Phones across the country were ringing off the hook today, but it doesn't appear that was the case in Milwaukee. Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin said, "I didn’t have any calls from a General Manager all day," according to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (via Twitter). Here's more from around baseball as we head into August..
- Pirates skipper Clint Hurdle says that the club had inquired about Gaby Sanchez and Chad Qualls in each of past two offseasons, tweets Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
- A's assistant GM David Forst says that while the club had "plenty of conversations" leading up to the deadline, nothing was really close to happening, writes Jane Lee of MLB.com. Forst implied that Oakland will look to make a waiver deal if a solid opportunity arises.
- Reliever Jonathan Broxton strikes Keith Law of ESPN.com (Insider sub. req'd) as an odd fit for the Reds. Law notes that the Reds' bullpen is strong while they really could have used help at the top of the lineup.
- Travis Snider chose not to blame the Blue Jays for his shortcomings on the diamond and says that he is looking forward to a fresh start with the Pirates, writes Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com. The outfielder was sent to Pittsburgh for right-hander Brad Lincoln earlier today.
- After a busy July, Astros manager Brad Mills was glad to see the deadline pass without having to say goodbye to more players, writes Brian McTaggart of MLB.com.
You mean nobody wanted K-Rod or Wolf and their under-performances, nor wanted to meet our high demands on Ramirez or Hart? Who would have thunk…
Here’s a novel idea Doug–why not try initiating some phone calls instead of waiting for other teams to come to you?
he’s shy
Maybe his calling plan only allows him to receive incoming calls.
im trying to get some value for broxton now while he is still at 100% ownership before people realize he won’t be closing anymore lol
looking back at the snider saga, now that its all said and done.. and you realize how terribly the jays messed that situation up. he was the best hitting prospect in our system since delgado.
he should flourish in a new environment
I think Snider is the perfect example of just a good prospect not panning out (yet? Maybe he will). It happens. Us fans all over hype them and label them as untouchable when in reality it is very possible that the 2 month rental they got in return for that prospect will have provided more value 5 years down the road.
this isn’t about what he is going to be or not. no one can predict or control how a player performs in the future.
but the organizaiton should do anything it can to harness and develop a player. its a great gamble by the pirates because Snider has never been given a starting job to run with without having to look over his shoulder at the first sign of struggles.
he may very well flame out, he may very well become an all star.. but the jays should have had that figured out by now.
i agree, and i think its always a gross oversimplification to say that a team completely messes up a player. in snider’s case, injuries were partly to blame for his fractured playing time, and of course his own performance as well.
i like snider and really wanted to see him do well as a jay, but i think the reality is that there are major red flags that still remain in the way of him becoming a viable big leaguer. mr. law has given mixed reviews on his supposedly fixed hitting mechanics, so there’s probably some work to do there, and others still worry about his K rate and struggles against lefties and breaking pitches.
the potential remains, and he may yet figure it out, but i think a key fact that has been lost in this trade is that snider is in his last option year. what the pirates got in this deal was essentially a tryout with no retakes. if snider isnt ready to contribute next season and has to get sent down, they could very well lose him for nothing. i figure that probably weighed heavily in AA’s mind when he considered this trade.
I doubt it would have been very hard to trade snider at the beginning of next year for a reliever. its not like they sold high on him
I haven’t heard any independent evaluators completely pan the trade either. Most acknowledge that the pirates got the greater upside but the jays got the more sure contributor. It’s a classic baseball trade, and the team that gets the upside does not always win, especially since the pirates have just one chance to see if snider is ready. I’m confused about the meaning of the trade for the jays considering where they are as an organization, but I’m not convinced they got a bad return.
brad lincoln is NOT a sure contributor beyond 2012 though. relievers are extremely fungible and are known to be volatile in performance from year to year (with the exception of guys like mariano and papelbon). teams like tampa bay build pens on the fly every year and do fine in that regard. adding on, lincoln has a history of injury issues.
and as you said, the jays aren’t really contending in 2012, so 2012 reliever performance means less to the jays than it would to a definite contender except in the spectre of offseason trade.
an injury prone reliever is NOT a valuable commodity for a fringey contender. definitely not worth trading a 24 year old OF with massive upside.
Of course he’s not a completely for sure thing, but i think most would tell you that he has the better chance of becoming a solid contributor compared to snider and his red flags. Good stuff and good command of it from what i’ve read. Enlighten me on his injury history. I heard he had tommy john back in ’06 but haven’t heard about anything else.
