M’s make a trade
Dave · June 30, 2006 at 10:34 am · Filed Under Mariners
The Mariners have traded SS Asdrubal Cabrera to the Indians for 1B/LF/DH Eduardo Perez.
Perez is a lefty masher who can help the team (.303/.343/.636 in 99 at-bats this year), but this is way too high of a price to pay. He’s basicalliy a strict platooon player, getting 88 of his 99 at-bats vs lefties. He hit .259/.371/.526 vs lefties and just .231/.355/.346 vs righties last year.
This probably sends Mike Morse back to the minors, and Perez will become the DH vs left handed pitchers. The team gets better, but this isn’t a huge upgrade. It’s a minor upgrade that cost them a top prospect.
The team is better, but the price to pay was too high.
Off the top of my head.
Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano, Scott Kazmir, Kenny Rogers, Randy Johnson, Cliff Lee, Barry Zito, Mark Buehrle, and a bunch of scrubs. Your American league starting lefties.
We still play the East/Central quite a bit, and lefties have been killing us.
If you look at the Broussard/Perez combo, it’s lethal. That kind of player combined for those stats would be making like 12 million bucks.
Some of those “scrubs” on the left side have been killing us. Perez should pound them. Of course they were killing us during the time Beltre wasn’t hitting his weight.
That’s a really good point — I’ve written about this before, but it made sense for teams to pull late-rotation righties and call up any random AAA left-hander to face the Mariners. If Perez makes that tactic less effective, that’s great news.
Once again, no one is saying that Eduardo Perez isn’t a good addition. Bavasi did a fine job acquiring a guy with a skillset that the Mariners lacked and who can help fill a team need.
The question is whether 100 at-bats of Eduardo Perez is worth 6-7 years of Asdrubal Cabrera. I don’t think so.
Now, can we trade Carl for a long reliever/5th starter? Any possibilities….
1 Ich
2 Beltre
3 Lopez
4 Ibanez
5 Sexson
6 Perez/Petagine
7 Johjima
8 Reed
9 Yuni
God damnit. I quote myself replying to Dave’s reply to me:
I didn’t say anyone was either. My question was that if management gets the ‘winning’ bug will we see it and would that be beneficial to the long term goals. The answer to the second part of that is obvious, it’s the answer to the first one I think I need to hear.
This… is what I meant, Dave. I realize that Asdrubal Cabrera had literally nowhere to go in the organization, so he really wasn’t a part of our conceivable future, but getting rid of him for this? Ugh.
I hope the trend doesn’t continue.
Well crap, that didn’t work. Up to “..I think I need to hear” is part of the original post, and thus, should be quoted.
Man, our FO is so dumb.. He is a 37 year old platoon DH player, and Droob is.. was.. one of our top prospects. We could have atleast put him in another deal that nets us a starting pitcher.
This trade will be considered one of the nails in Bavasi’s coffin.
Perez is a 36 yr pinch hitter/DH with a lifetime .250/.327/.441 line. So what if he has had a good 90 ab’s this year. Bavasi gave away a top prospect for a guy with only marginal better talent than we already have…I guy who’s value beyond this year is replacement level at best.
A better solution would have been to call up Snelling who would likely out hit both Perez and Dinosaur and would have cost nothing.
This trade will go down as Bavasi’s version of the Jason Varitek deal. Stupid FO moves are getting really tiring.
Perez is going to play only against LHP. His OPS this year against LHP 1.038, which is in line with his career splits. In 785 career AB, Perez has hit .270/.366/.522 — that’s an OPS of .889. That’s the same OPS as the M’s best hitter this year, Ibanez (.285/.357/.532/.889). And against LHP, the only M’s hitter in the lineup with an OPS over .800 is Ichiro at .916 (.375/.439/.477). Perez is nowhere near replacement value — his VORP this year is 10.6 in only 99 AB.
So the M’s just upgraded their DH spot against LHP from Everett (.169/.258/.288 for an OPS of .546) to Perez (.889 career OPS, 1.038 2006 OPS). That’s huge. We all like Doyle, but it’s unrealistic to expect him to post a .900 OPS against LHP this year.
The M’s overpaid, but let’s not exaggerate it. While Cabrera is a nice player and solid “B” prospect, the comparison to the Varitek/Lowe deal is just plain silly. In terms of talent, this is the M’s giving up Antonio Perez again. Anyone miss him, much less remember him?
