Mets Top Ten Post-Trade Prospects: BA & Rotoworld

[Guest vtmet]

Thanks Can of soup,

I knew someplace had to list transactions of a player, I just didn't know which one...

I just checked John Milner's page over there...Never realized that Milner was traded twice for Willie Montanez...kind of bazarre...

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Tommy Greene. One of those guys who, for no particular reason, one day threw a no-hitter.

I recall it was a day game, early in the year: I worked evenings at that time and so sat at home and watched the game.

[Guest cleonjones11]

A bit of a stretch. Vidro sems like he's been hurt for three years. Let Milledge alone and let Floyd play it out. I'm sure Boston would love that trade.

Our team is set.

Can we trade Loduca back to Florida and sign Piazza for 2.5 million with the same option?

[Guest KC]

No, they can't.

And chances are LoDuca will have a better year than Piazza would have
had as a Met in 2006.

[Guest Matt Murdock, Esq.]

]I'd guess in fact, that whenever possible you don't want to trust your farm system, if you can get someone who has performed well at the major league level

welcome to the TiTTS. We're a pert and bubbly bunch.

[Frayed Knot]

]I agree that the farm system should be teeming with prospects but isn't one of the functions of the farm system to provide tradeable chips?

Yes it is, and some of the teams that have been at or near the top in recent years have done just that to get/stay there*. Ideally, what you want to do is hang on to the "real deals" and swap out the others as needed in order to fill the big team's holes. The trick, of course, is figuing out which ones are the true gems and which are expendable. A strong farm system is a great thing to have but sometimes I think fans tend to treat having one as if it's an end unto itself instead of a means to a different end: namely a good MAJOR league team. No one should be considered "untouchable".
The problem with Kazmir for Zambrano wasn't a philosophical one of a prospect being dealt for an established ML player; it was with THAT prospect being dealt for THAT player.

I wouldn't do that proposed 3-way deal w/Boston & Wash (which I don't believe is real anyway) but mainly because I don't trust Vidro's health and I'm not sure that Livan Hernandez is much younger than Keith Hernandez, not because I'm convinced Milledge (who I wouldn't recognize if stuck on a elevator with) is "a sure thing".

* The Cardinals are a good example of a team that's used that strategy well in recent years. They kept Pujols (who oddly wasn't as high on the charts as some others early but became a star so quickly that it removed all temptation) but have had a lower-ranked farm system over the last few years because they've dealt most of the rest of their decent "parts" to net themselves some key components of their recent runs like Edmonds, Rolen, Mulder, et al. The early '90s Yanquis did much the same. Many MFY fans thought Gerald was the better Williams over Bernie and hated the Roberto Kelly for Paul O'Neill deal ... but the club made the right call both times. It's not always as easy as it looks in retrospect.

[Guest Edgy DC]

It wasn't just the fans who thought Gerald was the better, as I recall. There were professional opinions along that line as well. And not a few that thought that D'Angelo Jiminez was a better bet than Alfonso Soriano, although, in the latter case, fate largely made the call for the Yankees, as (1) a car wreck injured Jiminez and bumped Soriano ahead of him and into the majors first, and (2) a bizarre throwing malady bumped Chuck Knoblauch from the Yankee second-base spot.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Frayed Knot wrote: [not because I'm convinced Milledge (who I wouldn't recognize if stuck on a elevator with) is "a sure thing".

Again, with the straw men.

There's no sure things, as the Alomar deal tells you (and as has been pointed out here already).

It's a numbers problem. The average club needs at least three rookies per year to establish themselves on the MLB level (Three would give each club 30 new players over a ten year period, which is probably a little below the actual figures since there are many more players with shorter careers than 10 years than there are players with longer careers.) If you're going to be dealing off your players who are close to MLB-ready, then what you're getting back is players who are

a) more likely to succeed at the MLB level (since they've already done so)

but

far more expensive

c) closer to dropping off the edge of the cliff (again, see Alomar)

d) far less flexible in terms of cutting them loose if they don't work out, or trading them, or benching them

and e) because of a), their established levels of MLB performance, less likely than rookies to have a surprising upside, as with Bernie Williams and Pujols.

