Finally, Something to Obsess Over: The Johan Question
This offseason was shaping up as one of the most relaxing in recent history. The Red Sox were coming off of a World Championship, and unlike 2004, there weren’t a bunch of players ready to depart via free agency. The only loose ends, Curt Schilling and Mike Lowell, were quickly re-signed to reasonable deals, and the team was pretty much ready for another run in 2008. Sure, there was the question of what to do with our extra CF and adding another good arm in the pen would probably be wise, but overall nothing terribly pressing.
There was certainly not anything like the ARod trade that wasn’t, the many Manny trade demands, or the Dice-K drama to worry about… until a few days ago. That’s when adding Johan Santana started to become a real possibility. And here we have it, our first big fat drama of the 2007-2008 offseason.
What should the Red Sox be willing to give up for Santana? Frankly, I can’t figure it out. I can say that 1 year of Johan is probably worth only a couple B prospects. I can also say that getting Johan and having him locked up to a 5-6 year deal at market value is worth a bit more, but not a ton more. What I can’t put my finger on is the value of getting the chance to negotiate with a premier player. There’s no easy way to measure that against, say, six years of Clay Buchholz.
Probably the most complicating factor in this is that we just don’t know if and when premier players will again start testing the free agent markets. Right now, they all seem to re-up with their original teams because the offers they receive are great compared to past deals. The teams have plenty of money to make such offers because, as has been repeatedly discussed around these parts, they’re bringing in gobs of cash and paying relatively little to their players. But someday, and perhaps it will be soon, some of the top players are going to say “Hey, look. Torii Hunter just got 5/90. And Alfonso Soriano got 8/136 last year. And they’re only pretty good players who are over 30. What would I, Joe Superstar, get if I put myself out there?” I can only imagine that that day is coming very soon, but who knows?
Darren
Posted: November 29, 2007 at 11:17 PM |
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Also, I hope the Yankees offer a ridiculously large offer for Santana. because then they'd end up not being able to trade for about 2 years.
I also think some teams would much rather have Lester.
Peter Gammons had some tidbit where he asked GMs at the first meetings this offseason who they prefer and it was overwhelmingly Lester.
Doesn't matter, though, as long as the Yankees refuse to offer Hughes in that deal. They could offer their next 30 prospects and not beat a Lester/Lowrie/Bowden/Crisp package. Quality makes the deal, not quantity.
I'm quite sure if the Yankees offered Joba, Kennedy, Jackson, and Tabata they'd do just that.
It's quite ridiculous, but it's entirely possible that Lester's 5 1/3 innings in the WS could be the difference between the Red Sox landing Santana and not.
That value is high to Boston, but nil to Minnesota. They've already found they can't get anything out of negotiation. If they want to trade Santana to improve on the 2 draft picks they'll get when he leaves, the only way it happens is if Santana is compelled to waive his no-trade. And no amount of prospects going to MIN will move the needle on that; Santana won't care.
People seem to keep evaluating the package as weak based on the value Boston will get. But there's a rather large gap between the value Minnesota has currently (one year of Santana plus the inevitable picks) and what value Boston will have if the trade goes through (5-6 years of Santana). Boston is offering a package that is greater value to Minnesota than what they have currently, and the only thing that will raise that bid closer to the value Boston gets is if there's a bidding war. While it might seem like Minnesota has no reason to make the deal, they do.
OTOH, they can hold out for more. By the July trade deadline some contender will surely see a pitcher head to the DL. They could nab a desperate team at the right time. But then come a few snags. First, midseason negotiation with Santana might get messy and shoot down a potential deadline deal. Second, the contending team in question might not have much to offer in terms of prospects. Third, the scenario might not happen anyway. But the biggest reason is that the pitcher heading to the DL could be Santana himself. While they could get a lesser package if the DL pitcher is Roy Halladay instead of Josh Beckett, for example, they get nothing if Santana goes to the DL. The offseason is the safest time to deal him.
I'm not saying the Twins can't do better than this. But I am saying this is already a net positive for MIN, and the market - not the Twins - will determine if they can do better than this.
I think Hughes is a lot better today based on performance, and I don't really see any reason to think Lester is going to improve much more than Hughes going forward.
Why?
I'm not saying you're wrong, but taking into account salary, there are good arguments that, say, Buchholz and Ellsbury combined are more valuable than Santana.
Is Santana also worth far more than Chamberlain, Hughes, and Melky? ... because that's pretty close to an equivalent package.
I can live with the package the Sox are offering.
I can't believe somebody with less than 200 IP in the big leagues can say something like that. Maybe he just stole some line from Curt's blog, not realizing you could only say stuff like that if you were 40.
No he's not fanboy.
