steamer though:

ZiPS doesn't love Lawrie nearly as much as Steamer:

Guaranteed, Billy Beane did the math on the trade and the Athletics "won" the trade on paper. Lawrie and Donaldson are on the opposite sides of the aging curve - Lawrie should be just entering his prime while Donaldson is just exiting his. Without making any improvements, Lawrie is one of the best 3B in baseball - a gold glove 3B with contact skills and 20 HR pop. Of course, the extent to which you think Lawrie's health is a skill / an inherent trait changes how much exactly that will ever be worth to a ball team. It's easy to dismiss Graveman and Nolin as 'meh', but they have significant value. They hold much more value right now than, say, most first round draft picks. I think they are both starting pitchers. Nolin for obvious reasons - and I loved Graveman's stuff when he was up. Kind of a Henderson Alvarez profile. I think Barreto is being very overvalued in the common deal analysis though. A teenager in A- ball who, by near consensus, won't stick at shortstop... I dunno. I get the impact than an up-the-middle guy with with 5 hit 5 power 6 run could potentially have, but the profile isn't other worldly and he's a few years away from doing anything. So much can go wrong. Donaldson is the best 3B in baseball and he's probably a top ~5 player overall for 2014. When was the last time a player like that with 4 years of below market control was dealt? This is what Oakland does though. In order for them to compete, they absolutely have to be in a constant mode of selling high and buying low. The only real obfuscating factor here is that Donaldson isn't much more expensive than Lawrie, or any closer to free agency. That's the weird part.

Okay, maybe it is Toronto trading for Jaso or Moss or something.

Atlanta for JUpton or Gattis?

I just don't really see a fit for Toronto, unless it's a complicated trade with players coming back to replace players being given up. The Red Sox are such an obvious fit. Texas maybe? Luis Sardinas +?

yes it does.

I'm scared.

What's worse - signing Hanley @ 22M AAV to play LF, or signing him to play SS? Seems retarded either way.

hmmm.

lol, so they'd probably ask for Stroman, with a straight face.

Yeah Sean Rodriguez would be a nice piece on almost every roster. People don't value versatility high enough. Rodriguez can cover almost every position on the diamond defensively with some level of competence.

AJ Cole + !

Nolin has been effective / very good in every minor league season with appropriate age vs. level all the way up the ladder. I'm pretty confident that he'll at least be a JA Happy #5 SP, if given the proper opportunity to make adjustments to the majors.

Yup. The guy isn't a plus defender but he plays an average, maybe even slightly above average corner OF - that has some value. And he strikes out a fair bit but it's not at a Chris Carter level or anything. Here are some reports on Bruce from back in the day, to put his ceiling in perspective as he enters his physical prime (granted, his tools aren't the same as they used to be). 2008 BP 2007 BA

They traded Tyler Skaggs and Adam Eaton for Trumbo, lmao. That wasn't a salary dump at all though. Sanchez is a lofty hypothetical for Bruce (unless you think Sanchez is horribly overrated), but a "salary dump" characterization is also a stretch. It would be legit prospects, maybe in the lower minors though. Every Jays fan's favourite trade chip Sean Nolin could be piece B, while piece A could be someone far off but with real upside like Rich Urena, maybe. I dunno. I'm sure the Reds will want cheap MLB ready pieces more than anything.

Bruce just looks like a guy who found an approach that worked and then got stagnant. Baseball is a game of adjustments; a war against attrition. A change of scenery might be all he needs to spark a small adjustment to his approach that gets him back to being huge.

bump cuz ang is dumb

Jon Morosi ‏@jonmorosi 3m3 minutes ago Blue Jays are, however, working to add a left-handed bat to their lineup. One name they are talking about: Jay Bruce.

Hamels, any Padres arm, one Cincinnati arm...

4/60 for Martin and probably an Ellsbury-ish deal for Hanley.

That's well below market value. Wow.

Hypothetically the positional adjustment fully and completely negates the difference in positional competence. A ~2 win player doesn't get any more valuable because you move him to LF instead of CF. A Dirks/Pillar/Mayberry platoony thing can probably be worth more than 2 WAR (this is why you let Melky walk and only bring in a LF if it's someone comfortably above average).

Pro for Sanchez: Not obvious on his Baseball Reference minor league page, where one would focus mostly on his K and BB rates, are his extreme groundball tendencies. Sanchez had a freaky 65.7% GB rate in AA last year, leading all starting pitchers I believe. He translated this to the big leagues in his 33 relief innings. The people who think Sanchez can start could point to someone like Justin Masterson, who has been a pretty solid SP throwing mostly just a hard moving FB and a breaking ball. Extreme GB dude that has struggled with walks and been an erratic K rate guy. Trading the first 6 years of Justin Masterson's career for Jay Bruce would be very, very stupid.

It's pretty lazy/easy to just comp Randy Johnson for every prospect that can't throw enough strikes as a starter. How about we look at the entire population instead of the absolute, best case, 1/10000 scenario? Forget about Bruce and just focus on selling Sanchez right now. If you can find a GM who's dumb enough to even think of a Randy Johnson esque development path, you shove Sanchez into his pocket in a second and walk away with the profit. And to be completely fair here I am a Sanchez fan. But TINSTAAPP.