It's a dead-end path, trading rookie prospects routinely for veterans, especiailly when you're a bad ballclub that needs to broaden its talent base. You're creating a cycle in which you have holes cropping up at more frequent intervals (because your players are older) but you have less talent to fills those holes with on demand. Trading rookies for prospects should be a short-term solution to fixing the roster problems of well-established, successful teams, and even there should be used as minimally as possible.

[Theoldmole]

Is "toolsy" really a word?

[Frayed Knot]

What straw men?
Soupcan is suggesting that the likes of Milledge shouldn't be deemed as "untouchable" because we don't know how good he's going to be and because the record of prospects in similar positions is sketchy at best.
My response was that I wouldn't deal him in this particular rumored swap although I'd join him in the 'never-say-never' club.

]It's a dead-end path, trading rookie prospects routinely for veterans

If you do it wrong it is.
Like I said, the Cards have made a habit of doing just that in recent years (for Edmonds, Rolen, McGwire, Mulder, Rentaria) which has resulted in their farm system being often ranked at or near the bottom of the barrel. It's also resulted in them playing in or for the World Series in the last 3 seasons and in 4 of the last 6. That doesn't prove that that method is the only way to do things, just that it alone is not some kind of poison pill to be avoided on some kind of philosophical principle. And besides, no one sticks to only one method of player procurement. You use some combination of all of them and hopefully make the right decisions with each.

]Is "toolsy" really a word?

In the world of baseball evaluations it is. Doubt the folks at SCRABBLE would accept it -- although probably only because none of them have thought of it yet.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Frayed Knot wrote: What straw men?

Setting Milledge up as a "sure thing," of whom you've seen none, is a straw man argument, because no one actually says he's a sure thing. Certainly far fewer would vouch for him as a sure thing than would have vouched for Alomar, at least in the short term.

I say it's a numbers thing because swapping kids out for veterans is a losing game over large numbers of players. It works now and then for a few years, for some teams, who get lucky or who have specific gaping holes to fill and scout talent well, but if you swap out your kids for veterans as a general philosophy, you're usually walking up a dead alley. To do it from a narrow talent base, and do it hard, as the Mets are doing the last few years, is especially futile, since you've got to make every single one of your trades count. When you fuck up a veteran acquisition, not only does it deprive you of young talent, but it also commits you to the bad play of the overhyped veteran you've acquired at top dollar. Since you lack the young talent to replace him even if you wanted to, and you probably don't want to eat salary routinely, you're locked in to a lot of bad baseball.

It's relatively easy to scout MLB talent, because you're dealing with proven commodities. You're not going to rob other systems of MLB talent if you're offering MLB talent because everyone knows what he's getting and giving up, more or less. The real inequities, through which you broaden your talent base, come in MLB talent for prospects. if you're the one shipping your prospects out, you're going to give up a superstar now then for very little return, and that sort of deal wrecks your franchise for a deacde or more. If St. Louis has been able to swap out prospects for MLB talent and not get burned, they've been or they really know what talent looks like.

[Frayed Knot]

"... but if you swap out your kids for veterans as a general philosophy, you're usually walking up a dead alley"

I'm not suggesting it as a general philosophy.
But opposing it as one of several methods that can be used to build a team is at least as bad of a general philosophy.

[Guest KC]

>>>And besides, no one sticks to only one method of player procurement. You use some combination of all of them and hopefully make the right decisions with each.<<<

Amen. Can anyone name a team over the last 25 years that was highly succesful
and did it solely Bret's way of new thinking? Can Bret? I doubt it.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

="Frayed Knot"]"... but if you swap out your kids for veterans as a general philosophy, you're usually walking up a dead alley" I'm not suggesting it as a general philosophy. But opposing it as one of several methods that can be used to build a team is at least as bad of a general philosophy.

As you can see by reading my post at the top of this page, I'm not not opposing it across the board, ever, as one possible method of building a team. I specifically recommend it for teams needing to fill a particular gap, or for teams that are on the cusp of advancing in the playoffs.

