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Trade Bait: Who wants Joe Blanton?
Now that high-end starters Johan Santana, Erik Bedard, and Dan Haren are with new teams, the market for reliable, innings eating starting pitching is thin. This lack of depth in the starting pitching market has led to new trade rumors. Supposedly, many of these rumors have circled around Joe Blanton, the innings-eating starter for the Oakland Athletics. Blanton had a decent season last year for the A’s as he won 14 games and carried a good 3.95 ERA.
A few teams are now supposedly after the workhorse after blogs from New York, to Boston, to Tampa, to Cincinnati report the daily rumors that they gather on the subject. Billy Beane is supposedly asking for a sizeable return on his pitcher though. The most-rumored deal supposedly revolves around the Athletics getting Homer Bailey or Johnny Cueto and Joey Votto from the Reds.
The Reds are somewhat of a small market team, making this proposal is ever more startling. Both Bailey and Cueto have higher ceilings than Blanton and they will be cheaper over the next couple seasons than Blanton is now. Adding in Votto to the deal just makes it worse as the Reds do not have that much available in young, cheap offensive talent (outside of Jay Bruce) for a purse strings restrained team like the Reds.
Sure, one can contest that Blanton is a proven pitcher and that Bailey and Cueto are not sure things. But is Blanton that proven? Take a look at his home and away splits for 2007, there’s a startling difference. At home, Blanton carried a VERY good 2.69 ERA while giving up only 93 hits in 110-1/3 innings. He also walked only 16 in that number of innings. But once you look at his away stats, you get a different picture. Away from the expansive foul lines of McAfee Coliseum Blanton carried a 5.11 ERA for the season. He gave up 147 hits in 119-2/3 innings and his walks also went up to 24. Sure, some of this can be linked to the home/away psyche that we typically see on splits, but nearly doubling the ERA?
Buyer beware.
Trade Bait: Bedard Trade Falls into Place
After a long and messy round of trade talks that included rumors of traded players pulling out of winter ball and other players going for physicals that never happened, the Bedard trade to the Seattle Mariners is complete. The Mariners will send outfielder Adam Jones, reliever George Sherrill, and pitching prospects, Chris Tillman, Kam Mickolio, and Tony Butler to the Baltimore Orioles for Erik Bedard.
Bedard is a staff-changing pitcher that can dominate games. He pitched better last season than the most recent prize trade bait, Johan Santana. This lefty will shift the other pitchers in their staff down one notch, putting the team’s other starters into a better position to compete against opposing competition.
But the Mariners gave up a decent amount of talent for him as well. Adam Jones would probably be marked as the prize of the trade. He is a five-tool talent that barely has enough time in the majors to not be on the Mariner’s top prospects list. If he was, he’d have the top spot over Jeff Clement.
George Sherrill is a reliever that has pitched very well in his second year in the majors. Prior to 2007, he looked like he’d just be a lefty specialist and a good one at that, holding left-handed hitters to a .167 batting average since 2004. But last season he held righties to a .212 average. Sherrill looks like he will be a very good, dependable closer for the Orioles until Chris Ray returns.
Chris Tillman is a 6’-5” prospect that throws a fastball in the 91-94 mph range, an above-average curve, and he’s been working on a split-finger as well. He could possibly end up a third starter in time if he cleans up his command.
The other two pitchers aren’t even on Baseball America’s top 10 list for the team, but they both have decent upside. Tony Butler was picked right after Tillman in the Mariners’ 2006 draft and is also tall (6’-7”). He has a high-80s fastball and a decent curve. He’s likely to end up as a lefty reliever.
Kam Mickolio was drafted by the Mariners in 2006 too. He’s even taller, standing in at whopping 6’-9”, this righty has a fastball that could project into the low-90s eventually. Due to his height, his fastball could induce a number of ground balls. Kam lacks much of a secondary offering, but could make something work to turn him into a decent reliever in time.
Although Adam Jones is probably the best prospect traded in the recent Haren, Santana, Bedard trades, this is still probably a good trade for the Mariners. Three of the pitchers in this trade project to, or are relievers. The fourth pitcher, while he has very good upside, is still very young. Seattle also didn’t have to give up talented prospects Jeff Clement, Phillippe Aumont, or Carlos Triunfel.
The Orioles were stuck in an ugly situation, knowing that Bedard was leaving once free agency came around. GM Andy MacPhail did what he could to get the most for what he had. To bad the Orioles exist in the AL East, otherwise he could have gotten possibly gotten more out of the Red Sox or the Yankees.
