Sometimes It's The Trades Not Made

I was reading through this ESPN.com piece on how the Rockies are succeeding in their ballpark because they are producing a lot of groundballs, and my thoughts went to Ramiro Mendoza. The Rockies have always had a problem keeping the ball in the park, especially with playing 81 of their games in the thin air of Coors Field. In 2001, they gave up a National League record 239 home runs. Yet when they made free agent moves, they didn't gear them towards getting extreme groundball pitchers. Though they certainly tried. Especially with their attempts to get Ramiro Mendoza.

Ramiro Mendoza's name was constantly connected to trade rumors. The team that tried the most to get him seemed to be the Colorado Rockies who (rightfully) felt like he would be a good fit for their ballpark. In 2000, the Yankees were two starters short on July 15th. The Yankees had Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and Orlando Hernandez as their top 3 starters. David Cone had his worst season in the majors that year going 4-14 with a 6.91 ERA and 1.768 WHIP. The Yankees had traded away Hideki Irabu in the offseason and expected Ramiro Mendoza would take his slot. But Mendoza got hurt and the team signed Dwight Gooden in June. So the Yankees needed two starts.

They filled the first hole by trading a boatload of prospects for Denny Neagle on July 17th. Neagle would be pretty awful for the Yankees, putting up a 5.81 ERA in 16 games before departing for the Rockies in the offseason (part of their problem was spending ridiculous amounts of money on guys like this).

The second hole? Well they tried to fill that on July 31st. According to this ABC News report from that day, the Yankees were considering trading Mendoza along with minor-league prospects Alfonso Soriano, Ted Lilly and Scott Seabol for Rockies ace, Pedro Astacio. The hang-up in the deal seems to have occurred when the Yankees asked for either Butch Huskey or Jeff Frye to be included in the deal. The Yankees ended up not making a deal and a rib cage muscle injury cut Astacio's season short and then he underwent arthroscopic surgery for a left knee problem. Still, the Yankees tried again to trade Mendoza and Soriano for Astacio again in the offseason according to The Gazette.

The Yankees would win the World Series in 2000 and came within a few outs of winning again the next year. Sometimes the best deals are the ones not made. And sometimes, according to U.S.S. Mariner, the Yankees just lie about those deals. Either way, sometimes it's better to just hold on to the prospects and go with what you have then get a band-aid who could turn into the next Denny Neagle or Pedro Astacio.

 

From this deadline: NBC Sports says that some teams are realizing it's not worth selling the farm. Keith Law makes a top 10 list of the prospects traded and FanGraphs makes a list of the bottom 7. Here's what FanGraphs wrote about the Yankees trade (prospect 34/35): "A raw, left-handed-hitting catcher, Weems was expendable in New York because of Jesus Montero and Austin Romine. It’s a nice low-risk, high-reward trade that saw vet Jerry Hairston Jr. move to The Big Apple. Weems, 20, strikes out a lot (31.8 K% in 2009).". Jerry Crasnick points out that they're called "prospects" for a reason and lists the top 9 busts among those trade deadline prospects. FanGraphs looks at the Red Sox and the "untouchable" tag for their prospects. The Seattle Times has news of a ridiculous blockbuster deal that was talked about which would have sent Adrian Gonzalez to the Mariners, "King" Felix Hernandez to the Red Sox, and a ton of prospects to the Padres (I'm guessing by those names that untouchable doesn't apply when The King is mentioned). Ken Davidoff says in this notebook that the Mark Teixeira from Texas to Atlanta has already defined the career of Texas general manager Jon Daniels as he got back shortstop Elvis Andrus, catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and recently-debuted pitcher Neftali Feliz. The New York Post says that the Yankees will be busy scouring the names that come through waivers starting today, though Mark Feinsand thinks that they should give *gulp* Kei Igawa another chance first. FanGraphs on the Nats getting nothing for Dunn, FanGraphs again on the Washburn deal, and Keith Law on the versatility that Victor Martinez brings for the Red Sox. Lastly, True/Slant on "How to Kill a Sports Franchise" and a really funny look at the Pittsburgh Pirates trades and Jerry Crasnick with a much less funny but much more favorable view of the same deals.