Roch: Rick Adair Talks About Jake

[mdbdotcom]

If I hear one more time that Jake just needed a change of scenery, I'm going to throw up in my mouth. That is an ignorant, short sighted excuse. The mound at Camden yards is 60 feet 6 inches from the plate. Just like Wrigley, fancy that! The change of scenery BS absolves the Orioles from their total failure to develop and have patience with the best pitcher in baseball. I would suggest everyone stops making excuses and owns up to the fact that this organization made one of the biggest blunders of all time. If we don't own up to it, we are doomed to repeat it. Lessons learned and all that.

Jake just needed a change of scenery.

[Wish]

Fine. Beat your head into the wall as often as you want, siting Captain Hindsight.

Nobody thought Jake had this in him. Not the Cubs, not the Orioles, not anybody. He was a trash heap player that the Cubs figured they might be able to get a little something out of, not a future Cy Young candidate. Crap happens.

If no one thought he had this in him he would never have been a top prospect. He always had this in him, he just didn't get the right coaching obviously. When he was traded we all assumed he was probably never going to put it all together. Little did we know he just needed different coaching.

Jose Bautista is one thing, but this guy turned it around right away once he got to the Cubs. Whats wrong with saying the O's goofed with this one? Just like teams goof with draft picks. Some teams draft better just like some teams coach better.

[Frobby]

If I hear one more time that Jake just needed a change of scenery, I'm going to throw up in my mouth. That is an ignorant, short sighted excuse. The mound at Camden yards is 60 feet 6 inches from the plate. Just like Wrigley, fancy that! The change of scenery BS absolves the Orioles from their total failure to develop and have patience with the best pitcher in baseball. I would suggest everyone stops making excuses and owns up to the fact that this organization made one of the biggest blunders of all time. If we don't own up to it, we are doomed to repeat it. Lessons learned and all that.

I buy the failure to develop part. I don't buy the failure to have patience part. The guy spent parts of four seasons in the majors and got worse each season. They showed reasonable patience with him and all he did was regress. I see this as a developmental failure, not a tactical failure in trading him when they did. It's incredibly frustrating.

[DrungoHazewood]

If I hear one more time that Jake just needed a change of scenery, I'm going to throw up in my mouth. That is an ignorant, short sighted excuse. The mound at Camden yards is 60 feet 6 inches from the plate. Just like Wrigley, fancy that! The change of scenery BS absolves the Orioles from their total failure to develop and have patience with the best pitcher in baseball. I would suggest everyone stops making excuses and owns up to the fact that this organization made one of the biggest blunders of all time. If we don't own up to it, we are doomed to repeat it. Lessons learned and all that.

This is totally not as big a blunder as getting into a land war in Asia. Maybe not even as bad as going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

[Redskins Rick]

If I hear one more time that Jake just needed a change of scenery, I'm going to throw up in my mouth. That is an ignorant, short sighted excuse. The mound at Camden yards is 60 feet 6 inches from the plate. Just like Wrigley, fancy that! The change of scenery BS absolves the Orioles from their total failure to develop and have patience with the best pitcher in baseball. I would suggest everyone stops making excuses and owns up to the fact that this organization made one of the biggest blunders of all time. If we don't own up to it, we are doomed to repeat it. Lessons learned and all that.

I wish you would get off your soapbox.

You are entitled to your opinion, which is what it is, an opinion.

This is not the biggest blunder of this org, there are more far worse than this.

[mcgraw238]

I wish you would get off your soapbox.

You are entitled to your opinion, which is what it is, an opinion.

This is not the biggest blunder of this org, there are more far worse than this.

The organization has a long list of blunders, but this one is pretty close to the top. I hear you on the Schilling thing, but this one just might top it once its all said and done. This is certainly got to be the biggest blunder in the last 5 years of the organization.

[MrOrange82]

I wish you would get off your soapbox.

You are entitled to your opinion, which is what it is, an opinion.

This is not the biggest blunder of this org, there are more far worse than this.

lol...awesome.

[DrungoHazewood]

I hear you on the Schilling thing, but this one just might top it once its all said and done.

