Guthrie traded to Rockies for Hammel & Lindstrom

[brianod]

While it is the "appeal to the majority" argument, there is no real proof that going all-prospect is the way to build a winning team, certainly not today and not for sure in the future either. Why does everyone believe prospects are the way to build an organization? More often than not, and perhaps far more often, they end up being busts. DD's strategy right now relies less on our proven poor player development system, which if you think about it makes sense.

And this also ignores the fact that DD stated there were no prospect deals available for Guthrie.

Trading for prospects isn't a panacea. I'm not arguing that that is how the Orioles will work their way into contention. The only way for them to do that is to develop more talent then their competitors develop. So, my plan would:

Gut and rebuild our scouting and development department
Build a second to none international scouting department
Make the minor league system organizational priority #1

This is a long term approach. I don't advocate trading our good players for prospects but I sure as hell don't advocate trading them for 30 yr old mediocre players either.

[MarylandAaron]

No, but Hamel is much like Guthrie was three years ago, has had two good years out of the last three, and has pitched 170 innings in each of them.


Lindstrom is either Johnson or Gregg. He has been a good closer and set up man in the past. WE were going to obtain someone like him so that Johnson could be our closer.

Right, looking briefly at Hamels b-r page, I thought Guthrie might be a decent comp except he will probably not be able to replicate Guthrie's consistency of 200+ innings every single year.

I feel somewhat optimistic about Lindstrom too. Might be the fact that he is so similar to Johnson. My thinking might be totally irrational, but yeah.

[NCRaven]

I was wondering if someone could link me to it.....

So, you want someone else to search though the entire thread to find the analysis of their last 3 years, so that you won't have to? Sorry, count me out!

[glorydays]

Found out about this just now and read through the thread. I'm not surprised that people are up-in-arms about this. I'm not, for a couple of reasons. To be clear, I'm not excited by it, by any means, and in fact I'm a moderate "thumbs down" on it. But I'm not up in arms. A few thoughts:

1. The lack of a good prospect for Guthrie leads me to believe that our opinion of him was inflated relative to the market. This isn't surprising, perhaps. But let's be clear: many of us constantly mitigated Guthrie's value due to mediocre peripherals. It feels like recently we've been trying to "will" the market to value Guthrie more than many of us ever have. We may have gotten a decent prospect and a throw-in for him a few years ago, but he wasn't going to get us one now, apparently.

2. The trade may tell us something about Duquette: first, he trusts his scouts to identify skill-sets/hidden value. Clearly, DD thinks he can re-fashion Hammel into something like the 4-ish WAR player he was before 2011.

3. Second, this trade may also tell us that Duquette doesn't value second-tier prospects. We likely could have packaged Guthrie for a handful of second-tier guys, I think. Settling on solid-but-unspectacular MLB value instead tells us something about how DD views risk, and risk-swapping. Trading MLB value for second-tier prospects (because they represent future-value) doesn't seem to be something that DD is inclined to do - though my guess is this changes with very-high-value/elite prospects. This doesn't mean that he won't build up an inventory of them, but he's not inclined to trade actual MLB value for speculative value, and does appear inclined to trade speculative value for nearly any amount of actual MLB value.

4. In other words, DD is less inclined to trade MLB now-value for anything less than very high probability future-value. On the other hand, DD will trade probabilistic future value (MiLB relievers) for marginal MLB value. This is, in some ways, the opposite of MacPhail.

5. Trades like this mean we're going to stock our minors through "primary" channels of acquisition. Draft/int'l FA/whathaveyou.

6. I tend to agree with most that the trade doesn't make any long-term sense for the O's, unless, basically, Hammel ends up being a Scott Erickson-like reclamation. This isn't impossible. But that possibility is wrapped up in figuring out the troubling bottoming out of his peripherals in 2011.

7. I don't think this is about money, or punishment, or any of those other theories (that seem to result more from an overflow of emotion than logic). I do wonder about the value of the parts we got back versus draft picks. What would we have gotten if Guthrie walked in FA?

I don't see AM keeping Guts at last year's trading deadline unless the above is true. As a matter of fact, IIRC a couple of GM's were quoted (perhaps anonymously) as kicking themselves for not picking up Guthrie after the deadline had passed.

[paulcoates]

If the arb talks really had anything to do with this and if Buck wasnt JGs biggest fan, is this another example of PA and Buck running the ML team?

Well, didn't PA say that he never wanted to pay a starting pitcher $10 mill per year? From that perspective he is keeping his own average player salary down. In the end, this has got to be about money, because the return just is not there

[Fan4Life]

Well, didn't PA say that he never wanted to pay a starting pitcher $10 mill per year? From that perspective he is keeping his own average player salary down. In the end, this has got to be about money, because the return just is not there

I think Stotle pointed out the O's will be paying more in 2012 for the 2 players they got than what Guts will make this season. So I'm not sure about the money aspect.

[paulcoates]

Wow impressive indside sources. You know the arbitrator? And why do you think BOS, STL or DET, would be interested even at 7 M, when they only are offering Oswalt 5-6M?

Garza just got 9.75 MM. I can't see Guthrie getting 10MM. The simple fact that he filed fot that magical 8 figure salary surely pissed PA off

[paulcoates]

I think Stotle pointed out the O's will be paying more in 2012 for the 2 players they got than what Guts will make this season. So I'm not sure about the money aspect.

Agree with the straight up exchange of money, but I seem to recall many many moons ago that PA said he could never pay a starting pitcher 10MM per season

[Fan4Life]

Agree with the straight up exchange of money, but I seem to recall many many moons ago that PA said he could never pay a starting pitcher 10MM per season

Back when $10MM was real money.

[Fan4Life]

Garza just got 9.75 MM. I can't see Guthrie getting 10MM. The simple fact that he filed fot that magical 8 figure salary surely pissed PA off

Does the EJack signing come into play with arbitration?

[Sports Guy]

Does the EJack signing come into play with arbitration?

No...and its not likely it ends up going to arbitration anyway.

I don't know why people ar ehung up on that 10M number...They would have likely settled on it and even if not, I would rather have Guthrie at 10M than Lindstron at 3.5M.

[Lucky Jim]

I was wondering if someone could link me to it.....

So someone else should search the thread for you? Huh?

[Fan4Life]

No...and its not likely it ends up going to arbitration anyway.

I don't know why people ar ehung up on that 10M number...They would have likely settled on it and even if not, I would rather have Guthrie at 10M than Lindstron at 3.5M.

It's already been reported that Guthrie accepted an $8.25mm contract to show good faith with his new team.

[Oriolidae85]

Garza just got 9.75 MM. I can't see Guthrie getting 10MM. The simple fact that he filed fot that magical 8 figure salary surely pissed PA off

Not discounting what you are saying, but Garza did file his number above $12M.

[paulcoates]

Back when $10MM was real money.

Would it surprise you if Pete still held that thought process? It sure as hell wouldn't for me. Besides, back when he made that statement was when we were actually fill the yard. Now that we aren't, I can't see him okaying a pitcher making 8 figures