P.6 Ludwick to SD; Westbrook and Pads prospect to STL

[PujolJunkie]

whatevrer hgets jeff suppan out fo a cardinal uniform and back to masturbating in peoepls salads at his [expletive] bar is fine with me. so long and thansk for all the dinegrs, luddy.

[vinsanity]

I know signing Wilson was mentioned and it was said that doesn't matter.

But what of there's a waiver deadline deal like we did in 04? No clue who or what'd it be, but you never know.

Or what if the 'salary dump' of Ludwick is to clear payroll and make a serious run at Oswalt or Haren or another quality starter in the offseason? I don't like a first place team playing for next year, but I think Westbrook+Jay/Craig is worth more than Suppan/Ludwick this year. Now we could have gotten more than Westbrook for Ludwick or without Ludwick, so the loss on this trade is mostly in opportunity cost, not actual value IMO, but we could check the combined WAR of each the players and check?

Anyways, I'll be curious if they have a big contract they are lookin at for the waiver deadline or what they do without Ludwicks raise next offseason. For this year I'll give it D+, C- if Westbrook goes all dream weaver over everybody. Depending on the offseason I may view it more favorably.

[JL21]

My whole premise for this year's trade deadline being such a huge opportunity for us was that, we had so many low performers that it presented so many ways to improve affordably -- small, easily-obtained additions in any number of slots could make a difference, without having to pay too much or give up too much.

Well, Mo saw a different angle, I guess. Mysteriously, with all the low performers to replace, he moved one of the relatively high ones.

I like getting Westbrook, and I don't mind trading Ludwick. It's just that it seems so crazy that those two completely separate concepts somehow ended up in the same trade, essentially straight up for each other.

I like the addition of Westbrook -- he's a decent pitcher who is pretty likely to do better for us than he was doing in the AL, and he definitely does fill a need, one of the ones on my list of 1,001 Ways To Improve By Adding Almost Anyone Other Than Who We Currently Have.

I'm not as high on Ludwick as some on this forum. He's 32 years old, about to get a pretty big pay raise, and I don't love his defense as much as some do. That said, he's a useful if not valuable player, and I'm really surprised we'd be willing to give up a player like him without it being something big. The idea this time of year is usually to obtain something useful now in exchange for something you do not need today ... but like I said, guess Mo has some different angle.

It certainly seems like we really could have -- and should have -- been able to obtain Westbrook for a lot less than Ludwick. Or else been able to get a lot more back than Westbrook. Seems to me that Ludwick is at least the everyday-player equivalent of Joe Saunders, who fetched Dan Haren.

I was hoping we'd be active; but I had something else in mind. I figured we'd add two or three players that would improve us at the margins ... a few runs here, a few there, a few terrible players sent to the waiver wire replaced by better choices.

We did improve our #4 slot in the rotation, and we improved it by about the amount I would have liked. But with only a $50 bill in our pocket, we bought a $30 item probably only worth $20 -- and told them to keep the change. Meanwhile, all the places we could have improved for just a few bucks, we left alone (or maybe even worsened; Stavvy's back, Jay is now in RF without a net, and looming is Craig with his OPS+ of 28 and lack of quality defense).

I'm gonna hafta chalk this Trade Deadline up in the Missed Opportunity category.

This hits it out of the park, with the one caveat that other smaller upgrades should still be available in the waiver period.

[jim]

This has to be a money issue, there is no other explanation. We dealt from a position of strength to address a weakness and freed up money for next year to sign Albert. I guess. That I understand, but the particulars aren't very appealing to me.

I guess Cleveland got Simon Castro, who was the #2 prospect before the year in the SD organization so at least it makes sense from their point of view now.

I still don't completely get it really.

[jim]

And I'm not opposed to the idea of trading Ludwick, either.

I'm just opposed to trading Ludwick for the lone return of Westbrook.

I like getting Westbrook, and I don't mind trading Ludwick.

Just to show the bizarro world of this trade ... one of these quotes of from steve, the other from bernie. Now that's weird.

[Slider]

There is a video of MLB.com guys interviewing a beat writer for the Padre's. They asked "So do you think Ludwick will be a full time player or just rotate in and out..." Something along those lines. The beat writer was basically stunned by the question considering how dumb of a question it was.


Also, reading the post this morning it sounds like the players are not very happy about the trade. Nothing against Westbrook...just that Ludwick was worth a lot more than Westbrook. One player Strauss mentions as asking "what in the world are we doing?" When players are quiet for 10-15 seconds before answering I think tha says it all.

Horrible trade.

[ghostrunner]

I logged in last night to discover this, and wasn't too pleased. It's too much to give up for what we got, especially given the other trades that have taken place. I wonder if our prospects are just not highly valued, and if Miller was off the table as far as our FO was concerned.

I did think Ludwick was a pretty obvious piece to move. He's not a core player, he's older and has an injury history. But he has value. We don't have many players that we'd be willing to part with, who would also be an improvement to another team. I was thinking he'd be the perfect person to include for Haren, especially with Arizona's outfield and their park. Since he was obviously on the market, I assume he was offered to Arizona and refused. Hard to know any of that for sure though, and how good a job Mo did selling it. Maybe it was still too much payroll for Arizona's taste, even with unloading Haren.

Leaving aside what we could've gotten, I'm happy the rotation was upgraded. In my opinion it was pretty dire. Wainwright is the only starter I view as a sure thing to pitch by the time the playoffs roll around. Carpenter's looking more certain to at least stay around, though he hasn't been his usual self in many ways. After that, it's completely uncertain. Garcia may be shut down or put in the bullpen due to the number of innings he's pitched. Then it's all chaff. So you have maybe 2 very good starters you can count on in the playoffs, and nothing even decent after that. Never mind that we're still behind Cincy in the regular season. I'm more comfortable platooning in RF to try and make up for what was lost with Ludwick, than I am relying on Suppan, Hawksworth to get people out. This should decrease the workload on the bullpen too.

[Jocephus]

i just saw an interview with luddy on mlb.com and now im bummed

[Fat Strat]

I don't think it's fair to simply categorize Ludwick as an average corner outfielder.

Ludwick was rated as "exactly leauge average" last year in a article by Fangraphs... who literally called him "Mr. League Average". I would suspect, actually, that Westbrook might be the same guy among starting pitchers.

[stlouie_lipp]

i just saw an interview with luddy on mlb.com and now im bummed

me too