Edmonds heading to San Diego

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Fat Strat
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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by Fat Strat »

Exactly. Objective analysis doesn't point to anything in particular here. Edmonds could bounce back but after two subpar seasons, but what is more likely? That he bounces back or stays the same? To me, the objective answer is he stays the same and perhaps gets worse with the advanced age. Body type aside, that would be supported with facts. Nor is it the "managerially incorrect" move to move Edmonds to allow younger players to get in there. I have no problem with that approach and am looking forward to seeing Barton and Rasmus whenever they're available to play, in addition to seeing Ankiel.

Freese may be nothing, or he may be something. He's more than we would have gotten if Edmonds retired. Others may not agree, but there's nothing stupid about it. Suggesting he's junk doesn't seem supported by either his statistics or the scouting reports on him. I don't understand dwelling on his age when he's had only a season and a half in the minors in total, and top prospects are in front of him. That's not reaching for excuses, those are facts.

And again, I don't see a whole lot of inconsistency in the moves thus far. Nearly every one is in line the stated goal of getting younger and bolstering the farm system. Taguchi is gone. Edmonds is gone. Eckstein is gone. Miles is gone. We have Brian Barton and Freese in the system now, and both those moves appear to have made the system better. Piniero - two year deal. I know Izturis is the Antichrist, but he's also only one year. We have dumped payroll. If somehow a player becomes available that isn't now - just use Clemens as an example - we could take advantage of it. And it's not like 6 million is some magic number. If a $12 million player becomes available on a team looking to dump payroll when they fall out of contention, then DeWitt has 6 million off the books already and only has to come up with another 6 million if it's needed. I don't believe they're trying to go cheap. We just spent 8 million on Isringhausen. That doesn't look like a team that is giving up to me.
I agree with all of this. Excellent summary of this side of the argument.

The only thing that I would add is about Edmonds.

Let's say that he is more likely to bounce back. Well, bounce back to what? Let's just take Jimmy's 2nd half last year when he was definitely healthier, and definitely hitting better. He managed an uninspiring .267 .344 .413 .756 line. What's concerning is the power or lack thereof, but it really isn't an awful line. I could definitely see him replicating that over the course of a season in '08, assuming he was used properly.

That's a reasonable projection for him. A somewhat optimistic one, but a reasonable projection nonethless. It's still probably replacable from within, and isn't really all that far off what ZIPs projects for Rasmus. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that there's probably an equal chance of Edmonds bouncing back to a 130 OPS+ as there is of Rasmus posting a 130 OPS+. Both are highly, highly unlikely.

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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by jim »

TimeForGuinness wrote:
jim wrote:
TimeForGuinness wrote:But even if Jimmy were to bounce back, we don't have the pitching to compete, we aren't strong up the middle, our 3B is disgruntled, and our LF is always an adventure in basic motor skills.

So really...will we be missing Jimmy *that* much.

IMHO, No.

And even if the 3B prospect is average, we don't even have *average* in our minor league system to package for a trade down the road. We have a few gems, that we really don't want to part with yet, but really not much else.
haltz said as much earlier, and you might be right. If after careful analysis the front office felt that there was no way to compete, or even be on the fringes of competing, then this trade would make perfect sense to me.

And I'm certain I'm getting the real world and our world mixed up, because some of those that have said that Edmonds for Freese was a good trade are saying it in the same breath as the statement that we can compete in '08. I hear that, and strongly disagree, and then the discussions goes down a path and I forget that it wasn't MO who said that we could compete.
I'm not saying we can't compete, but a healthy Jimmy won't be giving us an additional 15 wins with all the other holes on the team.
Sure, but you could have probably done 3 games or so better at SS then Izturis, and if Edmonds had a great bounce back season maybe 3 games there. That's 6 games to start, then you try plugging in a few holes and then maybe you have an 80-82 win team, which is on the fringe of competing.

As it stands now, I just see no chance of us competing in '08. I'd say the Cubs are a good 16 games better than us right now. I haven't really sat down and crunched numbers, but that's my back of the envelope calculations. I just don't see how we can score runs, and everyone knows the pitching problems.

Even if some moves were made, it's just a big hill to climb. Weirder things have happened, but I'd have to really dig deep to find some some optimism for this year.

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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by jim »

Fat Strat wrote: Let's say that he is more likely to bounce back. Well, bounce back to what?
.800, maybe .850 OPS. Impact numbers, that's what I'm talking about.