As to your last point, the jays may be fringy contenders this year but that is the point of the multiple years of control, as it is with happ as well. They obviously see themselves as strong contenders next year, or intend on making offseason moves to make themselves so.
Snider is to me an example that every fan over values their own teams prospects. I was reading the comments on the Lars Anderson to the Indians thread today and saw several direct comments that Red Sox fans should have never believed he was a possible centerpiece and several implied comments that Red Sox fans still considered Anderson to be a possible centerpiece to a major deal. Add to that several backhanded comments.
That said, I remember some Blue Jays fans who said Snider would be the only prospect they’d give up for King Felix or that they’d never give him up for anything less than someone great. And even though it hasn’t happened for a year I could still prentend there have been some delusional fans who still believed that during this year’s ST.
My points being: 1) People are more willing to generalize fans from larger fanbases despite the likelihood that the percentage of crazies is probably the same. And 2) I think Snider is simply another example of players who’s possibilities exceeded their probabilities. That said, Snider COULD be the beneficiary of a new start… but I’ll remember him as the guy that Blue Jays fans (particularly Canadian relatives) used to tell me would be the future of their organization, the one that would win the AL East by 2012.
All I know about Snider is that I got a lot of Blue Jays fans very angry when I called him a backup outfielder and it reminded me of how we used to talk about Jed Lowrie.
if thats all you know about Snider, why would you even comment on him?
I know it sounds just NUTS, but I figured I’d go on my favorite baseball blog and give me thoughts on a news story, hopefully with the result of promoting discussion, hearing other opinions on the matter, and/or increasing my knowledge of the subject matter.
Crazy, I know. It’s almost like I’m using the discussion section of a website for discussion.
hmm interesting..
i would hope most people form an opinion on some sort of knowledge.
“all i know about snider is that i got a lot of blue fans very angry”
sounds like you shouldn’t have an opinion on snider.. I don’t talk about rocket science, because yup, you guessed it i don’t know anything about rocket science.
but i guess some people just like to talk to get a reaction.
“All I know about x” is a common turn of phrase, you see. It does not actually indicate that the information expressed is the sum total of the speaker’s knowledge about x.
Regardless, I do know plenty about baseball, and so I feel entitled to my opinions. Perhaps sometimes my assessments are incorrect, regardless. In these cases I welcome information correcting me (politely!) from others so that I may learn and grow.
This, friend, is the nature of discussion. I formed an opinion based on observation and some light research. Others felt my analysis was short-sighted and expressed that with varying degrees of, shall we say, cordiality. Either way, I learned that Blue Jays fans apparently value(d?) Snider more than his numbers and history led me to believe at the time. Learning!
I don’t comment on this site to get reactions. I comment because I like talking about baseball with other people who know the numbers as well as (or better than!!) I do. Sometimes I’m wrong about things. I welcome knowledge from those who have more than I in those cases. If this really simple premise eludes you, then I really don’t know what to say.
the hype from jays fans was secondary to the hype from scouts across the league who saw his enormous potential
had snider rocked the minors exclusively through this season and been called up for the first time, he’d be considered a typical top 50 prospect. he’s only a year older than starling marte, for example. and his minor league performance has been vastly superior
the difference is that he was so much better than most top 50 prospects that he earned his first shot at 20
now, would he be considered a failure if he had never been called up at 20 or 21 or 22 or 23 and instead just dominated his way through the minors? no way – he’d by hyped like most prospects at those ages. but he always has dominated the minors, to the extent that it made sense to call him up. and every time they’ve sent him down, he’s destroyed the ball again
the difference is that they kept giving him “chances” long enough for him to struggle but not recover. that’s the only reason people consider him flamed out. snider never got a full season or even a full half-season to adapt at the big-league level
a team like toronto that wasn’t in contention had no reason to be so impatient. snider’s talent should have earned him the right to prove he couldn’t adapt. that hasn’t been proven yet. the only thing that’s been proven is that he has nothing to learn in the minors
Each year, he had to go down because of a back problem (once) or wrist tendinitis (the other times). It certainly was a cruel game of “Snakes and Ladders”.
it makes even less sense when you consider who the jays had in corner outfield positions the last 3 years, rivera, patterson, davis, thames
then sanity is destroyed when you consider that adam lind, aaron hill were allowed to put up ridiculous full season numbers, in back to back years, numbers that were lower than the numbers that demoted Snider.
