With the first pick in the 2008 draft, Pete Rose Legacy drafts... Alex Rodriguez. With the second pick of the 2008 draft, Pete Rose Legacy drafts Johan Santana.
Fuck us all.
Seriously though, what was the rationale behind this deal? The best category for Caleb to gain points is in RBI. He just traded away the league leader in RBIs and HRs for a player who is vastly under performing and is hampered by a bad knee. Ortiz will probably become only the 3rd player in MLB history to hit 50+ hrs one year and less than 30 the next (Gonzo and Brady Anderson). With the new players, Caleb has a shot at gaining 1 point in SB and 1 point in average, but that won't even be close to enough to win the league even if his HR numbers hold. Johjima for Pudge is pretty equal, although seeing that Johjima is 4 years younger and has better PECOTA projections than Pudge, I'd value Johjima a little higher in a keeper league. Ichiro is a nice player, but nowhere near the caliber of A-Rod.
Can someone rationalize this to make me feel better? Spencer will have the 2 best players in the AL all next year. That is a significant advantage especially considering that one of the two is only going to cost a 2nd round pick. AH!!!!
5 comments:
I had to take a few days to process what I'd done, and to see if there were any other opinions on the trade. Since there weren't, I assume the rest of you either agree with Z, are too shocked to say anything, or are in France and just don't care (Yoooouuukkkk).
I don't share your hysteria, but at the moment (sorta drunk on a Tuesday night, 5 days after clicking accept) I'm kinda regretting it. See, I'd never planned on keeping A-Rod, and I didn't reconsider that a lot of thought before accepting Pete Rose's offer. Now I'm looking at it and wondering why on earth I wouldn't want to keep him next year.
I was looking at improving at a few stats before the close of the season - AVG and SB, while not falling much at HR or RBI. I didn't realize how far behind I was in RBI - or how far I would fall over the course of the weekend. Now I'm in 4th overall and far out of the race over the course of the last couple of days, and as I'm typing this A-Rod just went deep for the second time (both garbage time HRs, what a bum).
Anyway, I'm not too worried about Pete Rose next year. Even if I'd thought extensively about how he could finagle two first round picks out of the trade, I doubt it would have bothered me much. Sure, he's basically got a free upgrade from a second round pick to a first, but he's still gotta draft the rest of his team. I had A-Rod and one of the top 3 or 4 pitchers in the majors and was in 4th at the close of last week. And I had my 2nd round pick, as well. He'll still be beatable, and it'll be more fun when we do beat him. I'm a lot more worried about what I've done in terms of finishing in the top 2 this year, and why I was assuming I would drop A-Rod at the end of the season.
Yankees just lost, making our lead six games again. That's what I really care about.
My hysteria will be tempered when A-Rod eats a line drive off his face, sits the rest of the year, and is traded to the NL over the off season.
It takes more than 2 players to build a winning team - even if they are the best two players in the game, BUT it is certainly an advantage.
The sky is not falling, but I was just hit by a pretty fucking big acorn.
Overlooking the keeper aspect of A-Rod is significant, but given that Caleb's admitted he wasn't thinking about it, let's look at the rest of the deal.
The critical piece of the rest of the deal is Ortiz' injury. When Ortiz is producing, he's just as good as A-Rod, minus the stolen bases, + AVG. Ortiz hasn't been producing this year in the same way and has known injuries which are concerning. His injury is what I think makes it a bad deal for Caleb, beyond keeper considerations.
Johjima and Pudge are more or less the same, although Johjima has more keeper value (although I probably won't have room for him), Pudge bats in a better lineup this year, so I think he's likely more valuable down the stretch.
So it's basically Ichiro and Ortiz for Swisher and A-Rod. Again, if Ortiz is healthy and produces like he can, this is a GREAT trade for Caleb. Caleb wasn't using swisher, so he essentially gets Ortiz for A-Rod straight up while essentially adding Ichiro for nothing.
Mark isn't a big Ichiro fan, but Yahoo has him as the 3rd most valuable offensive player in the league - so we're not talking about someone who is moderately good. It's debatable if the Ichiro add really helps Caleb b/c the categories he's strong in aren't ones he's likely to gain a ton of points in, but again, were Ortiz healthy (and thus producing similar HRs and RBI's to A-Rod), then it's still a great trade.
In sum, yes I got a great deal, because of the keeper aspects and Ortiz' injury, but if Ortiz plays like he can, it's not all that ridiculous, and Caleb actually gets a good deal THIS year.
Regardless, hopefully I can give Licker Store All Stars a run for his money this year...it would help if the players I added continue to hit 4 HRs each day...
As far as next year goes, it's really not all that bad for you guys. Keepers are the MOST valuable when you took them in a later round. The incremental value I get for having my first two picks be A-Rod and Johan is significant, but it's only the difference between what I could have gotten otherwise (let's say Guerrero and Hafner or something like that). Plus I'm using two of my keepers. That's nothing compared to having Bedard in the 11th (who has outperformed Santana) who you would have instead of ...ervin santana. So while it'll be nice to have the two best players at the two scarcest positions, it won't be some tremendous advantage. Of course, I'll also enjoy having Ordonez from the 14th round :-D
The keeper value of Johjima is negligible, as it would be a mistake to use a keeper pick on a player of his caliber. I'd be very surprised if Spencer, or anyone else, did. He'd also been really frustrating me for the last 2 months, and I was happy to trade him in for a minor upgrade for the rest of the season. Swisher is also pretty negligible, because he pretty much sucks and I wasn't using him. I agree that it was essentially A-Rod for Ichiro/Ortiz, plus a minor upgrade at catcher. Not a bad trade for the rest of the season, as I figured (and still figure) that I could maintain my HR standing, and maybe gain in RBI, SB, and AVG.
And then I had a nice big fall over the last 4 days, so I'm not sure what my chances are from here.
Meanwhile, Spencer's got a bit of a head-start on next season. Should be interesting.
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