Odds And Ends: Holliday, Lugo, DeRosa

the braves can afford to deal a starter, (medlen, lowe, kawakami) to get a bat like ludwick, or freddy sanchez. But some of the braves pitchers need to stay in atlatna(hudson, hanson, jurrjens, vazquez). Wren does not need to make a block buster to get like holliday or a gon. But he does need to get a bat. Mabie Freddy Sanchez, Alex Rios, Josh Willingham, or Ryan Ludwick?

Thank you Robothal, for writing another 100% obvious article. Seriously?

I think Billy Beane might be over playing his hand at this point. He has possibly one of the greatest eyes for baseball talent ever, and was a genius in running a mid market team, but I think maybe the game is passing him by at this point. The moves he has made lately just seem silly and the A's are just down right awful at this point.

Its a different age....teams do not jump on trades and part with their prospects like they used to.

It was obvious the A's had no shot to contend this year so why trade for Holliday? I mean Street himself will probably command just as much as teams would be willing to give for Holliday at this point.

It just doesn't add up, even for Beane

"It was obvious the A's had no shot to contend this year so why trade for Holliday? I mean Street himself will probably command just as much as teams would be willing to give for Holliday at this point."

Again, short-sightedness amongst journalists will tell you the A's had "no shot this year" but thanks to the unbalanced schedule, the A's only really have to be better than 3 teams to contend. With a giant chunk of games against those 3 teams, its easy to contend in the small division.

And cmon, why WOULDNT he trade for Holliday? One of the top 20 players in the game? All he gave up was his FAILED closer (Street was just awful in the tougher AL last year and lost his job), Greg Smith is lost at sea and Carlos Gonzalez is toolsy with a faulted game that could come around with time, but is absolutely worth giving up for a top 20 hitter. The deal is still great for Oakland because of the high draft picks for Holliday, and the addition of Holliday for a year in which he would have given them a shot to contend if only Cabrera OPSd 700 and Cust and Giambi 850. All those 3 have struggled mightily.

Crazy throught: Oakland isnt even technically out of it, they can go 48-27 and join the pennant race, with the arms they have (overlooked was the success of Braden, Outman, Gio Gonzalez & Anderson) and if Giambi, Cust, Holliday and Cabrera's find the water level, this team can still make some noise.

If the Braves really want Holliday, which IMO isn't the route to go, then they could get him for a package of Jordan Schaffer, Kelly Johnson, Luis Valdez, and an A ball pitcher with upside like Spuilli or maybe they give them Rohrbrough. They keep the core and don't mortgage the future while still making a very solid offer. If they do that however they need to give him a 2 year extension, but that would give them no money this Off-season. Personnally I'd rather get Aubry Huff, who will be cheaper in terms of players and financially and then dump Kotchman off to someone who has a stud line-up, and would like his GG caliber defense.

"I think Billy Beane might be over playing his hand at this point. He has possibly one of the greatest eyes for baseball talent ever, and was a genius in running a mid market team, but I think maybe the game is passing him by at this point. The moves he has made lately just seem silly and the A's are just down right awful at this point."

What?

Yeah, expecting four players (Giambi, Cabrera, Holliday, Cust) to drop a combined FOUR HUNDRED OPS POINTS from last season's numbers was expected. And Cabrera to lose his entire ability to play defense. And Bob Geren taking his stupidity to epic levels by telling Cust to change his plate approach (which was working REALLY well for the last 2 years, since Oakland is like the biggest pitchers' park in the AL).

"It was obvious the A's had no shot to contend this year so why trade for Holliday? I mean Street himself will probably command just as much as teams would be willing to give for Holliday at this point."

The only people who are saying that are moron sports analysts of the Olney/Rosenthal/Steve Phillips/Joe Morgan irk.

Even the most elite closers are not worth more than 3 WAR over the course of a season. Holliday is easily a 4 WAR player this year despite his first half "slump", and has been worth way more than that every other year of his career.

PL, there isn't a trade I would like. I know there really is, but not one I can think of off the top of my head.

Braves do have good pitching, but there isn't one bat out there that is going to make enough difference to get them into the playoffs. They need to pick up a couple guys: a high OPS player and a masher (Dunn?).

Posted by: jjpk | July 17, 2009 at 02:59 PM

Try a different combination of Nats players, how about Nick Johnson and Josh Willingham for Casey Kotchman and prospects. That'd be a significant offensive upgrade and you don't lose much in the way of defense. The package you give up wouldn't include valuable pieces to your future and still improves the club, whereas trading for a dunn like player is going to be costly

The Braves can afford to trade pitching right now. The only problem is if they trade away vazquez their bullpens ineffectiveness will shine even more Vazquez eats up innings and the braves can't lose him with the way their bullpen is between the 6th to 8th inning right now. That being said Medlin would be the choice to take over for any pitcher on the Trade market, but he can't eat up the innings without his commmand at this point.