We'll have to reconvene in about 15 years on this one. By some measures the Davis for Finley/Schilling/Harnisch is the worst trade of all time. That one was the dying gasps of a veteran's career for almost the whole career of a near-HOFer in Finley, almost all of an actual HOF career in Schilling, and most of the career of a pretty good #3 starter in Harnisch. I think in WAR terms the O's lost that one about 130-1. Currently the Arrieta deal is about 15-1, which is still short of the Tettleton for Jeff Robinson debacle.

[mcgraw238]

We'll have to reconvene in about 15 years on this one. By some measures the Davis for Finley/Schilling/Harnisch is the worst trade of all time. That one was the dying gasps of a veteran's career for almost the whole career of a near-HOFer in Finley, almost all of an actual HOF career in Schilling, and most of the career of a pretty good #3 starter in Harnisch. I think in WAR terms the O's lost that one about 130-1. Currently the Arrieta deal is about 15-1, which is still short of the Tettleton for Jeff Robinson debacle.

I wasn't touching any comparison to the entire package surrendered for Glenn Davis which probably is the worst trade ever...not sure if we are counting the sale of Babe Ruth in that category. I hope we don't get to the point of rationalizing the Arrieta situation by pointing out it wasn't the O's biggest blunder ever...especially given the high spot we have with the Glenn Davis deal.

[Babkins]

We'll have to reconvene in about 15 years on this one. By some measures the Davis for Finley/Schilling/Harnisch is the worst trade of all time. That one was the dying gasps of a veteran's career for almost the whole career of a near-HOFer in Finley, almost all of an actual HOF career in Schilling, and most of the career of a pretty good #3 starter in Harnisch. I think in WAR terms the O's lost that one about 130-1. Currently the Arrieta deal is about 15-1, which is still short of the Tettleton for Jeff Robinson debacle.

My brother-in-law is a Cubs fan, so naturally he has offered me an abundance of patronizing thanks over the past two years for the Arrieta trade (as if I had anything to do with it—but that's just his way). He mentioned yesterday that Arrieta-for-Feldman might one day rival Brock-for-Broglio, and I countered without even looking it up that the Glenn Davis trade was likely far worse from a career-WAR-accumulated-after-the-trade perspective.

Then I actually did look it up and I found out that Brock put up 41.6 rWAR after the trade versus -1.5 for Broglio. Which is very bad. Harnisch (17.7 rWAR after the trade), Finley (43.3), and Schilling (80.4) put up a combined 140.4 career rWAR after they were traded to Houston. Glenn Davis put up 0.7 over the parts of three seasons in Baltimore that were the last of his career. You were close, Drungo, but it was even worse than you supposed.

Of course, it makes more sense to evaluate a trade only in terms of the contracts the players were signed to at the time. I don’t know if it’s fair to say Brock-for-Broglio was bad simply because Brock re-signed with St. Louis after his original contract was up and then went on to put up all those stats. And there were other players involved in that trade, so you’d have to consider what they did on the remainders of their original contracts, too. Harnisch and Finley and Schilling didn't give all that production just to Houston on the contracts they were traded with, but I think the point is understood.

Anyway. The Arrieta trade stings right now, especially because it's apparent that his 2015 production, substituted for even our best starter's stats, could have been the difference between a playoff team and the .500 one we watched all year. I know this isn't exactly how it all works, but Jake was worth 8.6 rWAR to Chen's 3.8; had Jake produced at that level for us, perhaps we'd have hit 86 or 87 wins.

But this entire discussion is loaded with suppositions and counterfactuals that we'll never be able to reconcile. Jake didn't seem to be capable of turning things around in Baltimore with the cocktail of pitching philosophies he was ingesting. I liked him, and I had high hopes for him, but I didn't object to upgrading the 2013 rotation. Sending Jake and his seven-point-something ERA to the NL Central seemed reasonable to me: if he did turn things around, which I thought was a real possibility, at least it wouldn't be as directly at our expense. I told my brother-in-law back then that the Cubs were getting a guy who had ability in spades and who might develop into something special, but who also had the potential to frustrate them and ruin their birthday. I watch Jake now with a mixture of satisfaction, knowing that he was our guy, and sadness, knowing that he was our guy. If that makes any sense.

