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June 25, 2004
Triangle Trade
A three way deal sent Carlos Beltran to the Astros, Octavio Dotel to the A's, and three young players to the Royals.
Maybe the Orioles were right about Arthur Rhodes closing. Rhodes has almost walked as many and given more HR than he did all of last season. If he truly is best designed to be a set-up man, then a Bradford/Rhodes/Dotel combination to end the game should be very good for the A's. Kansas City appears to have become resigned to not resigning players.
This is hogwash. It was a bad trade. The Royals have a payroll of $47 million, which is at the low end. They already pay Beltran $9 million. They could easily clear 6 million by getting rid of Gonzalez and Santiago, two old players who aren't helping. Hell, find a sucker team to take Mike Sweeney! His power went last year, and his selectivity this year, but I'm sure you could convince Bavasi in Seattle he'd be a great replacement for Olerud. It's too bad KC didn't sign him to a five-year, $45 million contract three years ago. They would have come out ahead in the long run. Needless to say, Houston likes the deal.
Beltran is very good, but I don't think he's exceptional like Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez. As of 6/10, Beltran had 10 wins shares, and Houston had three players with that many or more. But Dotel only had 4, so it's a big improvement for the Astros. An extremely formidable offense just got better. They may win a lot of games without the need for a closer. Comments
But the Astros still have a closer - Lidge. He also throws 12,000 mph. Of course, they'll need a setup man to replace Lidge, but I don't think the Astros are worried about closing out games. (And remember, Dotel was 0-4, which is pretty bad.) Posted by: sabernar at June 25, 2004 09:19 AMAfter we traded Dotel, I looked closely at his stats, and he looked a lot better on paper than he has on the field this season. It seemed like he was pitching with runners on in every game, and there were a couple of dramatic blown saves that soured people on him a bit, I think. That said, he's a great reliever and it hurts to give him up. Given the way the Astros offense has driven off into a ditch in May and June, this trade is very encouraging news to most Astros fans, I think. Posted by: Rafe at June 25, 2004 10:25 AMHave to disagree with you about keeping Beltran. Sure the Royals probably could have scraped together enough money to keep Beltran but what good would it do? He'd still be a good player on a team missing the pieces it needs. Until KC started trading players, they had no upper level pitching prospects and only two two or three pitchers in the majors who were quality; they now have two (Bautista and Wood). They had no 3B or C prospects or come next year anybody in the majors to play those positions; they now have both. And they have nine million available to sign all their draft picks and develop the farm system a little more. I agree they need to dump Gonzalez and Santiago but who'll take em? Likewise with Sweeney, if he gets traded he gets a 2.5 mill a year bonus, who's gonna pay that for a DH/1b? As a sidenote, due to the terrible TV market in the region (they were forced to create their own network just to get more than 30 games on TV) the Royals lost money last year with a payroll of 42 mill. Posted by: Matthew at June 25, 2004 10:49 AMDavid, I'm with you that the woe is me attitude in KC is largely nonsense. First of all, everyone in KC has known this day was coming since he won the Rookie of the Year in 1999. We could have offered him a deal a long time ago that would have locked him up through a year or two of free agency and at least could have avoided Beltran's annual arbitration salary increase. And this is only a tragedy if you assume that the Royals can only afford a payroll of about $40 million. Well, I don't feel sorry for the team if that's the threshhold it sets. Subtracting Beltran's and some other veteran's salaries for next season, our payroll will be around $34 million. At most Beltran will make about $5 million more next year than he makes this year. Juan Gonzalez and Brian Anderson are both making $4 million this year. So I agree that it's not like the helpless Royals just can't afford Beltran because of baseball's unfairness. I feel sorry for their fans (I'm one), I don't have any sympathy for the team. If they could develop any pitchers (they've drafted about 75 of them in the past five years), we'd be winning right now. Posted by: Brian at June 25, 2004 11:25 AMBeltran is over-rated. Becuase of this, he's going to end up with a salary close to Guerrerro's next year... even though he's not nearly as good. Its smart for the Royals to trade him, because even if they do have the money, it wouldn't be a wise use of their dollars to match what the Yankees (or perhaps the Red Sox) seem likely to offer. Posted by: Ron at June 25, 2004 12:23 PMSpeaking as somebody who used to live near Kansas City when Beltran was a rookie...it is definately dissapointing. Sadly tho, I originally thought the same thing you quoted from KC... "it was a good trade" (while feelin' sad they couldn't keep the guy). It does add a possible good pitcher into the Royals tho. They need that. They really need that. And so I'm not too dissapointed... but still... you're right that they could've (and should've) found a little room on the payroll somewhere. I feel for Mike Sweeney. He's stuck in KC after they had a winning season. Posted by: Devon at June 25, 2004 01:29 PMDavid DeJesus is the Royals highest prospect in the farm system. I think that's why it was relatively easy for them to cough up Beltran for a future. (DeJesus has had 2 hits in each of the first 2 games in Beltran's wake) Also, Santiago and Gonzalez will be FAs next year. We were already counting on their money being availible. We COULD have signed Beltran, but for 15 mil. (which would be 1/4th of the entire organization's payroll) we felt he was overpriced. Better get some goods for a guy you know you can't and won't sign. Posted by: Garth at June 26, 2004 10:53 PM |
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