While rumors swirled around the Giants at the GM meetings, the two biggest trade addicts in MLB, Jerry Dipoto and Billy Beane, pulled off another one with young slugger Ryon Healy going to the Mariners for Reliever Emilio Pagan and a 17 yo SS prospect, Alexander Campos.
Healy was kind of blocked in Oakland despite a strong start to his MLB career as the Matts, Chapman and Olson had moved ahead of him at 3B and 1B respectively and the A's want to move Khris Davis to DH taking that option away from Healy. Healy is a much better fielder at 1B than 3B and the Mariners badly needed an offensive upgrade at the position which they get in Healy.
I had never heard of Pagan before, but he put up tremendous numbers as a reliever last year with a 3.22 ERA in 50.1 IP, but with a K/BB of 10.01/1.97. Wow! That is good enough that he will probably compete for the Closer role in Oakland. He is big and strong at 6'3", 210 lbs so he could also become a multi-inning reliever.
Campos is a defensive whiz at SS with some upside in his bat, basically a lottery pick throw-in on the deal.
Win-Win.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Giants also traded Hunter Cole to the Rangers to complete the Sam Dyson deal.
ReplyDeleteThought it was another stupid Beane trade, but this makes a lot of sense now. Then again, he don't always move the right guy, is Healy really worse than the Matts and Davis? We'll see, I guess.
ReplyDeleteBut that's a great reliever, and all teams need that.
This just brings up, for me, the issue with strategy in the draft. Pitching provides a lot of flexibility in rostering that position players don't, except for SS. Draft picks beyond the first round are basically lottery tickets. And really, anyone selected beyond the top 5-6 are pretty iffy as well. So it is really a game of volume, and the Giants pick a lot of pitchers, more than half usually, even when pitching staffs didn't take up 12 spots, like early in Sabean era.
And when it is a volume game, you can't really control with precision who will develop, so you don't want to be in a position where many prospect crop up at the same or similar positions. For if you end up with 3+ firstbase/DH prospects, then you have to trade him away and don't always get the same value back. And as great it is to have a reliever who can pitch like that today, if Healy develops, even an average starting position player is 2 WAR, relievers don't usually reach such levels.
Whereas if you end up with three good pitchers, they can fill your rotation, improve your set-up relief, or maybe even closer. A surplus of pitchers just means that your pitching staff is that much better, and gives you surplus to trade away at some point down the line, perhaps, but mainly your team benefits immediately from your development wins.
You end up with too many position players at any position, you will have to sell him off, probably for lesser value and probably have to take another lottery ticket that won't pay off for a number of years again, delaying your win (or negating it if the lottery ticket fails).
Bottom line in the draft is to draft good players regardless of position. Giants built 3 WS winners by drafting mostly pitchers. Cubs are a recent example of building a WS winner by drafting almost all position players.
DeleteNow Cubs need pitching and Giants need position players?
DeleteBumgarner and Panik for Bryant and Happ (or Almora).