But if you have many more prospects going out than coming in over a period of years, as the Mets have over the past six years or so, you're trying to fill an inside straight with fewer and fewer cards in the deck. I'll play poker against you anytime when you've got a 25 card deck and I've got a full deck.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I agree that there needs to be a balance. I like the way the Mets did it in the 1980's: they hyped all of their prospects, fooling a lot of people. They traded the ones that were falsely hyped, and kept the ones that they really liked.

I remember how upset I was when players like Shawn Abner and Billy Beane got traded. They were our stars of the future! The players the Mets really believed in, like Kevin Elster and Gregg Jefferies, got their first chances with the Mets.

For all the prospects that the Mets have traded in recent years, very few have amounted to much. (Of course, the jury is still out on the recent ones.) Ed Yarnall? No big deal. Alex Escobar? Same. A. J. Burnett would have been worth keeping, but the veteran he brought back helped the Mets to the playoffs twice. No regrets on that one. Scott Kazmir is a different story, of course. That trade looked bad immediately, and there's still no really good explanation of it.

Trading Petit and Jacobs may yet win the Mets a pennant or two. And we don't know yet what kind of big leaguers they'll be.

Right now I'm not really gnashing my teeth over the prospects that the Mets have lost in recent years. I wish there were more of them, but I don't see that they've been, on the whole, irreparably harmed by the dealing the young players that they have.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Of course you don't. That's how they get away with this stupid policy. "In this hand, I show you Victor Zambrano--see how good he is on a major league roster RIGHT NOW? And in my bad hand I have only puny minor-leaguer prolly-never-will-be pint-sized schmuck nobody Scott Kazmir, who is years and years and years away from the MLB and who will probably hurt hisself before he even--whoops! bad example!"

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Other than Kazmir, who I pretty much acknowleged was thrown away needlessly, name a prospect trade since 2000 that we know has failed.

I can't think of any, which is why I'm not worked up. I know that most of those guys will end up more like Shawn Abner than like Ryne Sandberg.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Doesn't matter. I could run down players like Jason Bay for you, but my point is that if you swap out thirty prospects over five years and take in five prospects from other systems, either some of those kids you swapped out will grow up to be All-Stars, or you got very lucky. Neither seems to me to be a sound system for building a team.

[Frayed Knot]

]But if you have many more prospects going out than coming in over a period of years, as the Mets have over the past six years or so, you're trying to fill an inside straight with fewer and fewer cards in the deck.

Not neccesarily. While no one's saying you should deal off as many as possible (the StL example is merely one where something like that HAS worked recently) the prospects that really matter are the true gems and those are always going to be vastly out-numbered by the never-will-bes. If you're smart enough to indentify and hang on to the jewels while waving the others in front of some desperate GM's eyes like some shiny bauble and extracting the correct MLers out of him then you can reap the best of both worlds. Cetainly hanging our hopes on Escobar, Ochoa, Eric Cammack, Grant Roberts, Pat Strange, Ty Wigginton, Matt Peterson, etc would have gotten us nowhere. There's a thread around here (currently playing in a featured archive near you) where I went through the best prospects of 2002 just to see how many would have looked like good "gets" with 3 (now nearly 4) years of hindsight. Not all that many as it turns out and that was from a list of the best of the best from all 30 ML teams. One team will be lucky to have more than 1 or 2 of those at any one time.

Minor league players are a commodity. They can be useful if kept or they could be more useful traded away depending on the situation. I don't object as a matter of principle to doing either.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

="Frayed Knot"] ]the best of the best from all 30 ML teams. One team will be lucky to have more than 1 or 2 of those at any one time. Where do you suppose regulars, All-Stars, HOFers come from anyway? The sky? If we're electing two HOFers every year, doesn't that mean that on average two rookies per year will debut who will make the HOF someday? If we've got two HOFers per year, there's also two future MVPs (who may or may not be the same as the future HOFers) and numerous future All-Stars, not to mention regulars who never make an All-Star team. Every single year. Playing in MLB for the first time. An attitude that prospects all suck, and we'd better get some MLB-veteran zhlub for them right now while they still bear an air of freshness about them, leads to disaster. Someone is developing the stars of the future, and paying them peanuts during their first six years of MLB, and getting a crack at signing them to long-term contracts.