^^Didn't know about Oakland's OF depth. I'd say Yunel Escobar, Mike Gonzalez, and two decent prospect (8-15 rated in braves system) for Matt Holliday, Jemile Weeks, and Andrew Bailey is something I'd consider if I were the Braves but nothing less really and that's a high price to pay for Oak. However you still get your comp. picks (gonzalez is a type A FA as well), a young stud at SS, and a couple of decent specs. The Braves get Holliday for half a season, Bailey as an insurance policy for if Soriano leaves, and our future 2B. Before any braves fan freaks out and says we don't have a replacement for escobar, i'd also go out and get a jack wilson, marco scutaro, caesar izturis, etc as a stop gap until we can fill the position. My question to A's fans: Is this a fair deal?

That's not a very good trade for Oakland. At all

The thing is, Oaklands' farm system is currently in the top 3 in baseball. They are strong everywhere and have players with high ceilings everywhere EXCEPT 3B and SS, which is what I figure Beane will use his draft picks for. The A's dont need catchers, they have Suzuki, who is already good and making great progress as he matures as an everyday player, and the mashing Josh Donaldson at AA, who may get moved to LF or 3B (if he can hack it).

Yunel would be perfect and Id definitely ship Holliday, Cardenas and Cabrera for Yunel and a 3-8 prospect and a 8-15 one in a nanosecond. Matt Holliday is still Matt Holliday, a 2nd half masher who will propel the Braves offense into playoff contention.

I always thought that Beane might flip Holliday for another type A too, so the Gonzalez flip may work as well, for a long time I was thinking he might go to STL and try to grab Ankiel and Glaus for Holliday under those lines.

@yanks 09

"Fact of the matter is this.....what made Beane such a genius is that he foresaw players rising or dropping"

If that was true he would have never signed Eric Chavez, Arthur Rhodes or Estaban Loaiza to long term deals. The FA market has always been his biggest weakness if anything.

Cust isnt hitting because he fell victim to the stupid media not understanding how important watching pitches is in our modern pitch-counted game. He "struck out too much", which isnt a bad thing if you are K'ing on 10 pitches when an excellent SP is limited to 110 per game. He's swinging too much now and hitting more singles but also making more outs than ever. Its not Jack Cust's game, period.

Also you are completely neglecting the fact that Oakland has an utterly outstanding farm system right now, with many high ceiling players due to reach the bigs in the next year or two. This year was always going to be a wash, but instead of doing it "Billys way" which was what happened in 2008, in 2009 he was told to let the kids stay in the minors and get some well known players to bridge the gap, thats all. Sure, Beane should have stayed away from Giambi and signed Adam Dunn while he was cheap, but no one on earth would have told you Giambi would be hitting .190 on July 17, no one.

Most of Beane's mistakes are pure luck, and yes, he hasnt really had a lot of things go his way more than he would have liked. Dan Meyer could have realized his ace potential, Eric Chavez's body could have waited until he was 35-40 to break down, Daric Barton could have hit like Mark Grace in his prime like EVERY SINGLE SCOUT said he would and the FA's he signed could have performed better than expected.

Its extremely frustrating being an A's fan, thats for sure. If every ball bounced our way we'd have had at least 3 championships this decade.

"Cust isnt hitting because he fell victim to the stupid media not understanding how important watching pitches is in our modern pitch-counted game. He "struck out too much", which isnt a bad thing if you are K'ing on 10 pitches when an excellent SP is limited to 110 per game. He's swinging too much now and hitting more singles but also making more outs than ever. Its not Jack Cust's game, period."

Yes. Totally agree, although it was more Geren and Skaalen than anything. Beane, please can Geren. Screwing around with your team's best hitter two years in a row and a VERY good power hitter before he changed his approach has to be an automatic fire-worthy offense.

And Acta is without a job.

Its extremely frustrating being an A's fan, thats for sure. If every ball bounced our way we'd have had at least 3 championships this decade.

Posted by: PL | July 17, 2009 at 07:17 PM

You can say that for a lot of teams in baseball, i agree the A's have been slightly unlucky especially with these offseason moves but there have been other unlucky teams too. Also as an A's fan do you think you'd be giving up too much in the proposal i made earlier, PL?

I meant the Bailey, Weeks, and Holliday for Gonzalez, Yunel, and 2 specs. However I agree with you, it doesn't seem like these two teams will match up for a deadline deal