I absolutely hate trading MLB players who are good for prospects. How often has that worked in the Braves favor?
I absolutely hate trading MLB players who are good for prospects. How often has that worked in the Braves favor?
I loved me some Edgar Renteria though. His career began to unwind after we dealt him. So I will give you that. Who knows if he would have been good like he was if he stayed in Atlanta.
My memory serves that the Marte for Renteria trade was largely panned by the scout board folk. But in retrospect that was a great JS trade and, unintentionally, seems to reflect some modern player valuation such as valuing base running and defense (which at the time was considered archaic).
Awesome trade. One of JS's best.
Jair threw 670 innings for the Braves his first 4 seasons with us, winning 47 games with a 3.34 ERA (121 ERA+). We got that for a good but aging SS with 1 year of contol left. I'd call that a pretty frigging good haul. If we get 4 years of 121 ERA+ and 700+ innings out of whoever we get for Upton, then it is most certainly a great trade.
As far as other trades for prospects, we haven't really traded away any star players in the last several years for prospects. Only stars I recall us trading for prospects were Tex and Yunel. Now yes we didn't get back much in these trades, aside from Pastor, but both trades were made by our former GM. And in both trades, Wren limited our return by demanding in return a current major league starter for the same position that he was trading away (Kotchman for Tex and Gonzalez for Yunel, respectively).
I always thought Gonzalez was an underrated SS and Yunel was a clubhouse cancer so I would say Frank Wren got a nice return for Escobar (and Jo-Jo Reyes), as far as someone who could step in right away and help our club (Gonzalez) and then two fairly decent prospect at the time in Pastornicky and Tim Collins.
"Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon"
Knucksie (12-15-2014)
I don't think anyone was reading fangraphs back then. It was more b-ref, b-pro, hardball times, and some other big ones I'm forgetting.
As far as Marte, something never clicked, and I think what a flaw we missed back then was minor league K rates. The hole in the swing if you would. His K rate didn't look bad if you directly compared it to say Adam Dunn, but a guy who strikes out around 20% of the time in the minors is gonna strike out more often than that in the majors and when Marte's power didn't come along like expected the train came off the tracks
Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg
Marte never got over it. My buddy, Carlos, has AAA Bison season tickets. Marte was the starting 3B when they were Indians affiliate. Carlos told me emphatically how much Marte blew. So, it wasn't even a situation of a "AAAA" player. He was barely holding on at the top level of the minors.
Never liked Marte the first time I saw him play when he played for Chipper. He swung at pitches in the dirt like Andruw, and his stance was very weak with awful bat speed.
Forever Fredi
Marlins sign Mike Morse to two-year deal.