A lot of little moves = a significantly better team?

[Mackus]

Okay -- let's turn the tables then. As an amateur spectator of the game, what would you have offered back from the O's farm system and major league roster to acquire Sherrill at last season's trade deadline if you were running the O's and the O's were in a pennant race.

I wouldn't have offered more than 1 or 2 mid level prospects.

It was obvious to me even at the All-Star break that Sherrill was not a long term solution at closer (even then he was struggling to get through innings and was extremely lucky to have had the success he was having given his peripherals). I would have viewed him as a LOOGY at best and valued him accordingly in trade negotiations.

And I'm just a guy with a TIVO. Major League organizations must have better scouting and evaluation abilities than I do.

So what would you have offered?

If I thought my bullpen was weak and that Sherrill could help in either a closing or setup role, and I'm definitely going for the playoffs (lets say I was in the Mets position last year, for example) I would have offered something like Nolan Reimold and one of the secondary pitchers (Hernandez, Bergesen, etc). Depends of course on where my strengths and weaknesses are on both the MLB roster and minor leagues, but if I had someone like Scott manning LF I could afford to move Reimold, and with the slew of good pitching prospects, could afford to move a second tier SP prospect.

So Reimold and Bergesen, for example, would be something I would have offered for Sherrill in your scenario.

If I'm the guy selling Sherrill, I'd take that, and probably take even less. That's a lot more than I think we can get for Sherrill now, but not out of line with what I thought his value was last year.

[NewMarketSean]

They're still s--tty.

[BaltimoreTerp]

They're still s--tty.

It would better if Uehara said it...

[Mackus]

The problem is that you are using an awful lot of "perceived" and "I think" and the like, which points out the very fact that none of us know what Andy MacPhail OR the other teams were thinking at the time.

Generally I think that you have a good point, but so do others in the argument.

Its not as exact as predicting contract and contract extensions, but the same things apply. You figure out what a players production and age suggest they are worth. Find similar players, see what they received, and adjust from there.

Its more difficult because prospects, unlike money, are worth different things to different teams. The same prospect may be very expendable for one team because they have his position covered and are going for it all this year, but for another team he's nearly untouchable. The individual prospects and players value differ from team to team, whereas money is the same to everyone. But the overall calculation of a player's value is pretty straightforward.

I'm not sitting here saying why didn't MacPhail trade Sherrill for X player and Y prospect. I'm just saying that Sherrill had a value, and MacPhail didn't do a good job of getting teams to pay for that value when he should have.

[ugen64]

Okay -- let's turn the tables then. As an amateur spectator of the game, what would you have offered back from the O's farm system and major league roster to acquire Sherrill at last season's trade deadline if you were running the O's and the O's were in a pennant race.

I wouldn't have offered more than 1 or 2 mid level prospects.

It was obvious to me even at the All-Star break that Sherrill was not a long term solution at closer (even then he was struggling to get through innings and was extremely lucky to have had the success he was having given his peripherals). I would have viewed him as a LOOGY at best and valued him accordingly in trade negotiations.

And I'm just a guy with a TIVO. Major League organizations must have better scouting and evaluation abilities than I do.

So what would you have offered?

First of all, Sherrill's peripherals aren't that bad. Second of all, Major League organizations are surprisingly enamoured with ERA and saves, even if the guy has bad peripherals or isn't suited to his role. Third, your scenario is unrealistic because you have to wonder what kind of talent the O's had that made them contenders. Do they already have a top closer? Do they already have a top lefty specialist? Do they have enough talent in the farm system to waste on a reliever?

Anyway, at the trade deadline, Sherrill's value would have been extremely limited. Take a look at Jon Rauch, Washington's closer at the time. His peripherals are arguably better than Sherrill's, and he wasn't being paid that much last season (only $1.2 million). What did the Nats get for trading him at the deadline? Emilio Bonifacio, a C+ prospect in 2008 who was hitting .302/.348/.387 at the time in AAA.

[bluedog]

Exactly. We can't "assume" anything

I think if we are going to make assumptions its much more likely to be accurate if they are based on things that have happened instead of things we are guessing about.

We know that AM has actively pursued and completed trades for Bedard, Tejada and Hernandez that all benefited the club and that he wanted not only major league ready talent in each trade, but also a minimum of 2 prospects with the potential to turn into something at the major league level.

I think that's plenty of evidence to make the assumption that AM won't trade veteran players just to make a trade. He's going to hang onto players until he gets a trade that he perceives is well in the O's favor.

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he hasn't gotten a comparable offer for Huff, Roberts or Sherrill yet, else I can't imagine why he wouldn't have moved them as well.

[Enjoy Terror]

BTW Enjoy Terror...You're only defense of not getting Tex is that I'm crying about it. Very mature.

No. That's not my defense at all.

You are making the claim that even though Tex said he wanted to play for the Yankees and the NYT said that Tex wanted to play for the Yankees, Tex and the NYT are actually huge liars spreading biased information because if what they said was actually the truth your argument that this is all MacPhail's fault is suddenly wrong.

I'm exposing your logic for what it is rather than what you are pedalling it to be.

[Mackus]

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he hasn't gotten a comparable offer for Huff, Roberts or Sherrill yet, else I can't imagine why he wouldn't have moved them as well.

I'm willing to give him the complete benefit of the doubt on Roberts and Huff, because (especially Roberts) I fully believe he is out there doing what he's supposed to be doing, trying to drive up interest from various teams and seeing what offers he can get.

