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Jerry Dipoto's latest fanciful trade moved Fangraphs to protest. Well, at least one of their commenters protested ... that his fantasy LEAGUE had never totalled 43 (?) trades in any calendar year. Fangraphs itself said,
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“We had a much more targeted list of players who we felt fit our needs,” explained Dipoto. “Last year, when I first got here, we didn’t want to start trading off, wholesale, players from the minor leagues who we didn’t know and hadn’t had a chance to evaluate. But we knew we had needs (and) we filled those needs with one-year players, like Adam Lind, Dae-Ho Lee, Nori Aoki, Chris Iannetta, Seth Smith on a one-plus-one.
“This year, we took that next step, trying to transition our roster into a more athletic defense-oriented group without giving up all of the offensive goodness. We’re not looking to go out in a fantasy baseball type way and improve a position because Player A is better than Player B, especially if the player we have its what we’re trying to do.”
Whether or not Dipoto is steering the Pequod remains to be seen.
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Ah! Let me rephrase that for you. "Now that we figured out who you are, see you all later." The first synonym for churn is "agitate." So, okay.
... the Pequod, I guess, is some whaling ship that tried to capture the Great White Whale. I'm not sure why everybody has to die horribly just because they want a World Series. But Gordon can make sense of it all for us; he's good with plotlines.
The M's swapped their switch-pitcher for Joey Curletta, a "physical monster" with "light-tower power." This trade means that Dipoto thinks enough of Curletta's 2% chance to --- > become Ryan Howard, that he'll make room for him on some roster or other.
Dr. D's basic reaction to forty trades a year? Well, he's got to confess, that's how he played roto. The idea is that you like your chances to outsmart the 14-year-olds the computer matched you against. So the more trades, the more certain you are to come out ahead in the long run.
Or not,
jemanji
There is part of me that absolutely loves the idea of a switch-pitcher!! There is something so Bill Veeck and Charlie Finley about Venditte that I just want to have him on my roster. I will miss him and the realization of that idea.
Curletta has had 749 PA's and 673 AB's in the Cali league ('15-'16) He's hit only 23 homers. He struck out 37 times in 107 PA's in AA. He's been traded twice in short order.
He's not very good.
with very little to show for it in the minors?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=ramire001han
I remember scratching my head about Gammons' incessant waxing poetic about Hanley Ramirez' tools. Whenever I'd check his MiLB numbers, I'd continue to boggle about it. But then, Adam Jones wasn't much better in terms of HR's shown in the minors and we all know how he turned out.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=jones-001ada
Now I'm not saying that Curletta's in Ramirez/Jones' tier ability-wise, but I've seen gobs and gobs and GOBS of these 'do-nothing-in-the-minors' types who the scouts just can't stop yakking about who do, indeed, go on to be plus power hitters in the big leagues. It's a bit of a shot in the dark, obviously, but I *tend* to listen when the scouts drool about light-tower power.
who scouts raved about in the minors that never did anything. But as a complete roll of the dice, sure, why not go with the horses your scouts like.
It's what you pay them for,
you give the scouts' input more credence when the cost of acquiring a toolsy-but-unproven player is relatively low.
You pay guys seven figures based on their tools, on a hope-and-a-prayer that they can someday put it together for you. In today's eye-popping salary/signing bonus landscape, seven figures doesn't go as far as it used to...
You pay guys eight figures based on what they've demonstrated they can do when things work right for them, so long as they display average-or-better ability when things (health, roster synergy, proper deployment, etc..) do go their way.
You pay them *nine* figures for demonstrating that things pretty much always work right for them ;-)
And yeah, history is littered with the bones of the failed and the fallen. Only a few ever reach the top of the hill they're trying to take--and precious few of *those* people manage to stay there for very long.
I doubt Venditte wanted to go to AA, so trade him for a lottery ticket... oh well.
I just wish that Gareth Morgan would get traded soon.