Eduardo and the Afternoon Game

[Phantom]

You do not win at poker by folding every hand.

[Scrat1]

Absolutely. No way you could have speculated that Eduardo would have been that good. He was another failed Orioles pitching prospect. That got good. He was young. It happens.

This is just not true. He was having a rough start to the season in AA, but he was young for the league and had had success at every level before then. He was on nearly every top 100 prospect lists for two years running.

This isn't a Jake Arrieta situation, where you could legitimately claim him as a failed pitching prospect that had a renaissance elsewhere. There was never any discussion about Rodriguez being a failure. At the time of the trade, he was still considered a significant prospect. He was an incredibly valuable asset to give up for a Rent-A-Reliever.

[jtschrei]

But when you give up 1000+ innings of a cost controlled good starting pitcher for 20 innings of a relief pitcher who will be gone when the season is over, that decision is highly questionable. "You have to give up something to get something" is far too simplistic an equation. We've beaten this to death in other threads, so I don't want to get back into a full blown debate about it here, but simplistic statements like the one Roch made in the OP and the one you quote from Buck are not very illuminating.

This! I was for the trade at the time. Roch's being too dismissive here and too clearly a worker of the organization. He's not going to criticize DD. Only time will tell how good or bad the trade was. Right now, that trade is not looking good.

[Redskins Rick]

This! I was for the trade at the time. Roch's being too dismissive here and too clearly a worker of the organization. He's not going to criticize DD. Only time will tell how good or bad the trade was. Right now, that trade is not looking good.

I guess you haven't seen any of the messages in his blog feedback of his tweeter feed, then.

[Scrat1]

I support your ability to have that opinion. I disagree with it. You do not win at poker by folding every hand. You do not win at baseball by sidelining all opportunities. We were closer to winning the whole darned thing last year than many are willing to accept. We almost had a parade.

We got swept with home field advantage. And not necessarily because we were the worse team. That's the problem with "Win Now" moves. Andrew Miller, simply because he's just one player, could not move the needle much. As Beane always says, the playoffs are a crapshoot. It's as much about who gets hot at the right time as anything else. This is why it's better to hang onto assets than just roll the dice. If you field a competitive team every year, eventually you'll be that team that gets hot at the right time. If you piss away assets in the hope that it's "Your Time," you'll find sooner than later that you're no longer fielding a competitive team.

Resisting the temptation to make a "win now" move isn't "folding every hand." That's the same argument all the people were making for signing Markakis, Cruz and Miller to extensions.

[sportsfan8703]

I support your ability to have that opinion. I disagree with it. You do not win at poker by folding every hand. You do not win at baseball by sidelining all opportunities. We were closer to winning the whole darned thing last year than many are willing to accept. We almost had a parade.

Post of the year! I'm getting tired of all the Rodriguez love. He's a freaking Red Sox player now. Do you really want to root for the same player that the pink hat nation roots for? That's disgusting. F ed rod.

[Scrat1]

Post of the year! I'm getting tired of all the Rodriguez love. He's a freaking Red Sox player now. Do you really want to root for the same player that the pink hat nation roots for? That's disgusting. F ed rod.

Who's rooting for Rodriguez? We're calling into question the decision making process that resulted in Rodriguez pitching for the "pink hat nation" in the first place.

[MurphDogg]

I just think Roch doesn't want to hear the laments about about the trade 31-33 times a year for the next six seasons, amplified the four times a year he plays the Orioles. At a certain point, there is nothing else to say about it. You play your hand, whether you look at it as a win or a loss, you can't spend the next 6 years reflecting on it on a weekly basis, it is just exhausting.

[Scrat1]

I just think Roch doesn't want to hear the laments about about the trade 31-33 times a year for the next six seasons, amplified the four times a year he plays the Orioles. At a certain point, there is nothing else to say about it. You play your hand, whether you look at it as a win or a loss, you can't spend the next 6 years reflecting on it on a weekly basis, it is just exhausting.

I think the use in it is to show the problem with these sorts of moves. Roch just posted the other day about how he's expecting another deadline trade, which makes me nervous to say the least.

[Frobby]

I support your ability to have that opinion. I disagree with it. You do not win at poker by folding every hand. You do not win at baseball by sidelining all opportunities. We were closer to winning the whole darned thing last year than many are willing to accept. We almost had a parade.

I have a slightly more nuanced position than Scrat1, I would not say that you never trade long-term assets for short-term ones. It depends in part on your opinion of the talent we are trading away, whether there is redundant talent in the system (though pitching is almost never redundant), how glaring the short term need is that we are addressing, and how confident we are that the acquired player will address that need.

My biggest problem with this deal was that our bullpen was already pretty good before we got Miller, and EdRod was a lot to give up under the circumstances. I had a lot less problem with trading Nick Delmonico for KRod the year before, because (1) I thought Delmonico was a more "iffy" talent than EdRod, and (2) our 2013 bullpen was having issues.

[Frobby]

I just think Roch doesn't want to hear the laments about about the trade 31-33 times a year for the next six seasons, amplified the four times a year he plays the Orioles. At a certain point, there is nothing else to say about it. You play your hand, whether you look at it as a win or a loss, you can't spend the next 6 years reflecting on it on a weekly basis, it is just exhausting.

If he didn't want to hear about it, then he shouldn't have posted his comment about it. And we probably wouldn't be rehashing it here except that a thread was posted quoting Roch's comment.

[weams]

Who's rooting for Rodriguez? We're calling into question the decision making process that resulted in Rodriguez pitching for the "pink hat nation" in the first place.

I am saying that it was not a flawed decision. Or even that the process was sound. THat is what I am saying. Eduardo was not the man this time last year that he is now or had been before. He was close to being TIm Berry. Albeit much younger.

[weams]

I just think Roch doesn't want to hear the laments about about the trade 31-33 times a year for the next six seasons, amplified the four times a year he plays the Orioles. At a certain point, there is nothing else to say about it. You play your hand, whether you look at it as a win or a loss, you can't spend the next 6 years reflecting on it on a weekly basis, it is just exhausting.

We won the hand. Folks just don't like that we had to ante.

[MurphDogg]

If he didn't want to hear about it, then he shouldn't have posted his comment about it. And we probably wouldn't be rehashing it here except that a thread was posted quoting Roch's comment.

You think he wouldn't have gotten comments in the blog? You think someone wouldn't post a thread if Eduardo has a great performance today? It is going to keep coming up, and I'm not sure it is worth dwelling on every time he has a decent start (or conversely, every time he has a poor start, or if he gets sent back down).

[Phantom]

I just think Roch doesn't want to hear the laments about about the trade 31-33 times a year for the next six seasons, amplified the four times a year he plays the Orioles. At a certain point, there is nothing else to say about it. You play your hand, whether you look at it as a win or a loss, you can't spend the next 6 years reflecting on it on a weekly basis, it is just exhausting.

I find it more exhausting to root for a team that trades away good, young starting pitchers for minimal returns. If enough of us complain about it, maybe they'll stop doing it.