Hanley Ramirez 2011: Knocking on .250's Door

[Bobbob1313]

Yeah, you've gotta judge the process.

[MiamiHomer]

Right, but people who do that and then say it was a bad trade are assholes.

Then I'm an asshole.

[Mainge]

No arguments here.

[Omar]

I'm failing to see how it's wrong to judge a trade by how it ends. Since, in fact, the point of a trade is to end up with the better players.

[Bobbob1313]

I'm failing to see how it's wrong to judge a trade by how it ends. Since, in fact, the point of a trade is to end up with the better players.

Because you can't know the future when you make a trade. All you can go on is what was known, at least when evaluating the decision.

You can say it turned out to be a bad trade. But if you made the informed and smart decision at the time, I don't think you can criticize the decision.

Just like you can't really praise Beinfest for Hanley being way better than anyone expected. That's just luck, but it wasn't what moved the decision making process. You make the best decision possible at the time of the trade, and judge on that.

[Omar]

Because you can't know the future when you make a trade. All you can go on is what was known, at least when evaluating the decision.

You can say it turned out to be a bad trade. But if you made the informed and smart decision at the time, I don't think you can criticize the decision.

Just like you can't really praise Beinfest for Hanley being way better than anyone expected. That's just luck, but it wasn't what moved the decision making process. You make the best decision possible at the time of the trade, and judge on that.

The first part of this implies that the point of a trade is to win it at the time. This, however, isn't the case and makes the rest of the argument pretty moot.

What you're saying is that the only time an investor should be evaluated is when he buys the stock, not when he sells it. When it's sold, however, is when you actually know whether there was a profit or a loss.

[Party]

So what exactly is an 'informed and smart decision'? Something that is general consensus? What happens to the guy who goes against the general consensus makes a trade no one likes that turns about to be absolute genius? If we're not going to blame the guy who made the 'informed and smart decision' after the fact, does that mean we can't praise the recluse because at the time he made his decision it was generally panned and no one considered it 'informed and smart?

You have to weigh results in evaluating trades, because in any business where commodities are traded the ones who reap the rewards are the ones who can filter out the noise.
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And in retrospect, Miller and Maybin had a lot of noise surrounding them.

[Bobbob1313]

I think a lot more of this is luck than you guys are allowing.

Yes, you can judge based on the outcome, but you can't just play results. You have to look at things in their original context as well. It's not either/or.

If you take a big risk and it works out, the fact that it was a risk should be taken into account as well. I don't think you can just judge the results; the process has to be weighed.

[Erick]

At the time that trade was made, no one could have predicted that Andrew Miller would develop massive control issues. (he was actually a guy with the great stuff, and actually had above average control, at the time)

Actually, to show how silly that trade ended up being, Badenhop was supposed to be the worst part of the deal, yet he ended up being the best.

It was impossible to predict that that trade would turn out that bad.
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Also, if you're just looking at results, we got crap for Uggla as well.

Infante is a stopgap, and Mike Dunn has been a disappointment. So even if you're comparing trades based on results, the return for Uggla wasn't way better than the return for Cabrera.

[MiamiHomer]

I didn't follow the team as closely as I do now so I didn't no much about rumored deals out there or the actual deal that ended up happening. I basically settled for the fact they were giving up possibly the best hitter the franchise ever had and it would be overly optimistic to hope for people that could replace his production. It just happened to be the awful return it was.

[Bobbob1313]

The criticism of that trade should always be that they had to trade him at all. That was the problem. Given that they had to make the trade, the value was as good as it could be.

Unless you believe the wild and unverifiable rumors about the Angels or Dodgers offers, which as far as I know, have never been substantiated.

[Erick]

The criticism of that trade should always be that they had to trade him at all. That was the problem. Given that they had to make the trade, the value was as good as it could be.

Unless you believe the wild and unverifiable rumors about the Angels or Dodgers offers, which as far as I know, have never been substantiated.

In hindsight, the Dodgers deal would've been better.

I believe the rumor was Kemp, Billingsley, Loney.
The Angels rumor was Kendrick and one of Ervin Santana/Nick Adenhart. (and I believe some other pieces)

I'm probably missing some guys, but I believe those were the main guys in each deal.

Still though, back in '07/'08, Maybin/Miller was like a cool present at Christmas. Both were top 10 prospects. Maybin drew outrageous comparisons to Ken Griffey Jr. (although there were more Mike Cameron comparisons) and Andrew Miller was basically the next Randy Johnson according to all the great scouts.
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Some scouts also said that De La Cruz had the potential to become a long-term closer for the organization, for what it's worth.

And Trahern seemed like a guy who could be a fit in the backend of the rotation, but he's just been injury prone/bad.

[Bobbob1313]

It was two of the three, and that was never confirmed, I'm pretty sure.

That's the issue with this; nobody knows except the guys involved in the negotiations. It's very rare that a proposed deal is concretely known, and in this case, I'm almost positive it never was for sure.

[Erick]

Back then, the Tigers deal was the best deal, regardless.

Regardless of who the other teams were offering, Maybin and Miller were both considered better prospects than the other team's top prospects.

[Bobbob1313]

The argument would be that Kemp and Billingsley were already in the majors and producing at the time, however like I said, we have no idea whether that offer actually happened.

Anyone can say "the Dodgers were offering Kemp, Billingsley, Loney, and free handjobs for everyone at every Marlins game", but the only offer we know of for sure is the one that was accepted. Anything else is speculation. That's the biggest issue in judging this.