Guthrie traded to Rockies for Hammel & Lindstrom

[allstar1579]

first and foremost I never said guthrie had no value. what I did say is that he did not have the value that people think he has. so is the premise that the orioles took the worst deal possible? the money is about a wash, so that's theory does not make any sense.

And my counter is that some people THINK he had less value than he should have had, and this debacle of a trade didn't help that. However, I think they blew trading him when there was more demand and then were absolutely set on dealing him before the arbitration case, so they took the ONLY trade they had on the table at the time. I know of one team that would have traded a much better return than we got 2 months ago.

[Sports Guy]

From Rosenthal:

Of course teams wanted him. We all knew that. We don't know what the return could have been but we do know what Seattle got back for someone similar and that Detroit was talking to us about JG first.

As was said earlier...AM likely overvalued him.

[weams]

Of course teams wanted him. We all knew that. We don't know what the return could have been but we do know what Seattle got back for someone similar and that Detroit was talking to us about JG first.

As was said earlier...AM likely overvalued him.

Lindstrom.

"With Colorado, he pitched mostly in the seventh and eighth innings, working to an ERA of 2.65 in the seventh and 2.66 in the eighth. He gave up a .253 average versus left-handed hitters and .258 against right-handed batters."

[Mr Snuffleupagus]

Of course teams wanted him. We all knew that. We don't know what the return could have been but we do know what Seattle got back for someone similar and that Detroit was talking to us about JG first.

As was said earlier...AM likely overvalued him.

Are you talking about Eric Bedard or Doug Fister?

[allstar1579]

Andy was busy packing away his extensive sweater vest at the time so he wasn't able to find time to percolate. In fairness, I doubt Angelos would have allowed the trade because it would have appeared that the Orioles were mailing in the season. Not that it wasn't apparent early in the season anyway, but those critical two or three extra wins really matter to Pete.

Dan O'Dowd said on XM earlier that he had been after Guthrie for 2 years now, and Jim D. was GLOWING about how great of a person and player he had just gotten. Just an added thought onto them dragging their feet on a trade.

[byrdz]

But, we couldn't afford to lose him at that time. He was too valuable to our team.

Just because a team has interest doesn't mean they are willing to trade prospects for him. Their thinking may have been we'll take him as a salary dump for all we know. Now if we find out they were willing to give up a prospect or two I'll do the rolley-eyes all day long with you.

[erb8472]

Bottom line is we missed the boat on getting a long term type prospect for Guthrie. If that was available it would have been at last years deadline. As was stated earlier the longer we held onto Guthrie the more his value decreased.

[Sparkwinder]

Agreed and I am inclined to agree with DD in that line of thinking and as far as this trade goes I think many on here are overvaluing are guy and just aren't giving this trade a fair shake, here's why......

1. Guthrie basically had little to no value for this team going forward in terms of adding long term pieces to this team. He has one year left and given that DD stated there were no LT pieces offered now I see no reason to believe Guthrie is gonna blow the league away this year enough to up his value at the trade deadline to get us anything worth while....People just don't realize the league has really transformed into a pitchers game the last two years and a guy like Guthrie just doesn't hve the value he did 3 years ago...MOR starters are everywhere now just look at what E-Jax got as a FA...He is a much better pitcher than Guthrie who is being paid about the same contract on the open market and to thing Guthrie will get us anything with LT value is just not logical.

2. Hammel has had two years in the last three better than Guthrie has EVER had...He is a hard thrower who has two years left of team control and if he can get back to his xfip/fip of 2009/2010 he has a much better chance at getting us a LT piece than Guthrie did...Guthrie just has no surplus value at this point and Hammel does...Hammel gives us some chance of getting better, it's a risk, but this team needs to take risks to get better (which is something we hammer them about all the time).

3. Lindstrom is not a throw in by any means....The last two years he would have been one of our best RP and is under control for the next 2 years....Once again he has a chance to turn into a LT piece at the deadline or next offseason something Guthrie just won't do....He is a flame thrower who has had success in the Majors with a 3 something xfip/fip the last two years....That has alot of value at the deadline for sure if he pitches like he has in the past.

4. Guthrie is on the wrong side of thirty in his last year for a team who won't contend and about to go through a messy hearing which could hurt us with him being the Vet leader to the young guys...I know I don't want a pissed Guthrie in the clubhouse all year thats for sure. There just isn't much upside in keeping this guy around.

5. Hammel has been a 4 win pitcher two of the last three years...That is Elite type production and another 4 win season and suddenly he gets us a nice package of prospects next offseason and you still have a very good reliever in Lindstrom plus some LT prospects.