Frayed Knot Feb 02 2006 03:47 PM

]An attitude that prospects all suck, and we'd better get some MLB-veteran zhlub for them right now while they still bear an air of freshness about them, leads to disaster And Gee ... that's EXACTLY what I'm arguing too!!!!

Bret Sabermetric Feb 02 2006 03:48 PM

You're not, but the Mets are, aren't they? Look at where this thread got started: We've got Milledge and basically nobody, and we're talking about peddling Milledge for a couple of beat-up old guys in their 30s.

Frayed Knot Feb 02 2006 04:01 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Feb 02 2006 04:09 PM

No, some guy on a message board claims he knows "a source" who claims some form of this is being discussed. Wake me when it happens. In the meantime a NYM "official" is being quoted in actual newspapers as saying Milledge isn't going anywhere and that they see him as a ML reg next year. In the meantime they hung onto Heilman, Reyes & Wright and dealt [u:6b090d73b1]for[/u:6b090d73b1] Diaz & Nady & Ring (4 letter name guys only is obviously their policy). We'll see how many of the ones they didn't keep we're gonna miss. At the time he was dealt only Kazmir was a top 25 prospect. Escobar, Jacobs, Hernandez, Peterson et al weren't close. Petit might be close this year but he was also dealt for a multi-time All Star who filled a gaping hole. That's a far cry from "they all suck" and "zhlubs" are better every time.

Yancy Street Gang Feb 02 2006 04:07 PM

Escobar wasn't close? I seem to remember him being highly ranked. Anyway, there may be two new future Hall-of-Famers every year, but there are dozens, or hundreds, of highly regarded prospects. If you trade every prospect you ever have, you'll never promote a Tom Seaver or a Tony Gwynn. But if you trade a few here and there, odds are you're not losing any superstars. If over 40 years, the only young player the Mets dealt who ended up in Cooperstown is Nolan Ryan.

Frayed Knot Feb 02 2006 04:20 PM

"Escobar wasn't close? I seem to remember him being highly ranked." He was, and then he wasn't. The problem with Escobar is that most of the hype about him stemmed from his "tools" matched with a really good year he had as a teenager at low-A ball. At that age and level a lofty ranking is based more on potential and dreams than actual results. He then developed back problems and missed an entire season. He got back on track and folks still kept their eye on him but was never quite as young or quite as special as he was that first year .. but of course the hype is slow to die. He was certainly a good prospect (and "not close" may have been over-stating it) but he wasn't really a cream of the crop guy at the time of the deal that many remember him as and that he had briefly been.

Yancy Street Gang Feb 02 2006 04:23 PM

Yeah, that does sound right. I remember I was more aghast at the idea of trading him for Larkin during the 2000 season than I was with dealing him after 2001 for Alomar. In 2000 I saw him as another Darryl Strawberry. By the time of the Alomar deal I had been reduced to hoping he'd be the next Darryl Strawberry.

Frayed Knot Feb 02 2006 04:56 PM

And that's a large part of the problem with outsiders (read: fans) judging prospects is that we barely had any info to form accurate distinctions and so we tended to treat all prospects as if they were the same; Straw turned out great ergo Escobar is "the next one", then Escobar was a bust therefore let's get rid of Milledge before everyone else finds out he is too ... or something along those lines. There's much more info now available to the average schmuck. The internet carries a lot (although much of it roto-driven) to the point where the big city newspapers are being forced to pay attention to the farm systems that they ignored wholesale for years. Most of us still haven't seen these guys play, but at least we can get a bit away from the simplistic A = B = C analogies.

metsmarathon Feb 02 2006 05:27 PM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: The average club needs at least three rookies per year to establish themselves on the MLB level (Three would give each club 30 new players over a ten year period, which is probably a little below the actual figures since there are many more players with shorter careers than 10 years than there are players with longer careers.) i'd argue the number is actually closer to two, for discussions' sake. it looks like about 55 or so players "stick" each year, if i use farily light criteria: one year 100 ab or 10 gs or 30 g (debut in 05) 55 players two year 300 ab or 20 gs or 60 g (debut in 04, career to date) 56 players three year 400 ab or 30 gs or 90 g (debut in 03, career to date) 54 players but this is likely an investigation for an entirely different thread. i just felt like sharing. oh, about 200 or so rookie debuts a year - 7 per team.