.803 OPS as 20 year old, .748 OPS as a 21 year old, .767 OPS as a 22 year old.
not sure how these numbers didn’t support his need for more at bats, the only thing snider truly failed at was living up to the ridiculous hype that was set upon him.
Rangers fans and Mike Olt …
It’s like you’ve said something sacrilegious if Olt is mentioned in a trade for anything less than King Felix (with the Mariners eating his salary), based on the reaction from Rangers fans.
agree with the excessive hype of olt, but I’m not sure if snider was excessively hyped.
at one point, snider was a top 5 prospect. that was, and will be, never true with olt. there was obvious mishandling with snider IMO (call him up just long enough for him to fail, but not long enough for him to succeed, and jerk him around between the minors and majors).
snider’s turned 24 this year and has already had several stints in the majors. he was getting callups when guys like olt were still in a ball. olt’s about to turn 24 and is still in aa. thinking that lunchboxhero still has monster upside isn’t fan hype at all IMO.
likewise, I agree with you. I think in the long run, the Buccos got a steal getting Snider for a middle reliever – I just don’t know how the move will pan out for their playoff run this year.
as a Phillies fan, i’ve seen the same thing that happened to snider, happen to dom brown
I honestly can’t see the move hurting the Pirates significantly for the 2012 pennant run (caveat: i place an especially low value on relievers).
hanrahan and grilli are still good, and even if lincoln was statistically their best reliever, the bucs’ pen is deep enough to withstand it. if snider struggles this year with pitt, he can just be sent down to AAA. and the bar isn’t that high to be a passable pirates outfielder for 2012, so he probably helps the ml club now.
on the note of dom brown, i assume he’ll get full time playing time for the rest of the season with victorino and pence gone.
Wow! Winning the AL East by 2012? They certainly saw Snider as the saviour.
I did a little research on Tier 1 high school prospects (top 30 high schoolers going into the draft). Only 10% of Tier 1 high school prospects ever achieve 4+ fWAR performance in their career.
In short, the odds of Snider or any other Tier 1 high school prospect of reaching their potential are against them.
the odds of top prospects who reach the majors at age 20 are way, way higher. it’s unusual for those types of players to be anything less than productive MLB regulars
Wasn’t basing odds on them achieving 4+ fWAR performance by age 20. The odds are for those types of prospects achieving that performance at any point in their career.
i know. i’m telling you that it’s kind of a useless measure when talking about snider, since he’s part of a much more elite subset of the group you’re talking about. almost all of the players in his group become good players
Ahh, gotch ya. Probably need to look at Top 10 or Top 5 from BA Top 100 list to gauge his odds. IMO, it will be an interesting study.
BTW, I know AA has done this type of analysis to determine where to find the “well of 4 WAR players”. Probably also analyzed their cost/price in order to gauge true value.
some of what you said was fair some is blatant over generalization.
Snider was considered by many to be a top prospect outside of the organization. Snider himself became a fan favourite, because in a time where our farm system was completely bare, here came along a kid with a personality (remember we were dealing with the likes of rios, wells and doc at the time) and a big heart, who had the talent to match,
At any point he began to struggle, which he did, but which lots of players do, he was sent down.
Its a terrible feeling, especially in baseball to have to look over your shoulder, you inevitably try to do too much with every at bat, which is counter productive.
maybe he was overhyped as you say, or maybe he’ll end up being as good as predictive. the main issue is that the jays didn’t allow him to figure that out in a 4 year span.
And I hope he does flourish. Regardless of what anyone thinks of him now, Snider still has a lot of potential. He’s only 24 and didn’t blame anyone but himself for his shortcomings. That’s classy. Good luck, Travis.
Comparing him to Delgado is a little unfair. Or if you are, you are clearly not taking into account Delgado’s much better k% and bb% in his minor league career. Snider strikes out a lot, and doesn’t walk that much. Also worth noting is that Delgado’s relative .ISO to k% looks a lot nicer than that of Snider’s.
Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin said, “I didn’t have any calls from a General Manager all day,”
I laughed when I read that.
I laughed too. Then I said aloud: did you pay your phone bill?
Melvin probably put word out he was looking to move Rickie Weeks.. He of the higher K% than slugging %, yet owed 25m through 2014.
Fairly disappointed that the A’s didn’t make a move for a SS, but really, if it was going to come at the expense of Straily + other prospects, then I’m less upset that nothing happened. Unfortunately Yunel probably won’t make it to the A’s through waivers and Rollins might not accept coming to the A’s, so there’s not much they could do. That leaves Drew and that’s not really exciting…at least he has good defense though, it’s hard watching Hicks butcher routine grounders
Oakland’s greatest need (SS) was hurt also because that need is one of the diminished fields in the sport right now and Beane is one of the smartest GM’s around (like Duquette) who isn’t known for over paying for talent and therefore, wasn’t going to pay the extra premium based on the general shortage at the position.