6. Lindstrom had a HR/9 of .5 last year in Coors field last year and has shown throughout his career his ability to prevent HR's and that is the biggest keys to success in pitching at OPACY.

All in all I really think this was a good roll of the dice by DD...At best you get a great two years out of these guys with 5+ WAR from them or you get a koji or sherrill trade package from Lindstrom and one of E-jax many trade packages type package for Hammel....At worst these guys flame out and you cut your loses and next offseason your in the same spot you would have been with guthrie, who I wouldn't want us to resign anyway...

I see alot of potential LT upside and virtually no LT downside, while there is potential downside for this upcoming season I think it is very mitagated by the potential rewards....This is the typical high upside move this team never makes and which is a nessacary move for this team to get out of the basement...Guthrie should have been traded 3 years ago, he wasn't, so DD pulled a move which could give us our best SP and RP for next year.

This is a B+ with a downside of a C grade and an upside of an A...........

I'll be expecting some comments and Rep......Thats a joke by the way.

This is pretty much exactly how I feel. Started at B-B+, and now that it's percolated a bit, I see it as an "A" trade regardless of long-term outcome. Nobody can predict the future. But we can up the odds of certain events coming to pass. These are the sorts of trades that are ugly, but very smart. Next on the block ought to be Markakis.

The other great thing that this trade does is makes me believe we aren't too in love with our golden-boys. After all, do we want to see Jeremy Guthrie win, or do we want to see the Baltimore Orioles win? Today's move is a 100% pro-Orioles future move. It's ugly, derided by the masses, and gives me a lot of hope for the direction of this team moving forward.

Duquette - Your next big move is move Reynolds off of 3B with an above-average 3B defensive acquisition. Hate him as a regular defensive player. Your pitch-to-contact, control pitching staff you are putting together should dislike him as well. Please look at some of the tape. I think he's probably worse than the statistics indicate. Maybe there just isn't a player out there that is attainable, but you are really hurting your pitching staff by using him in the field. He's a DH. Or he's a back-up corner infielder. And maybe the reasonable thing to do is to give him half-a-season to see if last year was an anomaly. I just don't see it though. He's got poor hands, terrible quickness, and an inaccurate arm. He'd make a much better LF option, if we're intent on keeping him in the field. Reason being is that hands aren't important for OF, speed is as much a factor as is quickness, and Reynolds is fast, and he has a strong arm, which, even though inaccurate, will deter opposing teams from taking chances on the basepaths.

[Biff Tannen]

If he didn't have any value, then why has this trade been talked about NON-STOP on XM all day, and generally received in all facets of media and analysis as being a big win for COL?

If it were a ho-hum non-value player for non-value players it wouldn't have been mentioned. He's also projected as COL's #1 or #2 starter.

This is interesting, because most of the baseball blogs that I keep up with have generally said that we got the better of the deal, speaking purely on a player personnel level. And in a worst case, its slightly less than an even swap. Some, like me, think its a bit of a head scratcher that we'd make a trade like this and no one is declaring it a bonafide win, but I haven't seen many, if any, state that Colorado gave up much less and came away with the so-called big win. Except for types like Heyman, Rosenthal or Olney who are historically better at tracking down or making up rumors than offering in depth player analysis.

Here's 6 that I pulled up right away. Again, nobody is declaring it a SCORE for us, but not many are arguing that it wasn't a pretty fair trade.

http://www.purplerow.com/2012/2/6/2774884/rockies-looking-to-acquire-jeremy-guthrie-from-orioles

http://www.overthemonster.com/2012/2/6/2775037/orioles-deal-jeremy-guthrie-to-the-rockies-for-jason-hammel

http://baseballmusings.com/?p=78807

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/orioles-rockies-trade-jeremy-guthrie-jason-hammel/

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/2/6/2774814/orioles-rockies-trade-jeremy-guthrie-jason-hammel

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/2/6/2775053/rosenthal-orioles-continue-to-be-orioles/in/2538861

[weams]

Jim D also Just said it appeard to be a reasonable trade for the Orioles

Dan O'Dowd said on XM earlier that he had been after Guthrie for 2 years now, and Jim D. was GLOWING about how great of a person and player he had just gotten. Just an added thought onto them dragging their feet on a trade.

On MASN. He said the time to trade Jeremy was last season when people were after him.

He said that he would have done this deal every day.

[Ven6]

Agreed and I am inclined to agree with DD in that line of thinking and as far as this trade goes I think many on here are overvaluing are guy and just aren't giving this trade a fair shake, here's why......

