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Jay/Craig being acceptable alternatives doesn't make Ludwick less valuable though. If every potential trading partner had a pre-arbitration alternative as good as them it would, but if that was the case teams wouldn't be paying $13-15 million per year on the open market for players like Ludwick.

I wish they had gotten more for Ludwick

I wish they had too, but the rational part of me says that a career league average pitcher + cash (do we know how much yet?) + a minor leaguer for an average corner OF'er (and that's exactly what he was last year... perfectly league average for RF) is an even deal.

When I put the names of the players into the equation, it's much harder to wrap my mind around it.


And pebbles is rightt, Ludwick is the kind of player that the Cards should never even consider non-tendering. I'm just not convinced that we are going to be worse because of it either in production or on the balance sheet.

cpebbles wrote:Jay/Craig being acceptable alternatives doesn't make Ludwick less valuable though. If every potential trading partner had a pre-arbitration alternative as good as them it would, but if that was the case teams wouldn't be paying $13-15 million per year on the open market for players like Ludwick.

I think you're dancing around the point.

Jay/Craig plus $8 mil > Ludwick

To me, it's pretty much that simple. Would it have been better to get more for Ludwick? Sure...... if we could have. But that doesn't mean that the team didn't improve going forward.

Socnorb11 wrote:I think you're dancing around the point.

Jay/Craig plus $8 mil > Ludwick

To me, it's pretty much that simple. Would it have been better to get more for Ludwick? Sure...... if we could have. But that doesn't mean that the team didn't improve going forward.

It's actually very possible we didn't, but my point is that we didn't improve the team as much as we could/should have. Ludwick is a major asset and shouldn't have been squandered.

Socnorb11 wrote:

cpebbles wrote:Jay/Craig being acceptable alternatives doesn't make Ludwick less valuable though. If every potential trading partner had a pre-arbitration alternative as good as them it would, but if that was the case teams wouldn't be paying $13-15 million per year on the open market for players like Ludwick.

I think you're dancing around the point.

Jay/Craig plus $8 mil > Ludwick

To me, it's pretty much that simple. Would it have been better to get more for Ludwick? Sure...... if we could have. But that doesn't mean that the team didn't improve going forward.

You act as though this outcome is only present if we take the deal for Westbrook. It's not, and that's the whole point.

Ludwick is an asset that we sold for pennies on the dollar, regardless of what kind of stand-in we might have had for the same position in-house. This is pretty standard asset valuation type stuff...for many of us, we feel like the Cards thought they had a decent strength, so they sold an asset to help another area of the team. The problem I have, is no matter how you get there, the best way we can predict wins to evaluate runs added, and runs saved.

We probably got worse on an overall runs added perspective, and had alternatives to Suppansworth if we wanted to. It wasn't a situation of Westbrook or nothing for 8 starts. I'm glad we got someone, but the way we got there, and the logicI'm hearing as defense of the trade, simply doesn't hold water for me.

Lance Lynn + someone like Nick Addition (pretty similar numbers to Kluber besides Ks) could have gotten it done.

cpebbles wrote:

Socnorb11 wrote:I think you're dancing around the point.

Jay/Craig plus $8 mil > Ludwick

To me, it's pretty much that simple. Would it have been better to get more for Ludwick? Sure...... if we could have. But that doesn't mean that the team didn't improve going forward.

It's actually very possible we didn't, but my point is that we didn't improve the team as much as we could/should have. Ludwick is a major asset and shouldn't have been squandered.

I can kinda agree with that. But we, as Cardinal fans, probably give Ludwick more value because of sentimental purposes than we should. As Fat said, he's probably a league-average outfielder. "Major asset" is probably stretching it just a bit. But I do wish we could have gotten more for him.

ConeBone69 wrote:Lance Lynn + someone like Nick Addition (pretty similar numbers to Kluber besides Ks) could have gotten it done.

2 lesser pitchers probably doesn't hold as much value as Kluber. I'd rather have Kluber than those 2 guys, personally.

It wasn't a situation of Westbrook or nothing for 8 starts. I'm glad we got someone, but the way we got there, and the logicI'm hearing as defense of the trade, simply doesn't hold water for me.

Yeah, because the easy rebuttal for even my hypothetical argument is to just trade prospects for Westbrook now and then move Ludwick if you benefit from it in the offseason before the non-tender deadline.

We don't know if we could have pulled that off, though. I would assume that we could have.

Socnorb11 wrote:

ConeBone69 wrote:Lance Lynn + someone like Nick Addition (pretty similar numbers to Kluber besides Ks) could have gotten it done.

2 lesser pitchers probably doesn't hold as much value as Kluber. I'd rather have Kluber than those 2 guys, personally.

Why is that? Lynn is the higher rated player of the two, similar age, at a higher level.