[Frayed Knot]

]An attitude that prospects all suck, and we'd better get some MLB-veteran zhlub for them right now while they still bear an air of freshness about them, leads to disaster

And Gee ... that's EXACTLY what I'm arguing too!!!!

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

You're not, but the Mets are, aren't they? Look at where this thread got started: We've got Milledge and basically nobody, and we're talking about peddling Milledge for a couple of beat-up old guys in their 30s.

[Frayed Knot]

No, some guy on a message board claims he knows "a source" who claims some form of this is being discussed. Wake me when it happens. In the meantime a NYM "official" is being quoted in actual newspapers as saying Milledge isn't going anywhere and that they see him as a ML reg next year.

In the meantime they hung onto Heilman, Reyes & Wright and dealt [u:6b090d73b1]for[/u:6b090d73b1] Diaz & Nady & Ring (4 letter name guys only is obviously their policy). We'll see how many of the ones they didn't keep we're gonna miss. At the time he was dealt only Kazmir was a top 25 prospect. Escobar, Jacobs, Hernandez, Peterson et al weren't close. Petit might be close this year but he was also dealt for a multi-time All Star who filled a gaping hole.
That's a far cry from "they all suck" and "zhlubs" are better every time.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Escobar wasn't close? I seem to remember him being highly ranked.

Anyway, there may be two new future Hall-of-Famers every year, but there are dozens, or hundreds, of highly regarded prospects. If you trade every prospect you ever have, you'll never promote a Tom Seaver or a Tony Gwynn. But if you trade a few here and there, odds are you're not losing any superstars.

If over 40 years, the only young player the Mets dealt who ended up in Cooperstown is Nolan Ryan.

[Frayed Knot]

"Escobar wasn't close? I seem to remember him being highly ranked."

He was, and then he wasn't.
The problem with Escobar is that most of the hype about him stemmed from his "tools" matched with a really good year he had as a teenager at low-A ball. At that age and level a lofty ranking is based more on potential and dreams than actual results. He then developed back problems and missed an entire season. He got back on track and folks still kept their eye on him but was never quite as young or quite as special as he was that first year .. but of course the hype is slow to die. He was certainly a good prospect (and "not close" may have been over-stating it) but he wasn't really a cream of the crop guy at the time of the deal that many remember him as and that he had briefly been.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Yeah, that does sound right.

I remember I was more aghast at the idea of trading him for Larkin during the 2000 season than I was with dealing him after 2001 for Alomar. In 2000 I saw him as another Darryl Strawberry. By the time of the Alomar deal I had been reduced to hoping he'd be the next Darryl Strawberry.

[Frayed Knot]

And that's a large part of the problem with outsiders (read: fans) judging prospects is that we barely had any info to form accurate distinctions and so we tended to treat all prospects as if they were the same; Straw turned out great ergo Escobar is "the next one", then Escobar was a bust therefore let's get rid of Milledge before everyone else finds out he is too ... or something along those lines.

There's much more info now available to the average schmuck. The internet carries a lot (although much of it roto-driven) to the point where the big city newspapers are being forced to pay attention to the farm systems that they ignored wholesale for years. Most of us still haven't seen these guys play, but at least we can get a bit away from the simplistic A = B = C analogies.

[metsmarathon]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: The average club needs at least three rookies per year to establish themselves on the MLB level (Three would give each club 30 new players over a ten year period, which is probably a little below the actual figures since there are many more players with shorter careers than 10 years than there are players with longer careers.)

i'd argue the number is actually closer to two, for discussions' sake. it looks like about 55 or so players "stick" each year, if i use farily light criteria:

one year 100 ab or 10 gs or 30 g (debut in 05) 55 players
two year 300 ab or 20 gs or 60 g (debut in 04, career to date) 56 players
three year 400 ab or 30 gs or 90 g (debut in 03, career to date) 54 players

but this is likely an investigation for an entirely different thread. i just felt like sharing. oh, about 200 or so rookie debuts a year - 7 per team.