Ellsbury at 23 hit .323/.387/.424 between AA and AAA
then hit .353/.394/.509 in the MLB- but only 33 games
despite that fluke 100 Ab Slugging %- he really doesn't have a lot of power
Sizemore has hit .289/.348/.484;
.290/.375/.533 and
.277/.390/.462 the last 3 years and will be 25 next year.
Just eyeballing it, my guess is Sizemore's ZIPs projection will be about .285/.380/.490 and Ellsbury's will be .285/.365/.420
Of course if I'm the Twins and I've just lost my long term CF I certainly ask that Ellsbury be in the deal if I'm trading Johan.
Players start saying that as soon as they
1: Are no longer rookies; and
2: Feel reasonably secure about their own roster spot.
Jonny Gomes of all people said something like that a year or two ago.
Jacoby will be Kenny Lofton. And I will be very very very very happy if he's kenny Lofton, because Kenny Lofton is one hell of a baseball player.
Yes, he is.
Ellsbury created 8.4 runs/27 last year as a rookie. Sizemore's best is 7.8.
That ZIPs OBP you put up for Ellsbury is absurd. With his speed and bat control, he'll at least do a .390.
Sizemore never came close to doing anything like what Ellsbury did in AA this year.
Also, while Sizemore has great speed, Ellsbury is even faster.
Ellsbury is as good as Sizemore.
Ellsbury created 8.4 runs/27 last year as a rookie. Sizemore's best is 7.8.
That ZIPs OBP you put up for Ellsbury is absurd. With his speed and bat control, he'll at least do a .390.
Sizemore never came close to doing anything like what Ellsbury did in AA this year.
Also, while Sizemore has great speed, Ellsbury is even faster.
Ellsbury is as good as Sizemore.
Well...this just has to be the most unbiased, well-reasoned argument ever on Primer. Baseball for the thinking fan, indeed.
In 33 games.
Also, where do you get this "fluke" crap, without power? He put 3 balls into the rightfield bullpen within 2 weeks of being called up.
He exceeded his regular season numbers in the post-season in both power and OBP despite facing better pitching. If you add in his post-season, his MLB numbers get even better with a more substantial sample size.
You guys never learn, do you?
Remember the Pedroia discussion last year?
Wouldn't the Pedroia discussion (i.e., don't obsess over his small sample size and ignore his history of success) go the other way here?
Why do I respond?
No he's not fanboy.
He's just trying to get a rise out of you.
Jacoby will be Kenny Lofton.
I'm with you, Wok. I don't think he'll ever have Lofton's '94, and I certainly wouldn't bet on him having anything like Lofton's longevity, but I think he's a perfect comp as far as the shape of his performance (.280-.310 hitter, solid walk rate, just enough doubles power to keep pitchers honest, 40-50 SB, and good defense in CF).
It's my understanding that Alan Horne is starting to be very highly thought of. From Salfino's article yesterday:
Another pitcher in the Hughes/Chamberlain class, according to McKamey, is 24-year-old righty Alan Horne.
"He always has possessed potential, going back to his days at the University of Florida, but has dealt with injuries. He has a solid fastball with velocity and movement, which helped him lead the Eastern League in ERA and Ks. Stuff-wise, he's not too far behind Chamberlain and Hughes."
Of course, Kevin Goldstein at BPro thinks he tops out at as a 3rd starter so who knows how the Twins value him.
Ellsbury is pretty much as good as he's appeared to be so far, IMO.
That's where I got it, he put 3 balls in the RF bullpen within 2 weeks of being called up and slugged .500+ over those 30 games.
In 1017 career minor league at bats he has 10 homers, 20 triples and 44 doubles, and a carer isolated slugging of .112 (By way of comparision little Petunia had 21 homers, 9 3B and 71 2b in 1040 ab- and Petunia's 1040 abs spanned the ages 20-22, whereas Ellsbury's spanned 21-23)
and you are convinced that he's a legit .500 slugging guy based upon 45 games, where in addition to said homers he had a BABIP of .380?
Look, I like Ellsbury, he's one of the better REAL leadoff types to come along in a long time (not like the pseduo-lead off guys like Pierre etc)
But if you think he's a real .350/.400/.520 hitter your gonna be sorely disappointed- he's gonna outslug Petunia by 75 points despite having a 1000+ AB track record evidencing far less power at a slightly higehr age?
Yes, but Kev's incapable of being objective WRT the Sawx.
As he says in 32, he's not dissing Sizemore, he really thinks Ellsbury is THAT good.
And he was more or less right about Petunia (not for his specific Wright comparison, but he did back off of that eventually).
Personally I see Ellsbury as comparable to Shannon Stewart, Stewart hit .286/.368/.446 as a 23 year old and peaked at .319/.363/.518
Ellsbury probably will have more defensive value from what I've seen.- and get on base more but slug less.
Of course Stewart has been merely a good player and not a star so Kev probably thinks this comparison is insulting.