San Francisco went and paid a bit too too much (example) with Culberson. He at least could eventually end up as a utility IF and Scutaro already cost the SF a game in his 1st played by booting a ball in the 8th inning vs the NYM when the scored 4 runs.
Scuttaro wasn’t really worth much, his range is poor (all over the IF) and his bat even went downhill moving to Coors field. Beane realized that and it appears was not interested much.
Maybe someone else will pop up and become available as more teams fall out of the WC race.
my sentiments exactly, and the jays had no reason to trade yunel (I don’t buy Hechavarria’s bat) /the phillies no real reason to trade jimmy rollins.
And until Pennington comes back, I’d rather Sogard get 100% of the reps at SS and Hicks get like none. they both can’t hit (except for the random big hit), so let’s let the one that can field get the reps.
ed. note: i’m a hardcore dan straily fanboy. so i miiigghht be overvaluing him when i say i’m glad he didn’t get moved for hanram.
Agree. And, it’s not like either Rollins or the now average Escobar (though upgrades) would have been the last piece. The A’s have dead spots in the batting order at 3B, 2B and C, too. Sprakplug Crisp is injured again and Moss has cooled.
So glad Beane hasn’t (yet) thrown away a great prospect (Eithier, CarGo) for a Milton Bradley-type rental.
Off topic, but HATS OFF to Tim, Mark, BNS and rest of staff; it’s got to feel like mid-terms are over or something, call in some temps and grab a beer (or 12 hrs of sleep). Same to to the Beat-Tweets, who didn’t have twitter to depend on, because they were sending them.
Love the trades for my pirates today, no rentals, a couple possibilities that we get a ‘core’ type young player to fit in with our young players. Only time will tell, but we didnt trade any of our top 50 prospects either.
Yep, you guys win in my estimation too.
I even like the Qualls move-simply because the guys they have picked up for the pen have mostly performed quite well-even better than expected. Time to trust the Pirates on this one and see how he does.
Gaby Sanchez’s biggest hit so far in the majors?
When he laid out Nyjer Morgan with a clothesline.
For sure it is.. One of the greatest and funniest slams of a outright. …. ball player ever,
For those interested? Google it. There is a nice video easily available where you can see “poor Nyjer” make the mistake of charging Volstad and getting laid out like a lamb to slaughter.
I forgot about that, I’m gonna have to tell him how happy he made me when he did that.
“After a busy July, Astros manager Brad Mills was glad to see the deadline pass without having to say goodbye to more players”
Let’s face it, he’s probably more glad to have a job at this point.
I don’t know-have you seen how bad the Astros are?
I can’t figure out why the Pirates, with their fantastic bullpen, and good options at AAA to fill a slot or two, would be remotely interested in Chad Qualls…
Qualls has a low BB rate and a good GB rate. He’s all or nothing. When he’s off (20% of the time) he gets shelled, leading to ridiculous ERA/WHIP. When he’s on (80% of the time) he can be useful. Similar to Resop that way, which isn’t awful (much as Bucs fans hate Resop, he’s actually decent most of the time). Qualls was a high-leverage guy once. It’s not much, but it’s something and Neal/Hurdle have done very well with picking up bullpen help off the trash heap.
I love the Snider trade for the Pirates. Giving up a reliever, albeit a very good one, for a player with that kind of upside and power potential who isn’t a free agent until 2016. It’s a much better deal than going all out to acquire Pence and his 110 OPS+ and paying a ton of money the next year.
Not necessarily. Snider’s Major League performance is a huge question mark. If he does not perform at a league average level next year, he is out of options, and will likely be moved to another team. With Pence, you know what you are going to get, although I will agree for a small market team like the Pirates it could have been a slight misallocation of resources. That being said, they were also in on the Victorino trade, and were rumoured to have offered lincoln in that deal as well. From what I am gathering, most Pirates fans are upset at giving up one of their better relievers in the middle of a playoff race.
he’s also only hit one ball to the outfield.
i agree with everything you just said, I’m glad i’m not alone in the confusion
That being said, Snider also struck out in 35% of his at bats with the blue jays this year, so in a small sample size, they both pretty much sucked in that regard.