He’d be an outfielder in the same way Duncan and ManRam are — terrible to the point that it severely drags down their value as a player.

I’m struggling to find the logic in that reasoning as well.

MLB should have warranties for pitchers traded. If elbow fails within 2 years, full refund.

Rasmus doesn’t replace Ankiel in the lineup, as Peavy would Pineiro. That’s a false comparison. He’d replace Skip. Now, if Ankiel is traded, then Ankiel is replaced by Rasmus + whatever Ankiel yields — hopefully a young pitcher to fill the #5 spot or a young SS.

Second, you seem to only be looking at the Rasmus/Ankiel comparison next year. Do you really expect Ankiel and Rasmus to share the same value over the next 6 years — as Ankiel reaches into his mid-30s and Rasmus enters his prime? So, even if we go w/ the Ankiel/Rasmus comparison, it doesn’t apply for the length of Rasmus’ cost-controlled years.

Third, Ankiel’s a free agent after next year so I’d say it’s 50-50 at best that he remains a Cardinal after next year. Would you trade 1 year of Ankiel for 6 years of Rasmus? I would in a heartbeat.

Finally, about Peavy. There’s no doubt he is one of the best pitchers in the game. However, he has only 1 time in his career been so much as an 8 win player — much less 8 wins above Pineiro. If we assume that Pineiro is a replacement-level player, Peavy’s best season so far had him 6 wins above bench (replacement). The best pitcher in baseball this year by win shares, Tim Lincecum (according to THT), was a 9-win pitcher — 7.3 above bench. Even if we’re willing to concede that Peavy will be the absolute best pitcher in baseball every year for the next 3-4 years, a dubious proposition, it would be nearly impossible for him to be 8 wins better than Pineiro, Todd, Boggs or whoever we would otherwise use in the 5 spot in the rotation.

Doing the math, I agree that Peavy isn’t 8 wins better than pineiro, as was stated above, and that he’s not even 8 wins above replacement. Over 178 IP, 8 wins worse than a 2.85 ERA would be about a 6.5 ERA. IMO that is too low for “replacement level” to be set at. The question remains, though, what exactly “replacement level” should be. 5.5? 6?

Peavy was 33 runs better than the average MLB starting pitcher (4.44 ERA). That is just under 4 wins above average. He was 45.6 runs (5 wins) better than pineiro’s (or thompson’s) 5.15 ERA, assuming pineiro/pk wouldn’t have been much worse if forced to pitch 178 innings. And he was 90.2 runs (10 wins) better than Boggs would have been, due to the inflated 7.41 ERA. Yeesh.

As I was about to say, I am definitely not of the camp that wants to acquire a sexy pitcher whatever the cost on the assumption that automatically makes us a title contender. Before your argument has any merit to me, I would need to be satisfied that there is not a good pitcher available via free agent or trade that is a better value.

For this trade to make sense at all we would have to have very strong reason to believe that Peavy’s next four years would be equal to his 2005-2007 seasons. His 2008 has significant warning signs to me that have been stated elsewhere in this thread. Anything less than perennial Cy Young top three is not worth $60M plus Rasmus plus multiple other prospects unless the Padres would take some marginal ones.

FWIW, your point #2 is not valid as Peavy has never averaged 7IP per start in his career and only averaged 6.43 IP in 2008. One out per start over the guys you are comparing him to is hardly signficant. I thnk the lack of validity to point number two puts your assertion that he is a bona fide number 1 starter in doubt. One of the main criteria is that a #1 needs to go deep in games. Peavy has 6 CGs in 199 career starts and doesn’t go significantly deeper into games than any Cardinal starter in 2008 except Pineiro.

I would still like to know why the Padres would be interested in moving Peavy if they believe he is sound.

black box of adjustments and translations, but that’s the framework (hence "basically").

the cards would go after Cain, but the asking price is probably way way too much for us.

heck, throw in Kennedy and Barden if we get Furcal…that way they can have a whole new IF.

…one of the reasons our bullpen stunk this year – our starters are good, but only for about 5-6 innings. Peavy is a 7 inning guy, sometimes longer. Every inning a reliever doesn’t have to pitch the odds are better that we win. Better, quality rotation = less over-worked bullpen = moore wins!
:=8)

and it looks like Peavy’s September is nothing to worry about. He missed a start because his wife had a baby. As a father of four, I can understand him being a little off for the subsequent starts being out of the pennant race and drained from the new baby.

I also found a reference to a previous problem withe the elbow in 2004 when he missed about six weeks. So, two DL stints for the elbow now.

