I'm on record as wanting to trade Duncan or Edmonds. After watching the offseason market for OF'ers, I think that we made the right choice. I wanted to sign a FA OF'er to replace Duncan, but I don't see that now. I'm not sure there was one out there that was really worth getting. That means putting it off till next season when trading Duncan might still be an option.Ankiel is one thing, but Duncan may have more value to an AL team than to us. If he's giving back twelve runs on defense in LF, then we are looking at Ryan Ludwick without the trade value. This is a good candidate for a trade, in my opinion. The fact that he's seen as "untouchable" leaves me scratching my head.
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I didn't know there was a prevailing sentiment that we should've obtained Tejada. I think it would've been a bad move personally. On top of the other reasons, he can request a trade next year as a traded five-year player. Considering how fashionable that seems to be, and our chances of competing, that's a variable I could do without.
Hate to continue to use this, but I'm in a wait and see on Duncan. Trade him when we can get someone for LF that can post a 850+ OPS, whether through FA or another trade. I don't see that happening now, so we might as well wait until it becomes a possibility.
Right now I would only move Duncan for Bedard or someone similar.
Tejada... Glad to hear that you take that sentiment. I agree about him. There isn't a large contingent on here upset about not getting Tejada, but there has been some discussion that we could have matched the Stro's offer and that he would be an upgrade at a position of need. In that discussion is the implication that we should have done it because it would have helped us win now. Mostly, I wanted to point out that trades aren't as simple as team X got player Y for players A, B, & C. We should have been able to get player Y for players D, E, & F. It doesn't work that way. Sure, the value might be the same or more, but it still doesn't mean that we'll win the trade sweepstakes.
Same with Everett. Same with Guillen. Same thing might happen with Colon, Bedard, or whoever. Same thing might happen with Duncan. Teams and players value different things and just because a player is avialable doesn't mean that player was available to us or that we can get the value we want in return for a player. (I know that you, Haltz, aren't really talking about this, but it's part of the overall discussion).