Steve Trachsel Traded

[JTrea81]

BITE YOUR TONGUE!

Trading Bedard would be worst mistake in the history of this franchise. It would counter the Frank Robinson trade in organizational karma......

Letting him walk for draft picks when/if he doesn't sign an extension would be much worse...

[olehippi]

I think this was an excellent trade.....but if we hadn't traded him, I was all for giving Trachsel, the wily veteran, a shot at closing....

[davearm]

This is definitely a great deal for the O's. Both the guys you got back have moderate levels of potential, but just moderate potential is worth much more to you guys than Tracshel.

I've heard "lefthanded David Bell" for Scott Moore -- I could go with that I suppose, although Moore has more defensive flexibility. I've used Geoff Blum and Rob Mackowiak as comps in the past -- guys that can play the 4 corners and tend to spend parts of their careers starting for lousy teams, and parts of their careers as bench/utility guys for contending teams. In Mackowiak's case, his starting days were spent with the Pirates, then his bench/utility days were with the White Sox.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of opportunity he gets with the O's, and what he can do with it.

Cherry's OK. Kind of a garden variety RH fastball-slider reliever. Serviceable, but nothing spectacular.

Not real sold on the Cubs' need for Trax. According to Hendry they didn't want to be stuck having to use a AAA guy in case of injury here coming down the stretch. Kinda sketchy, but whatever. It's no biggie.

Some speculation that perhaps Hendry saw a roster crunch upcoming after the season, which was added motivation to go 2-for-1 here, where the 2 had no real future in CHI (given the guys in the org ahead of them).

[Joe'sO's]

Decent 3rd base prospects are hard to come by. This is quite a coup for McPhail getting one for a throw away starter.I liked the comment Hendry said about Andy being a pleasure to work with.Hopefully he can develop a relationship with other teams as well. I think he has a freer reign to make deals than Flanny/Duke did which should encourage other GM's to work with us. They finally cut the ties with Bell and Schuey this week so there's a lot of signs that McPhail is coming up to speed on what needs to happen here. He has a minefield of big ugly contracts to deal with in the offseason so things will be very interesting. I had some harsh things to say abot AM a couple months ago and hereby retract those comments along with enjoying a nice plate of crow.

[clapdiddy]

And heck, if you are lucky enough to trade Mora this offseason, maybe he is your third baseman next year.

Or....maybe Moore takes over at third, and Mora becomes a super utility guy. I think that may be the best. You let him start at third against tough lefties, give him a start or two a week in LF...let him DH once a week.

Mora's versatility could really be useful to this team. They need him to buy into the idea.

[utvolzac]

Great move by MacPhail. Just freeing up a spot in the rotation and making sure Trachsel's option didn't get picked up would have been enough for me. But to get a top 10 prospect in return, is just icing on the cake.

Perhaps a change of scenery will get Moore going and maybe he can do with us what Mike Fontenot did with the Cubs.

[Delduck]

I am watching the Cubs broadcast on WGN (by the way, the announcers seem subtly pissed about the Trachsel deal and are trying not to show it).

Anyway, they had Hendry on talking about the trade and he had this to say (this is paraphrased by the way):

He said it was a pleasure dealing with MacPhail, and that he wasn't going to "pull a fast one" on him because AM knows the system so well and he is so competent. Hendry said it was a good deal for both teams, that they gave up a couple of good young players but that was the way it had to be. He acknowledged that it would be a deal that would help Baltimore.

Does that bolded part tell stories on Flanny/Duke. We have had several trades with the Cubs, I wounder how many of those trades Hendry felt he was pulling a fast one?

[TonySoprano]

More like Bigbird's source aces another one. Unlike the Matt Wieters signing ...

Not cool. At the time Bigbird quoted his source, it didn't look good at all. Joe Jordan sweated out the deadline and had practically given up hope about a deal, which was consummated until nine minutes before the deadline.

[srh523]

SO does trading Trax and signing Wieters and Trembley trump the losing streak?

[EddieO's21]

Well, it dumps salary if nothing else.

Good for Lord Peter's wallet.

agreed...good riddens

[Hank Scorpio]

BITE YOUR TONGUE!

Trading Bedard would be worst mistake in the history of this franchise. It would counter the Frank Robinson trade in organizational karma......

Just saying... imagine the talent that would come back.

We need to become the Arizona Diamondbacks.

[JTrea81]

Here's some more on Cherry. Man the Orioles and the Cubs have so many ties it isn't funny...

Cherry went 2-0 with seven saves and a 4.59 ERA for Iowa and 1-1 with a 3.00 ERA with the Cubs. The 28-year-old will get a chance to hold his own in Baltimore's bullpen, and at least one observer thinks he has what it takes to stick. Alan Dunn, Baltimore's new bullpen coach and Chicago's former Minor League pitching coordinator, is familiar with Cherry's work.

"Right now, he's probably a middle-innings type guy," said Dunn. "He's going to throw anywhere from 90-to-94 [mph] when everything's clicking good and he throws a power-type slider. He's been a strike thrower. He had a very good spring this past spring and was probably the first callup in April. ... He didn't get in a whole lot, but he did a nice job."

http://baltimore.orioles.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070831&content_id=2181561&vkey=news_bal&fext=.jsp&c_id=bal

[mweb]

Very good trade for the O's, getting anything of decent value for Trax is great. I'm surprised we got as much as we did. Neither player looks that great, but both seem like they could be solid contributors.

[George]

Was Mora musing about Moore when that sure double-play ball was hit to him in the ninth inning tonight?

[tennOsfan]

I'm shocked we got anything at all for Trachsel. Maybe these two don't pan out, but I'll be more interested watching them than Trachsel.