[USML Announce] Jeffrey and Me
Brad Jansen
bljansen at gmail.com
Wed Aug 25 18:00:33 EDT 2010
Well, upon reflection, Sir Jeffrey* did* trade me both Neftali Feliz and
Trevor Cahill, and only after he assured me that these young fellows were
real players and not mere beans. Jeffrey has never puffed his players in
trade talks with me, and I'm quite sure that if Jeffrey could have traded
Feliz to Mr. Shandler instead of Arrieta, he most certainly would. I know
that in Jeffrey's heart, the only thing more important that defeating his
arch-nemesis Mark Blocker is treating his trade partners fairly. I only hope
that Mr. Shandler sees fit to enhance Jeffrey's image in the 2011 edition of
that magazine, but after how that
Arrieta deal turned out, who knows.....
--Brad Lee Bad Fingered
On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 5:54 PM, <springkerb at aol.com> wrote:
> Maybe, but I never seem to be able to do a deal w/ Winick, no matter how
> hard I try. (OK, I ignored and offer involving Arrieta, but that doesn't
> really count.) To me, the lesson is that pitching prospects are such a
> complete crap-shoot that you can never assign any real value to them. For
> every Neftali Feliz, there are about twenty Jeremy Bondermans (or worse).
> And hitting prospects are only a little bit better. Any time you have a
> chance to get real players for mere beans, you'd better jump on it,
> especially if you fancy yourself a contender.
>
> You listenin', Jeffrey?
>
> Mark
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brad Jansen <bljansen at gmail.com>
> To: USML Announcements <announce at usml.net>
> Sent: Tue, Aug 24, 2010 5:31 pm
> Subject: Re: [USML Announce] Ron and Me
>
> so...the lesson is: don't deal with jeffrey?
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Jeffrey Winick <jhwinick at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Ron Shandler's Fanalytics August 20, 2010
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> O' No!
>> It all started a little over a year ago.
>> I was in rebuilding mode in the eXperts Fantasy League (XFL<http://www.fantasyxperts.com/>)
>> and pulled off the following deal with Lawr Michaels:
>>
>> *I sent him Lance Berkman. He sent me Chase Headley, Chris Tillman and
>> Travis Hafner.*
>>
>> Hafner was a throwaway, but the other two were both potential keepers for
>> 2010. Headley was a top-rated prospect who had scuttled about getting his
>> feet wet in the majors for a season and a half. Tillman was amidst a minor
>> league season in which he'd post a 2.75 ERA with a 3.8 Cmd ratio and an MLE
>> BPV of 117.
>> Tillman struggled upon his promotion to Baltimore the following month,
>> going 2-5 with a 5.40 ERA and meager 1.6 Cmd ratio. But he was only 21.
>> Still a keeper.
>> The annual XFL auction takes place at First Pitch Arizona<http://www.baseballhq.com/seminars/arizona.shtml>each November. I went into last year's draft with what I thought was a solid
>> protection list, led by Jason Heyward, Austin Jackson and Brett Anderson
>> (And Headley. And Tillman.). All I needed to do was have a decent draft.
>> A $34 Carlos Beltran is about all you need to know about how 2010 has
>> gone. So we've gone back to rebuilding, year #2.
>> On June 7, I made the following deal with Todd Zola:
>>
>> *I sent him Joakim Soria. He sent me Brian Matusz.*
>>
>> Now, Matusz was not having the best of years. He scraped through April
>> with a 4.40 ERA, then saw his once stellar BPV plummet to 27 in May. But
>> this was a highly-touted prospect who was coming off a minor league season
>> where he went 11-2 with a 1.91 ERA and 3.8 Cmd ratio. His 4.63 ERA in 2009's
>> MLB debut was backed by a solid 2.7 Cmd and 71 BPV. I momentarily considered
>> the implications of rostering two Orioles pitching prospects... but only
>> momentarily.
>> As I continued to sink in the standings (and wasn't Matusz's July a
>> hoot!), I put out another call to the top contenders in the league to try to
>> unload some of my valuable, but unprotectable players.
>> Battling for first place, Jeff Winick was interested in my Paul Konerko.
>> He wrote me: "It's probably easier for me to trade a March pick rather than
>> someone presently contributing, but I'll do anything that makes my team
>> better."