No. I think he's a .410/.450 type. That puts him in the Sizemore neighborhood as well.
I don't know, the CFBPS has him at .372/.470/.623 next year, and three straight years hitting .390 or better to follow, topping out with a .421/.535/.708 with 191 SB in 2011.
Is there a chance that a team could offer TOO much? If I'm Santana, I don't know that I'd want to go to a team that just cleared out all of its prospects. Say the Yanks offer Melky/Huges/Joba/Cano (just hypothetically); is that a team you want to go spend the next 6-7 years with? I'm not sure if that kind of calculation would really come into play or where the line would be if it did, but it certainly seems possible to me.
Why shouldn't people care about 140 MLB innings of 101 ERA+? And that despite having to deal with chemotherapy? Gammons aside, I doubt that any GMs drool over Lester the way they might over Buchholz or Chamberlain, but the guy is an established major league starting pitcher at the age of 24, and he's got five cost-controlled years left. He's a pretty darned valuable commodity.
Just think of him as the counterweight for all the NY prospect hype. :)
I refer you to my post:
In a world where Jon Lester doesn't pitch in the World Series, no one cares as much about him as they do this off-season.
Doesn't that mean that he'll be stopping at second on a lot of balls that could be triples or inside the park homers, just so he can steal third? I think a .900 slugging with only 110 SB is a lot more likely.
Well, to each his own.
Most players are more wedded to the idea that prospects are fungible and that seasoned experienced vets are needed to win than the MSM is. Vets at or past their peak will get pissed at their own team for not ransacking the farm and trading away everything to get an "experienced bat" or solid starter...
If their reputations are accurate Beane and Theo likely won't reach a deal because they think too much alike. It's a lot easier to make a trade if the other guy values what you are trading more than you do and vice versa
Hell, we don't even know if Grady Sizemore will have a better career than Kenny Lofton.
Lester is, objectively, a very solid pitcher right now. He can put up at least league average innings, and has a chance to be very good. Scouts love his stuff, and we don't know how much his strength was affected by having had cancer. He could be very good. Even so, his walk rate is really scary. He's never had great control, even in the minors. The hope has always been that he'd figure it out eventually, and obviously, pitchers do get better control as they age. He's a very valuable trading chip, but he's not on the Joba, Hughes, Buchholz level w/o his WS game.
The kiss of death for a prospect. Horne = Anibal Sanchez?
I think you're wrong about the Beane thing generally, though I agree with your point on some level. We might think that the Red Sox can get a better deal from a team that values players poorly. However, if market economics ever taught me anything, it's that two rational actors can make mutually beneficial trades. Haren might be more valuable to the Red Sox than the prospects that they give to the A's, even though the packages have the same value objectively. Suppose Lester and Ellsbury are worth Haren objectively. It may be more efficient for the Sox to have Haren because the fall off to Crisp is not as far as the gain of Haren over Lester.
Anyway, that's why I always hate the question, "who won this trade?" when ever a trade happens. Many more trades are mutually beneficial than is ever claimed by sportswriters.
If I'm wrong and they do trade Lester and sign Santana, the Sox would be huge favorites for the '08 World Series, and the Sox would be the new Yankees. Food for thought: With Beckett and Santana in the rotation, who starts opening day? Who starts game 1 of an ALDS? Is it the same guy?
They should start Timmy opening day, just so we could watch tfgb cut himself and post on his myspace page that the World doesn't understand him.
according to the boston globe's report, those negotiations (santana's agent and the sox) haven't even begun because the deal is still too amorphous. and i doubt any player's "heart" is set on anything but more money. if you had said, santana's heart is set on getting the yanks and mets involved in a bidding war, then i might agree with you.
God i hope this is true. Is there any way the Mets can beat a Kennedy, Melky, Tabata package without giving up Reyes?
What's the inner circle of the hall of the very good? Wouldn't that be the Hall of Fame?
those negotiations (santana's agent and the sox) haven't even begun because the deal is still too amorphous
Those negotiations can't begin until the deal is agreed to AND Santana agrees to talk. It may seem unlikely that a player wouldn't even agree to talk to a team that wanted to trade for him, but it's completely within Santana's rights to simply nix a trade right off the bat.
Well, we know they can't use Milledge.
Actually, we already seem to know that money controls his destiny to some degree, since he's been generally happy in Minny by all accounts, yet is not staying there as a happy millionaire. So I know 150 million reasons Johan might come to appreciate Back Bay and Red Sox fans after all, if he doesn't already.
To find guys like Santana you need to work the Rule V draft. ;-)
Buchholz was a supplemental pick. Nineteen positions below Ellsbury, in fact.
He has this strange bend to his left elbow as he delivers.
His multiple elbow surgeries attest to that fact.