FWIW, Peavy also said he wouldn’t waive his no-trade clause unless he was traded to a National League team. You gotta like that. From what Towers said, it sounds like they will have to be bowled over to make a deal. I guess Adam Kennedy and Kelvin Jimenez won’t get it done.

Boras probably isn’t good for baseball sure. David Glass and Jeffrey Loria are worse for baseball. And this has any relevance to the topic at hand how?

jumps off topic

One reference that I hate even more than the “A-Rod got pwn3d!!!” more it’s “Jeff Weaver signed elsewhere for more money against his best interests Dave Duncan had turned him baby!!! Pixy dusted him into talent!!!!” The revisionist history is just astounding.

Jeff Weaver is/was not a good pitcher. He had a 2 game stretch where he pitched like he was good—-one against a shell shocked team. Two games! Thank god for us he did it in the biggest starts of his life but criminy. Just for fun he had basically the same quality of starts Sept 12 and Sept 17 of 2005. July 13/18 2003. Etc.

He was absolutely brutal during the 2006 season, he posted a 5.38 xFIP with the Cardinals in the regular season, he was brutal before the 2006 season and he was brutal after the 2006 season. It wasn’t in his best interest to maximize his money while he could? Someone needs to explain this to me.

The only “failure” anyone can point to was the 2007/8 off-season to our own Kyle Lohse—-proud new owner of 41 mil. So that worked out OK.

Professional athletes get paid the way they do because we watch the games so they get the owners get their TV contracts. We go to the games and buy $8 beer. We buy the $200 jerseys. Would you rather DeWitt just pocket the money? Before you even play the “loyalty!!” card, pretty much the second a player signs a discount deal he becomes a trade chip just ask Bronson Arroyo. How’s that for loyalty.

One reference I hate even more than the Jeff Weaver crap is the “high school kids that might never pitch a big league inning” crap. They get paid 4 million by a team they didn’t choose……..then get paid peanuts for 2-3 years in the minors and the league minimum for three years when they can be worth 50x that (literally) to owners, then at 50% discount for three years. 9 years after being stuck with a team in the first place do players actually get a real choice in where they go and what they get paid. Good luck convincing the top law students in the world to commit themselves to that type of system…

If you don’t like the salaries of athletes don’t watch the games.

Manny Ramirez is a great, yet inferior player to Albert Pujols. He is a righthanded power slugger about to become a free agent, and will command large dollars, probably in excess of $20 million a year on a short-term deal. Texeira is probably another comp to look at. These players will establish a floor for Pujols’ next contract. Why do you even bother arguing this?

My point really wasn’t that Manny Ramirez is some kind of guidepost for Pujols. Rather—and perhaps I didn’t make myself clear enough—my point was the Cardinals will have to pay a lot of damn money to retain him! After all, the whole point of this post is whether or not to trade Colby Rasmus for a pitcher, right?

Geez!

True, it can and has been done. No arguement here.

I could be wrong on some of the Astros details but as for Lidge, I remember him pitching the 7th with Dotel in the 8th and Wagner in the 9th. Then the Astros traded Wagner away and Lidge moved the the 8th with Dotel closing. Dotel was not as good in the 9th as he was in the 8th and so they traded him away, and then Lidge took over. Lidge didn’t get handed the job right away, he was groomed for it.

Lyon was also brought along. He was called up 2 years in a row before getting a save opportunity in his 3rd season. The only reason he even got a save opportunity is that Byung-Yung Kim failed as a closer and the Sox went to a “closer by commitee” philosophy (8 different pitchers recorded a save that year).

That is the ideal way to develop a young pitcher, and Perez certainly still needs to develop. If he was on the Reds or Pirates sure, throw him in there and let him take his lumps, but not for a team that could/should try to contend for a division title.

Ran this report over at baseball-reference looking for pitchers with 30 or more saves (anything less means no playoffs) in their first three years of MLB experience over the last 11 years. I also used an age limit of 29 years old to eliminate any Japanese imports.

The list includes Papelbon, Cordero and Street but excludes Lyon (51 saves in 7 years ?), Lidge and Ryan. BJ Ryan didn’t become closer until his fourth year of MLB experience. The guy who replaced him in Baltimore (Chris Ray) did though. In fact, there are only 12 pitchers to meet the targets in the last 11 years. The trend is moving toward using “young” closers with nine making the list in 2006-2008. Still a low percentage for 90 possibilities.

One other item of interest on the list if that two of the players in recent years have gone down to injury and lost significant time – Ray, Accardo and Street. Cordero went down this year also.