Help convince me we shouldn't be trading Jim Johnson

[jabba72]

Dont really see Buck trading Johnson for prospects. I personally think Johnson is a having an amazing year and wouldnt mind seeing him try and repeat it in coming years. Maybe a team loaded with prospects like the Rangers could put together an impressive offer, but thats not a sure thing. Im content holding onto Johnson and letting him do his thing. Good bullpens are not very common.

[jabba72]

Caveat: I haven't read any of the notes in this thread, but tonight should show exactly why Johnson shouldn't be traded. Close game against a good team in a critical part of the season with the pitching staff struggling, finished out with NO DRAMA. When was the last time we could say that?

Trading All-Star quality players as they start to become expensive is a small market, perennial second division team philosophy that more often than not results in the team staying in the second division a few more years.

I thought the whole point was not to do that any more.

Exactly. Not to mention how many times Strop has shut down the opposition in the 8th. Some here are acting like these 2 guys are replacable or something and im not really sure they are.

[Barnaby Graves]

Dont really see Buck trading Johnson for prospects. I personally think Johnson is a having an amazing year and wouldnt mind seeing him try and repeat it in coming years. Maybe a team loaded with prospects like the Rangers could put together an impressive offer, but thats not a sure thing. Im content holding onto Johnson and letting him do his thing.

This doesn't necessarily have to be a trade for prospects. As I indicated in my first post, if you could find a trade that helps the team right now and uses Johnson to also give bullpen help to someone else right now, I would do that. That's a difficult trade to make and would probably require a 3 team deal which is rare on its own so I guess this is more of an academic exercise. But I think Johnson is going to regress a bit, and our bullpen is already a position of strength, so if a deal is around I would execute on it.

Good bullpens are not very common.

Well Tampa seems to be able to build them out of discarded fruit peelings and mismatched IKEA furniture sets, and we're always talking about how they're the budgetary model for us. It really doesn't make sense to me to potentially pay Johnson $6 or 7 million in arbitration. Good bullpens are not very common but neither are good starters, good third basemen, and good second basemen and we need those things too. But in a Headley or Greinke deal, Johnson isn't going back, so the key would be to find a blocked player on a competing team. I have to go for now but later I might try and do some research on some of those potential guys.