1. Guthrie basically had little to no value for this team going forward in terms of adding long term pieces to this team. He has one year left and given that DD stated there were no LT pieces offered now I see no reason to believe Guthrie is gonna blow the league away this year enough to up his value at the trade deadline to get us anything worth while....People just don't realize the league has really transformed into a pitchers game the last two years and a guy like Guthrie just doesn't hve the value he did 3 years ago...MOR starters are everywhere now just look at what E-Jax got as a FA...He is a much better pitcher than Guthrie who is being paid about the same contract on the open market and to thing Guthrie will get us anything with LT value is just not logical.

2. Hammel has had two years in the last three better than Guthrie has EVER had...He is a hard thrower who has two years left of team control and if he can get back to his xfip/fip of 2009/2010 he has a much better chance at getting us a LT piece than Guthrie did...Guthrie just has no surplus value at this point and Hammel does...Hammel gives us some chance of getting better, it's a risk, but this team needs to take risks to get better (which is something we hammer them about all the time).

3. Lindstrom is not a throw in by any means....The last two years he would have been one of our best RP and is under control for the next 2 years....Once again he has a chance to turn into a LT piece at the deadline or next offseason something Guthrie just won't do....He is a flame thrower who has had success in the Majors with a 3 something xfip/fip the last two years....That has alot of value at the deadline for sure if he pitches like he has in the past.

4. Guthrie is on the wrong side of thirty in his last year for a team who won't contend and about to go through a messy hearing which could hurt us with him being the Vet leader to the young guys...I know I don't want a pissed Guthrie in the clubhouse all year thats for sure. There just isn't much upside in keeping this guy around.

5. Hammel has been a 4 win pitcher two of the last three years...That is Elite type production and another 4 win season and suddenly he gets us a nice package of prospects next offseason and you still have a very good reliever in Lindstrom plus some LT prospects.

6. Lindstrom had a HR/9 of .5 last year in Coors field last year and has shown throughout his career his ability to prevent HR's and that is the biggest keys to success in pitching at OPACY.

All in all I really think this was a good roll of the dice by DD...At best you get a great two years out of these guys with 5+ WAR from them or you get a koji or sherrill trade package from Lindstrom and one of E-jax many trade packages type package for Hammel....At worst these guys flame out and you cut your loses and next offseason your in the same spot you would have been with guthrie, who I wouldn't want us to resign anyway...

I see alot of potential LT upside and virtually no LT downside, while there is potential downside for this upcoming season I think it is very mitagated by the potential rewards....This is the typical high upside move this team never makes and which is a nessacary move for this team to get out of the basement...Guthrie should have been traded 3 years ago, he wasn't, so DD pulled a move which could give us our best SP and RP for next year.

This is a B+ with a downside of a C grade and an upside of an A...........

I'll be expecting some comments and Rep......Thats a joke by the way.

Great post, MG. Rep coming your way (not a joke.)

[statman]

This reminds me of the trades the Pirates used to make...trading away your talent for nothing because you don't want to pay them...hence why they have a longer streak of losing seasons than we do. Pitiful organizations...and it's sad because you only have to look down the street in either city to be reminded that there are still fans there.

[TGO]

Are you talking about Eric Bedard or Doug Fister?

He's comparing Guthrie to Fister.

[MarylandAaron]

Sounds about right to me. This trade seems like mostly a money deal. We didn't want to pay Guthrie what his agent wanted, and we got two cheaper (and potentially decent) pitchers in return for him. Guthrie's reliability will be missed though.

After posting this, I heard Amber Theoharris on the radio say that Hammel and Lindstrom are due to make 8.5m combined this year as opposed to Guthrie's 8.2m, so it's basically a wash as far as money is considered, making my original theory incorrect. I guess this deal is more or less about trading one decent pitcher for two decent pitchers who are younger and under team control longer. Not a bad move on the O's part, as far as I'm concerned.

[olehippi]

A cockamamie trade IMO.

Even the economic metrics of this move make no sense. Possibly, there will be a couple of million dollars difference, but I think Guthrie would have been more valuable to the Orioles than these two guys. And unfortunately for Jeremy, I think he was traded to the worst possible place for an extreme fly ball pitcher. He might give up 35-40 HR?s at Coor?s Field.

Jason Hammel has a lifetime 4.99 ERA, and his stats fell off considerably last year, especially the K?s. I smell arm problems.

Matt Lindstrom looks like nothing more than another dime-a-dozen reliever.