Michael Morse finds a new home, as the Mariners serve as the middle man in what amounts to trading Morse for prospects:
The Nationals, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation, sent slugger Michael Morse to the Seattle Mariners in a three-way trade that netted them right-hander A.J. Cole, the pitching prospect who last winter served as the centerpiece of the trade that brought Gio Gonzalez from the Oakland A’s to the Nationals. The Mariners sent catcher John Jaso to the Oakland to complete the deal.
The Mariners get the slugger they wanted, the Athletics get a Moneyball catcher, and the Nationals get back a pitcher they liked, who struggled a bit for Oakland.
Via Hardball Talk, and notes the Nats are getting two more prospects:
Nationals will get 2 more prospects in deal in addition to Cole
It doesn’t say where the prospects are coming from. If they are coming from Seattle, the deal looks even worse for the Mariners:
This is Bavasi-esque. This is an awful decision, trading a good player for an older, worse, more expensive, less healthy player with two fewer years of team control. This is what happens you focus intently on acquiring a type of thing — in this case, a “power bat” — and don’t understand the value of the assets you have. This is what happens when you have a manager who doesn’t know how to evaluate talent, and sees John Jaso as nothing more than a backup catcher.
Stay tuned.
USS Mariner is so right about the dangers of fixating on a specific type of skill. It’s baseball. It’s probably the only sport where you can *always* make up for a deficiency in one part of the game (‘power bat’) with extra strength in some other (good bullpen). It just drives me nuts when fans say, “We have enough bats, our problem is pitching”, or similar garbage. It’s shameful that GMs are vulnerable to the same dumb thinking.
I would love to see the Mariners jump on Napoli and then turn around and offer Morse to the Red Sox.
Dunno if Napoli gets enough bats at 1B/C/DH but I think you could get him 400 AB between the 3 positions which is probably all he can handle anyways.
Guys who hit a HR every 12 AB do not grow on trees, and with the fences in SAFECO should prove friendlier, Napoli also has good flyball pwer to RF and his HR to LF tend to be bombs that are gone anywhere.
Also, the Nationals won’t be able to sing A-ha’s “Take On Me” when he comes to plate. Bummer for them.
Here’s hoping he keeps it going in Seattle.
Ryan D. » One of the great videos of all time.