I never got the impression he was doing that with Sherrill. Based on everything he did and said I felt that he was happy to have Sherrill (which he should be) and that he wasn't going to push to move him, but would listen to offers as they came in (which was his mistake, IMO).

[Enjoy Terror]

So in other words, if AM does it, we know it was there, but if he doesn't make a move, no need to bash him because we don't know for sure if it was ever on the table?

Not entirely, there could be an offer everyone knows is on the table but MacPhail chooses not to do it. I would bash him over that.

[Mackus]

You are making the claim that even though Tex said he wanted to play for the Yankees and the NYT said that Tex wanted to play for the Yankees, Tex and the NYT are actually huge liars spreading biased information because if what they said was actually the truth your argument that this is all MacPhail's fault is suddenly wrong.

I definitely think that if we would have had an offer than was substantially better than the Yankees, that he would have signed here. I don't doubt that at all.

I also think we could have topped the deal he signed for substantially and still been within a contract I wouldn't have hated. I would have gone as high as 9/$207M to get Tex, an extra year an extra half million per year. Now, perhaps we offer that and then the Yankees step up and match it or approach it, then he still signs with them. But if our offer was considerably better, no doubts in my mind he comes here.

So I do think MacPhail screwed up in the Teixeira bidding by not offering him a large enough contract to come here. Everything else he's done this offseason has been smart though, especially since the turning point of not getting Tex. Go short term and cheap, thats the right move at this point.

[bluedog]

I'm willing to give him the complete benefit of the doubt on Roberts and Huff, because (especially Roberts) I fully believe he is out there doing what he's supposed to be doing, trying to drive up interest from various teams and seeing what offers he can get.

I never got the impression he was doing that with Sherrill. Based on everything he did and said I felt that he was happy to have Sherrill (which he should be) and that he wasn't going to push to move him, but would listen to offers as they came in (which was his mistake, IMO).

Okay -- I'm really interested in your opinion on the question I asked earlier. What would YOU have offered to acquire Sherrill at the trade deadline last year assuming you we GM for the O's and we were in contention (and didn't have Sherrill of course)...

[Enjoy Terror]

I never thought Tex made financial sense for this club. He might have made sense for his talent and our availability at 1B (obviously), but we could draft solid 1B in any draft and have him ready in a year to hit 30 homeruns, and pay him a 1/100th of Tex's salary. It was about value and bang-for-buck math, considering at least the first $40M of Tex's salary would go towards seasons in which we aren't ready to compete because the pitching isn't there.

[SrMeowMeow]

But by saying you shouldn't use " I think" and perceived notions, you're implying that the only way we can say for sure, 100% about a topic is if we see it done.

Yes. The only way you can know for sure is when you have all the facts. I'm not trying to be pedantic or condescending, but the answer is yes. There's absolutely nothing wrong with speculation and discussion, but you don't know until you know.

So that implies that no one should bash him because they don't know for sure if something was on the table? So in other words, if AM does it, we know it was there, but if he doesn't make a move, no need to bash him because we don't know for sure if it was ever on the table?

You can bash him for whatever you want. Yes, I prefer to wait until I know someone was wrong before I bash them. I'm even happy to conditionally bash people - for example, "if Vitters was available for Roberts then AM made a bad move by keeping him". What is not ok, in my opinion, is saying "AM is a bad GM because this trade should logically have been/probably was/was rumored to be on the table and he didn't take it.

Right....These guys in here must be the 4 guys in the stands every night with their Millar cowboy up bobblehead, orange sunglasses, World Series '09 poster and voting to get AM named the top baseball man of alltime award. Give me a break.

Please don't be obnoxious.

Guess we should shut down OH because of all these ideas all these knowledgable posters have aren't worth squat because we have no idea they went across AM's desk. Actually one of the most absurd arguments I've ever heard on there.

As long as you accept that assumptions and deductions and intuitions and feelings and rumors and guesses and theories and hypotheses are not facts, we have no problem. I love debating, and that wouldn't be possible without that stuff. But to condemn someone's performance when you don't have anywhere near all the facts and expect people to take it seriously is foolish.

I feel like you have your opinion already and it colors everything you say. You take whatever AM does in the worst light possible and then use that interpretation to add to your argument. That's circular and not productive. It's impossible to stay impartial but it's important to try.

[Mackus]

Okay -- I'm really interested in your opinion on the question I asked earlier. What would YOU have offered to acquire Sherrill at the trade deadline last year assuming you we GM for the O's and we were in contention (and didn't have Sherrill of course)...

I answered before.

I surmised that if the Orioles were essentially in the Mets position last year, where a reliever would be needed and they are going all out to win that year, I'd give up something like Reimold and Bergesen. I prefaced it with Reimold's value being slightly less to me because of Scott's presence making him slightly blocked for the future and Bergesen being movable because of the presence of several other, more highly rated SP prospects.

[Mackus]

While we often differ..I would like to hear your view of the Dunn theory. (Assuming he has enough sense to drop a demand that he play LF).I think at 10 mill a year..he can cover alot of runs that our pitching will give up. He walks a ton and changes the lineup. 2or 3 years doesnt affect the rebuilding plan and covers us when/if we lose HUFF/Mora/ Roberts somewhat offensively. Plus..no pick compensation. I believe we should be going hard after Dunn...I would await your response,

Not VaTech, but I agree with you completely. As a DH, a market-depressed Dunn makes a ton of sense.