The hand that Dipoto was dealt

[Docwaukee]

This is to serve as a reminder of where JD started relative to where he is new

 

-He took over a team that finished 2011 with 86 wins.

-A farm system that was deemed as mediocre mostly due to one player yet was otherwise bottom 3rd.

 

-They had a starting pitching core intact that he supplemented with the signing of Wilson making them one of the most formidable rotations entering the 2012 season

-Their offense had scored 667 runs and lack MOTO power so he brought in one of the greatest hitters of all time most likely on behest of an owner who had coveted him for many years.  He also upgrade the catcher position.

-The bullpen was subpar but serviceable at best. 

Downs and Walden were the best options with Takahashi, Cassevah, Thompson, Bell and Rodney getting the lions share of innings the year before

He brought in a couple of vets to provide depth on limited remaining resources after two other big FA signings.  Shortly after the season started, he recognized the pen as a weakness and upgraded with Frieri who started gangbusters and faded a bit late in the season, but their was just limited talent and resources for him to work with.

 

The SP staff failed miserably with all but one guy under performing relative to the previous year.

Pujols tanked in april as did most of the rest of the offense so he fired the hitting coach, released a malcontent and brought up a phenom that inspired the play of everyone.

 

With the struggles of the starting staff, he tried to help by trading for a strong SP FA to be in Greinke.  A questionable move that certainly made the team better at the time yet at the cost of the halos best prospect not named Trout and two AA arms that further weakened the depth of the system.  In my mind, also a move that was made to improve the chance of bringing back Greinke as a FA the following year. 

If not for a bullpen collapse that included poor second half performances even from the previously reliable players, the move would have worked. 

The team ended the year with 3 more wins than the previous

 

So, to start the off season:

The offense was intact but the pitching staff was in shambles

They were left with

Weaver

A 15.5m option on Dan Haren who had another year of declining velocity and bad peripherals to go along with a mediocre performance with several 'injuries'.  All signs pointed to a declining or declined player.  Not someone worth 15.5mil.

A 13mil option on Santana who was coming off a dreadful year as one of the worst starters in baseball.  JD was still able to get AAA/pen depth in a trade.  Another guy not likely to be worth the money.

Wilson - turns out he was injured and needed surgery.

Williams - a AAAA guy serviceable as a long man.  Not a major league starter

Downs - horrible second half

Frieri - mediocre to not good second half and concern that the league had figured something out

Jep - a strong second half yet a guy that had never been reliable and can't get lefties out

Walden - decent middle of the pack reliever.  Propensity to fold under pressure. 

Richards - great stuff.  very inconsistent.  hadn't performed well as of yet at the major league level.

 

That's 1 good starter.  1 potentially good starting coming off surgery. 2 decent reliever with question marks and 3 others with just question marks.  Half of the pitching staff was missing, and 6 of the other seven had significant concerns attached.

 

Again, arguably at the behest of his owner, he signs the biggest name bat available after realizing that there was no chance at resigning Greinke with the dodgers deep pockets cornering the market.

With limited resources once again, he gets three starting pitchers Vargas (8.5mil), Blanton (6.5mil), Hanson (3.7m), and two relievers Burnett (3.5mil), and Madson (3.5mil) while subtracting Morales (5.3mil) and Walden (500k). 

 

Adding 3/5s of a rotation and 2 pen arms while subtracting one pen arm and a bat for 20mil in payroll for the 2013 season.  With the pen still needing help and little farm or financial resources to come to aid, he is forced to he reliever scrap heap to find Tdwag clean peanut.

 

You absolutely have to take into account the starting point and the lack of player performance in judging where this team is right now.

 

Aside from the blanton deal and maybe the greinke trade, what else was he supposed to do when in all likelihood the Pujols and Hamilton signings were as much ownership driven as anything. 

[Docwaukee]

sorry, that was long

[Tyler]

Traded Trumbo and Bourjos in the offseason for a pitcher better than Blanton or Hanson. Should have got way more for Morales.

[Brent Maguire]

This is pretty spot on to be honest. The Greinke trade was absolutely risky and the Blanton deal sucks but he had limited resources.

 

I still think he could've done WAY more to address the bullpen. The fact that we're using Dane De La Rosa this early in the season is very concerning and shows where they're at. 

[AZMike]

This is to serve as a reminder of where JD started relative to where he is new

...

Adding 3/5s of a rotation and 2 pen arms while subtracting one pen arm and a bat for 20mil in payroll for the 2013 season.  With the pen still needing help and little farm or financial resources to come to aid, he is forced to he reliever scrap heap to find Tdwag clean peanut.

 

You absolutely have to take into account the starting point and the lack of player performance in judging where this team is right now.

 

Aside from the blanton deal and maybe the greinke trade, what else was he supposed to do when in all likelihood the Pujols and Hamilton signings were as much ownership driven as anything. 

 

Not a whole lot he could've done. the Pujols and Hamilton deals didn't leave him a lot of resources left in terms of discretionary money or talent in the minors. Combine that with an urgency to "win now" and that's a pretty tough situation. 

 

IMO those big splash moves (Crawford/Wells, Pujols, Hamilton) are the reason we're facing a short "window" to win and have limited flexibility to fix big holes in the system.

[Brent Maguire]

Traded Trumbo and Bourjos in the offseason for a pitcher better than Blanton or Hanson. Should have got way more for Morales.