>> If I was smart, I would have heeded that comment, if for no other reason
>> than to protect me from myself. But Jeff had one player who was simply too
>> intriguing to resist.
>> Jake Arrieta.
>> Before I would commit this act of insanity, I sent off an email to our
>> minor league expert, Rob Gordon. I wrote: "I already own Chris Tillman and
>> Brian Matusz in a keeper league. I have an opportunity to add Jake Arrieta
>> at a low cost. Would this be the epitome of masochism or does this trio have
>> a real chance of becoming as productive as their advanced hype would
>> indicate? Should I roll the dice with the two O's I already have and look
>> for something else other than a third Baltimore starter?"
>> You see, I was at least a little bit smart. Just a little.
>> But I was also a little impatient. While I waited for Rob to respond, I
>> emailed Jeff to see if Arrieta was even available. I framed the email as
>> being "just this side of madness."
>> On August 10, Rob finally responded:
>> "My take is that this would be a tough call. All three have very good
>> long-term potential, but also plenty of work to do. Adding Arrieta seems
>> like a bit of a risk. That gives you three fairly volatile young pitchers
>> and Arrieta probably has the most work to do of the three. Matusz is
>> probably the furthest along the development curve, but is far from a
>> finished product. Tillman and Arrieta need to throw more strikes, trust
>> their stuff, and hit their spots. No small feat vs the Yankees, Rays, Red
>> Sox, and Jays. The upshot of having all three of them - despite the
>> tremendous potential - is a ton of risk."
>> Ah, but Rob was just sugar-coating things. His *true* feelings came out
>> in his next statement:
>> "Are there other players you can look at - possibly a position player?"
>> For me, Konerko was a useless player on a roster looking towards 2011.
>> Getting Arrieta for him would at least be *something.* I asked Rob to dig
>> deep and find anything good to say. He fed me the company line...
>> "It seems to me the logical counter-argument is you'll have three
>> tremendously talented young arms and that historically one or two of them
>> will develop into a legit top-of-the-rotation guy. Having cheap arms with
>> upside allows you to spend freely on expensive hitting. Since pitching is
>> volatile anyway, why buy an expensive starter..."
>> He was placating me. I needed that.
>> The real problem was that this conversation occurred on August 10.
>> On August 9, Jeff had already tossed me into the abyss:
>>
>> *I sent him Paul Konerko. He sent me Jake Arrieta.*
>>
>> So here I am with a trio of potentially high upside starting pitchers on a
>> terrible ballclub. But there is always good news if you look hard enough for
>> it. From the *Minor League Baseball Analyst*:
>>
>> '09 MLE Performance
>> Rating Potential Ctl Dom Cmd BPV *Rank
>> ====== ========== === === === === =====
>> Arrieta,J 8B #3 starter 3.5 7.4 2.1 52 26
>> Matusz,B 9B #1 starter 2.3 7.6 3.3 106 2
>> Tillman,C 9C #2 starter 2.3 8.5 3.7 117 9
>> * Rank among all pitching prospects
>>
>> In retrospect, the Arrieta acquisition now seems a bit more ill-advised.
>> And, the rest of the story...
>>
>> Major League Record Keeper
>> W L IP ERA Ctl Dom Cmd BPV Price
>> == == === ==== === === === === ======
>> Arrieta,J 4 4 72 5.23 5.0 4.2 0.8 -40 $4
>> Matusz,B 9 14 174 5.11 3.4 7.1 2.1 49 $7
>> Tillman,C 3 9 90 6.10 3.7 5.1 1.4 8 $7
>>
>> Heck, if a Major League ballclub is content to bank their future on the
>> potential of this trio, why shouldn't I feel likewise? Yes, the easy answer
>> is "because it's the Orioles." But there is clearly some upside here.
>> And I can't forget these illustrious pitching lines:
>>
>> W L IP ERA
>> == == === ====
>> Pitcher A 3 7 81 5.09
>> Pitcher B 2 3 86 6.49
>> Pitcher C 6 14 155 5.61
>> Pitcher D 2 7 64 5.48
>>
>> Who owned these horrible stats? These were the rookie seasons of (in
>> order) Chris Carpenter, Johan Santana, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz.
>> There is hope yet.
>> Maybe.
>>
>>
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>>
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