Grading Duquette's deadline deals

[PaulFolk]

In my latest for BaltimoreBaseball, I take a look back and grade each of Dan Duquette's June/July/August trades as the Orioles' GM.

Spoiler: There are a lot of bad trades.

http://www.baltimorebaseball.com/2017/07/31/grading-duquettes-14-summer-trades-evp-orioles-dating-back-june-2012/

[glenn__davis]

Dang it.  I always enjoy Paul's analysis but loathe the "slide show to get more clicks" format.

Sorry Paul.   I'm sure that what you wrote was very good

[Aristotelian]

I would give the Bud Norris deal a D or F. Norris was OK in 2014, but he was terrible in 2015 and Hader is a future stud - more so than Davies and Miranda, and those trades got F's.

[Enjoy Terror]

Quote

Arrieta was in the minors at the time and had used up all his chances with the Orioles, and the struggling Strop was out of options. And yes, there’s reason to believe that Arrieta never would have succeeded in Baltimore, considering his dwindling confidence and the differences of opinion between him and the coaching staff.

You can't give the trade an "F" when you've clearly made a very good case for trading him. You may not like what he became but it was a great trade and everyone said so at the time. If you want to give an "F" to someone, give it to the organizational pitching development program, that continues to fail our farm system with every pitcher that finds success elsewhere in the MLB.

 

92% of close to 300 OHers thought the Feldman trade was great at the time. DD recognized the need to move Arrieta and just because it didn't work out doesn't make it a bad trade. If anything, it's to his credit that he made it.

[Grt 2BA FL Gator]

9 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I would give the Bud Norris deal a D or F. Norris was OK in 2014, but he was terrible in 2015 and Hader is a future stud - more so than Davies and Miranda, and those trades got F's.

Disagree. I think he graded that one well. Norris was invaluable in 2014. 

Benefit of hindsight always makes it easier as a fan. Hate how the Miranda move has turned out. At the time I loved it. It would have been hard to throw a fringe prospect out there in 2016 when we were having a solid season. This year he certainly would have gotten a look. 

Davies is probably the one I hate (and hated) the most. 

My biggest beef with DD isn't necessarily criticism trade by trade. You win some, you lose some and I think he's done OK. My issue is that we have been buyers too often, dealing from what we thought was gonna be our strength for a while (SP) and now it's depleted.

[Frobby]

Seems to me there are three ways to look at a trade:

- Did you like the logic of the trade based on what you knew at the time?

- Did the player(s) the team received do what you expected them to do?

- Did the players the team traded away exceed or fall short of expectations?

Taking the Arrieta trade as an example, I was OK with the logic at the time, because 3/5 of our rotation was in a shambles, we were nevertheless a legit contender at the time, Feldman was a known quantity and solid upgrade, and Arrieta had gotten worse each year and was out of options, as was Strop, who also was struggling at the time. 

As to the second criterion, Feldman did exactly as should have been expected.    He was the solid upgrade we thought he'd be, nothing spectacular, but steady.    The team's failure to make the playoffs was mostly due to a large donwntick in the offense in the second half, not any disappointment with Feldman.

The third criterion is where this deal looks bad.    Arrieta and Strop both exceeded expectations by leaps and bounds, and made the value exchange here look ridiculous.    To me, I still see this more as an indictment of our player development system and our coaching staff, rather than an indictment of the trade itself.    

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, PaulFolk said:

In my latest for BaltimoreBaseball, I take a look back and grade each of Dan Duquette's June/July/August trades as the Orioles' GM.

Spoiler: There are a lot of bad trades.

http://www.baltimorebaseball.com/2017/07/31/grading-duquettes-14-summer-trades-evp-orioles-dating-back-june-2012/

Excellent article Paul. Really can't quibble with any of your points. The only thing is, you should be the last guy throwing spindly around!

[PaulFolk]

3 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Excellent article Paul. Really can't quibble with any of your points. The only thing is, you should be the last guy throwing spindly around!

I of course have nothing against spindly guys  But if you're a professional athlete, it's maybe not a great thing.