I don't know, man. I just hope we eventually hit it big with Gausman or Bundy or Harvey or Hess or someone. It doesn't seem like too much to ask for at this point.

[El Gordo]

We could have kept Jake, but in order for him to have become what he is today here, we would have had to get replace our entire pitching development program including Buck.

[Phantom]

We'll have to reconvene in about 15 years on this one. By some measures the Davis for Finley/Schilling/Harnisch is the worst trade of all time. That one was the dying gasps of a veteran's career for almost the whole career of a near-HOFer in Finley, almost all of an actual HOF career in Schilling, and most of the career of a pretty good #3 starter in Harnisch. I think in WAR terms the O's lost that one about 130-1. Currently the Arrieta deal is about 15-1, which is still short of the Tettleton for Jeff Robinson debacle.

Babe Ruth career WAR after the Red Sox trade was 149.8. No, No, Nanette tried to keep up via longevity, but I'm still giving that one to the Yankees.

[brianod]

I remember the Glenn Davis trade well. Contrary to the inaccurate descriptions above, Glenn Davis was not a washed up veteran when we traded for him. He was 29 years old, having hit 31, 27, 30 and 34 homeruns in the astrodome and averaged over 90 rbis in those years. He was in his prime. The theory was that if he hit 30 in the dome, he should hit 40 at Camden Yards. The trade falls into the typical dynamic of trading valuable prospects for a proven veteran in him prime. Davis's career didn't end because of age, it ended due to a career ending shoulder problem. Very unfortunate as I do believe had he stayed healthy, he would have put up monster numbers at Camden yards.

So, in some ways, the Arietta trade was worse. We knew we weren't getting much back. We knew that Jake had great stuff. We simply made the judgment that he would never succeed. I agree that he wasn't pitching well enough to warrant sending him out as a starter but we could have sent him to Norfolk for a few months. We didn't have to give up on him. So we traded a younger pitcher with great stuff for a 2 month rental with average stuff. Our guy was younger. Doesn't that ring alarm bells all over the place? If not, it should.

A lot of guys are saying we had no other choice given his performance. But, that wasn't true. The other choice was Norfolk or long relief. Make no mistake, this was an organizational failure. The Orioles should acknowledge it, learn from it and move on. Those of you not recognizing that and saying we had no other choice or that Jake just needed a change of scenery are delusional.

[OsEatAlEast]

Babe Ruth career WAR after the Red Sox trade was 149.8. No, No, Nanette tried to keep up via longevity, but I'm still giving that one to the Yankees.

The trouble with that one is he was traded for cash. We might be able to say the worst trade in history where players were exchanged both ways.

[DrungoHazewood]

Of course, it makes more sense to evaluate a trade only in terms of the contracts the players were signed to at the time. I don?t know if it?s fair to say Brock-for-Broglio was bad simply because Brock re-signed with St. Louis after his original contract was up and then went on to put up all those stats. And there were other players involved in that trade, so you?d have to consider what they did on the remainders of their original contracts, too. Harnisch and Finley and Schilling didn't give all that production just to Houston on the contracts they were traded with, but I think the point is understood.

It gets difficult because of widely varying contracts. In the Brock trade's case it was during the reserve clause era so you could rightfully say that they traded for the whole rest of Brock's career. Same with the Ruth sale (below). Today you basically can't trade for the next 15 years of a player at minimal salary - that stopped existing in the 1970s.

Babe Ruth career WAR after the Red Sox trade was 149.8. No, No, Nanette tried to keep up via longevity, but I'm still giving that one to the Yankees.

As previously mentioned that was a straight-up sale, which can't happen any more. One of Bowie Kuhn's well-meaning but short-sighted and poorly-conceived precedents was to ban straight sales of players. Now you at least have to pretend you're offering up Jemile Weeks for $10M worth of Jim Johnson.