Morales is in a walk year and was coming off a sub .800 OPS season as a DH, with very limited defensive ability and a base running clog. He's basically an average player and we traded for, wait for it... an average pitcher. It was a perfectly reasonable trade. 

 

I'd much rather have Trumbo and his years of club control. 

[Angel Oracle]

I won't disagree that Arte Moreno played a large part in the falling apart of this franchise.

He has achieved George Steinbrenner, circa 1980's, status.

And Arte, that ain't a good thing.

Stop injecting yourself into player moves, you don't seem to understand baseball enough anyway.

[Tyler]

Morales is in a walk year and was coming off a sub .800 OPS season as a DH, with very limited defensive ability and a base running clog. He's basically an average player and we traded for, wait for it... an average pitcher. It was a perfectly reasonable trade. 

 

I'd much rather have Trumbo and his years of club control. 

 

Morales is much better than average.

 

Cron is the next Trumbo.

[Brent Maguire]

Morales is much better than average.

 

Cron is the next Trumbo.

He was the epitome of average last year. A .780 OPS from a DH is not that valuable. Obviously, it was his first full season after that time missed but even an .800 OPS bat from that spot isn't extremely valuable. Trumbo does that and can play some defense, without the horrendously slow base running that comes with it. 

 

I know many people don't agree with FanGraphs but Kendrys was rated the most average full time position player by them last year. 

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-five-average-est-position-players-of-2012/

[fan_since79]

Morales is much better than average.

13 games, 1 home run, 6 RBI, .261 Avg.

 

We'll see.

[Tyler]

David Ortiz found ways to be productive despite being a slug on the basepaths. Same as Pujols now. Get over that.

[Tyler]

13 games, 1 home run, 6 RBI, .261 Avg.

 

We'll see.

 

He also has a .370 OBP, which would be 2nd best out of our regulars.

[Docwaukee]

Morales is much better than average.

 

Cron is the next Trumbo.

both extremely arguable statements.  you can assume about the same production from the DH spot from Trumbo as Morales.  Trumbo is younger, cheaper, and club controlled for a longer term.  The market dictated what Morales was worth. We weren't getting James Shields for Kendrys Morales.  Cron is no sure thing and actually showed a remarkable lack of plate discipline for a supposed premier power hitter which doesn't translate well to him being a legit major leaguer.

 

Again, most would side on the fact that the Morales trade was reasonable.

[Docwaukee]

David Ortiz found ways to be productive despite being a slug on the basepaths. Same as Pujols now. Get over that.

are you comparing Ortiz and Pujos to Morales?  They all lack speed, but two of them make up for it by being premier hitter.  The other is solid but far from being in the same category.

[Tyler]

both extremely arguable statements.  you can assume about the same production from the DH spot from Trumbo as Morales.  Trumbo is younger, cheaper, and club controlled for a longer term.  The market dictated what Morales was worth. We weren't getting James Shields for Kendrys Morales.  Cron is no sure thing and actually showed a remarkable lack of plate discipline for a supposed premier power hitter which doesn't translate well to him being a legit major leaguer.

 

Again, most would side on the fact that the Morales trade was reasonable.

 

Trumbo is not in the same class as Morales.

 

I wouldn't want James Shields anyways, too many complete games in recent years he'll be Dan Haren'ing in no time.

 

Cron and Trumbo are practically the same player. You'll see.

 

Most would be wrong.

[Tyler]

are you comparing Ortiz and Pujos to Morales?  They all lack speed, but two of them make up for it by being premier hitter.  The other is solid but far from being in the same category.

 

Morales 'clogging' up the bases as a detriment to his value is laughable at best.

[jshep]

Morales 'clogging' up the bases as a detriment to his value is laughable at best.

 

But his baserunning ability, or lack thereof in this case, does dent his value. Just like it has for Ortiz and Pujols(at least the past few years), and just like it's going to for Pujols over the remaining years of his contract.

 

The difference being that Ortiz and Pujols are better hitters(and Pujols still has some value with his glove as well), so their "starting point" before you ding them for their poor base running ability is higher than Morales's.

[Tyler]

lol

[jshep]

I'm really not seeing what's so laughable about the idea that a player's base running or lack thereof is a part of their value as a player.

[AZMike]

Trumbo is not in the same class as Morales.

 

I wouldn't want James Shields anyways, too many complete games in recent years he'll be Dan Haren'ing in no time.

 

Cron and Trumbo are practically the same player. You'll see.

 

Most would be wrong.

Are you suggesting that Kansas City traded $13M a top 3 in MLB prospect and three additional very good prospects for Dan Haren [equivalent] and Ervin Santana?

[ukyah]

lol is such a great response to a well made point. 

[Tyler]

I'm really not seeing what's so laughable about the idea that a player's base running or lack thereof is a part of their value as a player.

How many losses a season does Morales' footspeed equate to?

[Tyler]

Are you suggesting that Kansas City traded $13M a top 3 in MLB prospect and three additional very good prospects for Dan Haren [equivalent] and Ervin Santana?

How many years did we get out of Haren?

Horrible trade for the Royals. And I said that at the time they made it too.

[dimitrig]

You forgot:

 

 

Traded Vernon Wells! That makes up for a lot!

[Lou]

You forgot:

 

 

Traded Vernon Wells! That makes up for a lot!

 

 

Wells is batting .324 with an OPS of 1.054