Offseason Discussion - Positions Players/Bench

[Party]

Was Arias in that trade package?

[Swifty]

No, we wanted Danks, Diamond and Blalock.

They would only give one of the D&D boys.

Thank fucking God, talk about saving us from ourselves.

[emkayseven]

i remember when some people were so pissed we didn't take that deal

[Ralph]

We wanted Arias too Swifty. Don't you undermine me dick.

[Party]

We need a Marlins wiki to keep track of these things.

[Swifty]

We wanted Arias too Swifty. Don't you undermine me dick.

I'm 95% sure he wasn't in there. We wanted the pitching from Texas.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2232211

[Fish and Chips]

We need a Marlins wiki to keep track of these things.

Can we still access T&B archives? just for things like this

[AdamRavs]

in the article it talks about us wanting arias in the end but they wanted Mota too

[PitchingWinsGames]

No, we wanted Danks, Diamond and Blalock.

They would only give one of the D&D boys.

Thank fucking God, talk about saving us from ourselves.

I thank Mike Lowell for scaring them off that deal.

[Party]

Speaking of league average third basemen...

[Bobbob1313]

This page has just shown how small the margin of error is for success in major league baseball. Blalock's drop off the cliff wasn't easily predictable, and Hanley never looked like he would be this good at any point in the minors. Both of their outcomes were completely unexpected.

If blalock was still putting up .850-890 ops and Hanley's major league line looked more like his minor league line (.300/.360/.430) would we be happy?

This shit is damn near impossible to figure out. By all accounts we got a better haul at the time for miggy, and we all know that story. We are lucky Hanley is as good as he is, but at the same time, we've been unlucky with anibal, miller and maybin thus far. 25% sounds about right for this type of thing, it's hard to hit with any consistency when prospects are involved.

[Swifty]

Wait wait wait. Blalock's demise was relatively predictable. His home / road splits, even when he was "good," were very alarming. Granted, some could argue he could age like Helton, but if it takes a guy just raking in a very hitter friendly home park to look slightly above average (since let's be honest, he was never "elite") I'd say it's very foreseeable that he'd decline, and decline rapidly.

[Bobbob1313]

Still, I don't think it was definitely easy to see that he would completely drop off like this, though you are right, his home/road splits were pretty major at the time. I didn't see that at first.

Still, Blalock wasn't expected to be a relative 0 by this point in his career. You would have expected as he entered his "prime" seasons (2006-2009) it would have maybe normalized a little bit more.

It was basically "High upside SS who has never put the tools to work in game and good starting pitcher with durability issues" or "Young everyday 3B with 30+ home run skills and decent secondary skills and a couple of good young pitching prospects that were very highly regarded at the time." The Hanley + Anibal package was anything but the slam dunk it is now, relatively.

[Swifty]

I mean, this is still on mb.com since we were still living in idiotville, but at the time I remember thinking that Boston's package was superior to Texas but still inferior to what we should have gotten (I wanted Papelbon instead of Anibal, tealshadow told me I was a moron).

Really, everything in baseball that ends up working out well, or even exceptionally well, hinges on that risk and uncertainty, it's nothing new. I do think we were tremendously lucky with Hanley. That's not to say him being this good is a surprise, he came into the right situation with us, no pressure, an all world talent in the lineup already and a manager (Girardi) who wasn't going to put up with the shit that put Hanley in Boston's doghouse (flicking off fans, just general immaturity). As talented as he is, I think if he ended up staying in Boston with Francona as his manager and he starts out hitting 7th or 8th in the lineup, he's almost certainly not the player he is today.

[Bobbob1313]

I don't recall being a fan of the Texas deal, but I don't think there was all that much reason to be enthused about the Boston one either. I don't think Papelbon would have changed that either.

But yeah, I agree he probably wouldn't have developed the same way if he was in Boston. Success is never prescribed in any sport, but baseball really has a razor's edge kind of quality about it that not many other sports have.