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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by haltz »

TimeForGuinness wrote:I'm not saying we can't compete, but a healthy Jimmy won't be giving us an additional 15 wins with all the other holes on the team.
I keep coming back to this, but I think he would give some people a reason to show up, and on the flip side, his unceremonious dumping will give some people a reason to not show up. Mo was left with a mess because the two-year deal was unwarranted, but I think that this fix amounts to a PR disaster. It's at least a very loud admission of rebuilding, which would be easier to swallow with a verbal admission (either one will probably have an impact at the gate). Probably not to the tune of $6M, so whatever analysis was done here was probably correct from a bottom line standpoint. That just sounds really cold. Colder than I would be (which I think is pretty cold), so I disagree.

I also think that the team could've competed in 2008 without sacrificing the future if they'd gotten creative and with a little luck (like a bounce back from a Hall of Very Very Good guy), but that ship seems to have sailed. Which is OK, but this puts me in the extreme minority (as far as I can tell) of thinking letting Edmonds go in a year where you won't compete being a bad move. So maybe I'm wrong and being out-of-character overly sentimental.

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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by docellis »

I think Mo has a very difficult job. I wanted Antonetti, thought we had him, and when he bolted at the last second I kind of had a chill run down my spine.

What was the reason he gave again for not wanting the job?
He was offered a better job? Something like that. Or he was promised a GM position when one opened? Something like that.

I wonder if he will keep his restaurant.

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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by maddash »

thrill wrote: Sentimentality aside, this isn't something that deserves 50 pages.
Is someone with 10,000+ posts really in the position to say 50 pages is too much? :P

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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by jdk82 »

jim wrote:
Fat Strat wrote: Let's say that he is more likely to bounce back. Well, bounce back to what?
.800, maybe .850 OPS. Impact numbers, that's what I'm talking about.
He definately wont get that playing half his game at Petco.

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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by Go_Crazy_Folks »

jim wrote:
TimeForGuinness wrote:
jim wrote:
TimeForGuinness wrote:But even if Jimmy were to bounce back, we don't have the pitching to compete, we aren't strong up the middle, our 3B is disgruntled, and our LF is always an adventure in basic motor skills.

So really...will we be missing Jimmy *that* much.

IMHO, No.

And even if the 3B prospect is average, we don't even have *average* in our minor league system to package for a trade down the road. We have a few gems, that we really don't want to part with yet, but really not much else.
haltz said as much earlier, and you might be right. If after careful analysis the front office felt that there was no way to compete, or even be on the fringes of competing, then this trade would make perfect sense to me.

And I'm certain I'm getting the real world and our world mixed up, because some of those that have said that Edmonds for Freese was a good trade are saying it in the same breath as the statement that we can compete in '08. I hear that, and strongly disagree, and then the discussions goes down a path and I forget that it wasn't MO who said that we could compete.
I'm not saying we can't compete, but a healthy Jimmy won't be giving us an additional 15 wins with all the other holes on the team.
Sure, but you could have probably done 3 games or so better at SS then Izturis, and if Edmonds had a great bounce back season maybe 3 games there. That's 6 games to start, then you try plugging in a few holes and then maybe you have an 80-82 win team, which is on the fringe of competing.

As it stands now, I just see no chance of us competing in '08. I'd say the Cubs are a good 16 games better than us right now. I haven't really sat down and crunched numbers, but that's my back of the envelope calculations. I just don't see how we can score runs, and everyone knows the pitching problems.

Even if some moves were made, it's just a big hill to climb. Weirder things have happened, but I'd have to really dig deep to find some some optimism for this year.
Yeah I'm just not seeing it either. I think it was Popeye that early on was stating that this wasn't a horrible team and w/ a few moves, we could actually compete this year while at the same time be set for the future. Franklin, Springer, Barton...all of those fit that plan. The flipping of bench players (Bennett, So, Miles) are really minor every year moves.

But now dropping Edmonds, signing Cesar, and so far, no other upgrading trades has left us w/ a non-competitive present team and a rough picture of the future clubs. Dunc or Ank should probably be moved to assist us in growth of other areas.

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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by jdk82 »

maddash wrote:
thrill wrote: Sentimentality aside, this isn't something that deserves 50 pages.
Is someone with 10,000+ posts really in the position to say 50 pages is too much? :P
You know its a slow offseason when you have people arguing about how many pages a topic should be.

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Re: Edmonds heading to San Diego

Post by TimeForGuinness »

jim wrote:Weirder things have happened, but I'd have to really dig deep to find some some optimism for this year.
I'm excited to see the kids play much like I was last year...so this is nothing new. When Suppan, Weaver, and Marquis were let go for nothing...I knew we were in for tough times. Winning the World Series came at the worst time for the future of the team.

...but it is still December...there is still some time for additional moves

Baseball is relative to your expectations, and anyone expecting the Cardinals to win more than 82 games last year and this year are on some sweet drugs that I hope gets passed around the forum.

I think '09 will be better and '010 will be competitive...IMHO

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