Evaluating Trades

Derek Zumsteg of U.S.S. Mariner has an interesting post up discussing the two schools of thought for evaluating a trade: at the time of the deal based on what's known, or just on the results of the trade.  Take the Liriano/Nathan/Bonser/Pierzysnki deal.  If you look at the trade in the context of November 14th, 2003, it looks very different.

 

Comments

[jakec]

to my mind, the fairest way to evaluate trades is how they look at the time, not years later.

The Kazmir-Zambrano trade was horrible not because Kazmir has been good while Zambrano's arm fell off- it was horrible because the Mets should have gotten more for someone who was generally regarded as one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, even if they themselves had soured on him.

[boomshwa12]

true that, and people still criticize the astros for getting carlos beltran a few years back. but john buck hasn't completely panned out yet in the majors and octavio dotel has been injury prone since he was dealt, and they had lidge ready to become the closer anyway. i think it was a really good deal for the stros to make.

and the possibility of liriano being lost in injury abyss still isn't out of the question. i hope he makes a full recovery and dominates again, but the jury is still out on that one. it's a shame to see to, b/c he was fun to watch

[kevmill21]

it depends, if you're trying to win now, you can't worry about what the trade will look like in the future if it gets your job done, they knew they were giving up a possible stud in liriano, POSSIBLE though, not a lock like kazmir, nathan was just some nobody who was having a good year so they decided to get something for him, they couldn't have known what he would turn into since he displayed no signs of his dominance whatsoever

[strumtrelescent]

I disagree... Liriano was an injury prone afterthought to the trade although he was their 4th rated prospect. Noone expected him to be nearly this good, but his injuries have resurfaced. Boof Bonser was just as big a part as Liriano (if not more) at the time.

Nathan was a couple of years removed from arm surgery, and had started to regain his form the year befroe the trade and had a great year out of the pen. The trade was made because the giants desperately needed a Catcher, and unortunately they chose the wrong catcher, and the wrong throw in prospects.

[beeniez]

That's ridiculous. It doesn't matter how the trade looks at the time, it's the results of the trade that matters. There's no sugarcoating that one, it was an absolute terrible trade.