Wow… a lot of you guys are REALLY overreacting to this deal. Cabrera was never going to play a significant role with the M’s… and in my mind this deal is a small piece of evidence that our minor league system is close to being the kind of asset for us that it is for more successful teams. We moved an asset in an area we have a huge surplus, for a piece that might help us win this year beyond most of our expectations. I have absolutely no problem with this move. Cabrera was a nice player who played a position where we’re loaded with nice players.
Some of you guys need to stop analyzing everything to the point of paralysis and just try being a fan for a few days. The team is finally headed in the right direction, learning how to win with a nice mix of home-grown youth and veteran players, and the minor league system is improving every year to the point that we’ll be able to tweak our major league roster when we need to by making moves like this every year without feeling like we’re gutting our organization. The light at the end of the tunnel seems a lot closer than it did 6 months ago. Just enjoy it.
Some of you guys need to stop analyzing everything to the point of paralysis and just try being a fan for a few days.
Don’t be jerk, that’s uncalled for.
161 –
Saying “Nice pick-up, but we paid too much.” is overreacting?
Saying “Perez is great, but Cabrera is a greater one.” is “analyzing to the point of paralysis?”
There is a lot of good discussion in this thread, a lot of good analysis – which, by the by, is why most of us come here… not to do the Wave and talk about Hargrove’s favorite cookie recipe.
“Just be a fan.”
Sometimes I hate the internet.
#161: You can find commentary written with pom-poms on by googling for “Mariner Optimist.”
With regards to improving the Seattle Mariners, does anyone on here think that starting pitcher Brade Radke (5.11 ERA; 1.57 WHIP; 53 to 24 K:BB ratio; $9,000,000 salary) and center fielder Torii Hunter (.265 AVG; .342 OBP; .439 SLG; $10,750,000 salary) could help the team?
If so, then do y’all think that a trade wherein the M’s sent starting pitcher Joel Piñeiro, relief pitcher Eddie Guardado, center fielder Jeremy Reed, and designated hitter Carl Everett to the Minnesota Twins for Radke and Hunter would improve the ballclub?
The following are four reasons about why the Twins would make the deal:
1. Piñeiro, unlike Radke, is under club control through 2007.
2. The Twins lack a left-handed setup man like Guardado.
3. Reed is cheap and has a lot of potential.
4. Everett is better than Ruben Sierra and Rondell White.
160. Equating Antonio Perez to Cabrera is silly. Perez never had the glove of Cabrera was already in decline as a prospect when the M’s traded him.
Let’s watch this one but the trade has all the signs of looking very bad 3 yrs from now…strikingly similar to the Varitek deal.
According to PECOTA, Antonio Perez is Asdrubal Cabrera’s third most comparable player.
I was hoping to get 100 AB out of Perez. After tonight’s blasphemous 8th inning with Everett and Reed(!) swinging away against lefties, I’m not too sure.
Perez is supposed to be here to hit lefties, but even if the Rox had popped in a righty out of the bullpen, he would have still been a better option than Everett and Reed are against lefties.
Hopefully it’s just a “day to get acquainted” type of case. As much as it was to pay, if they only end up getting Petagine opportunities out of him (25 AB through 82 games), the cost would relatively become absurd.
That said, I don’t expect it would be anywhere near that low, because Peta’s stuck at the same side of the dish as Everett’s not-as-bad side is. With 80 games left, what if it ended up being around 80 AB? How much of a waste is that?
All I can say is, let’s hope he regularly starts against lefties instead of Everett. Maybe good (or even mediocre) things will happen, and he’ll get ~120, which would be just that many less for Everett.
I’m _incredibly_disappointed to hear that they traded Cabrera . . . for _that._ He was blocked, and they probabaly were going to move Asdrubal, but this price is ridiculous. It’s too soon to be sure of his bat, but Cabrera is going to be a regular at the big league level, and quite possibly an outstanding one. To me, this deal has the potential to be a Varitek > Slocumb transaction, in a very similar context.
The Ms want to ‘do something’ for credibility, and so they burn a prospect of real ability for a fizzle of media sizzle. The Ms had all of last offseason to fill the DH slot. They bungled it, so now in season they have to make a much too expensive move to cover the hole. Simple ineptitude. This is a total rob job by Cleveland, I can’t credit Shapiro enough for picking the lock box of a dumbass, behind-the-curve organization.
I go away on vacation, and THIS happens. *yechhh*