The more I see the price of getting someone like Santana, the more I don't think it's worth it.
It's not the quantity, it's the quality. Glad to see the Yankees chipping in Phil Hughes.
I see your point but I don't think the package for Schilling was close to the package for Johan.
So really, the point is two-fold. First, better to deal top prospects at the peak of their value than before they get exposed. Second, be careful of overvaluing the bird in the bush and discounting the one in the hand.
Despite Buchholz's strong start to his career, he's highly unlikely to ever have seasons like the ones Santana is likely to have. IMHO, the Sox with their millions of dollars should concentrate on accumulating elite players, even if expensive. Who cares if they maximize wins per dollar when they can maximize wins, period? Their success of the past ten years has been built on the backs of players like Manny, Schilling, Ortiz, Beckett, and Pedro.
Lester was rated the #22 prospect in all of baseball in 2006 by Baseball America (the last year he was rookie-eligible). Casey Fossum never once made their top 100.
However, I also was going to add to that something about Curt being nowhere good as Johan was in the three previous years until I looked at his baseball reference page and realized...he was. I don't know why I forgot that, since I was so damn excited when we got him, but, Schilling's ERA+ in the 3 previous years in Arizona before the Sox got him: 157, 142, 159.
At the same time, PECOTA basically thinks Santana will put up 3.3 ERAs for the next 4 years of his career.
As sad as I would be to see Ellsbury, Lester, Lowrie, and maybe 1 other go, I still think I might still want the Red Sox to do it.
1) I don't care if the Red Sox lose efficiency.
2) I think that this is the type of trade where the Red Sox might stay even in terms of regular season wins, but would gain EV WS from this trade. Johan and Beckett in a playoff rotation would be quite something, and given the research that shows high strike out, good defense teams tend to win in the playoffs, I'd have to think that this would be a transaction that bumped up their chances in the playoffs a small but significant amount.
3) I think Coco could bounce back offensively, is young, relatively cheap, and is so good defensively that the difference between he and Ellsbury isn't as big as it seems.
I won't be sad if the Red Sox don't do it, and I look forward to rooting for the kids if they don't, but I would love to have the pleasure of watching Santana and Beckett take the mound for 40% of our games next season. Also, I love the idea that Dice-K might be the Red Sox 5th best starter next season and I expect him to improve.
This all sounds very sensible but I'd like to see a bit more compelling evidence mathematically that this sort of trade makes sense for the Sox. Signing pitchers long term is almost more expensive than it's worth. How does piling on 4 good players on top of that longterm commitment make sense. I have less reservations about superstar position players, but still wonder about the 4 likely good/free players vs. 1 super expensive player who's great.
A couple thoughts here. Ortiz is not a superstar at full-price. He's a guy they got cheap and is still somewhat cheap. They've also built their championships on supercheapos like Pedroia, Youkilis, and Papelbon, and medium-cheapos like Mueller, Lowell, and Damon. These are the good players that make up most of the team. (You could also argue that Manny's defense makes him a good, not great player).
And look at the Beckett trade--are we sure they are better off than if they had Hanley and Sanchez and large buckets of cash to spend elsewhere?
You've kind of worked your way through to my point. Schilling was much older than Johan but...
--he was similarly awesome
--he was coming on a 2-3 year deal rather than a 6+ year deal
--Schilling's deal was going to be pretty on reasonable yearly salary
Overall, 2004 Schilling probably had very similar or better value to 2008 Johan. And the package for Schilling started with Fossum.
Fossum ~= Lester
Lyon < Coco
de la Rosa << Bowden
Goss <<< Lowrie
I think the only way you do the sort of deal that's being discussed is if you really think top players are going to continue to eschew free agency.
First, we did the Schilling deal, so it's not a binding set of facts on the upper bound. We can't say that given we didn't do that deal rightly, we shouldn't do this one. All we can say is that we rightly did that one, and it should inform our opinion of this one. What if Schilling had demanded more money? Or the Diamondbacks more prospects (did we even have any)? We still might have wanted to do it.
Second, suppose Johan wants 6/150 or something like that. The Red Sox would be getting him from 29-34, which are pretty good years to get a pitcher. And I'm not sure I think that's such an outrageous contract given where the market is going.
But it's still six years. And six years for a pitcher, I don't care how good he is, is not a good idea. Seriously, look at Wakefield. He has a tear in his labrum. He tore his labrum while basically lobbing balls up to homeplate. Santana puts significantly more effort into his delivery and blow out something at any point. And when that happens, not only are the Sox on the hook for his salary while he's not pitching, but he's looking for someone to replace him because they traded their pitching depth to get him.
Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown.
If you signed all of these pitchers to 6 year deals at 29 for a ton of money, it would've been completely worth it. Which pitchers who were the best pitcher in the league at 29 would you *not* sign to a long deal if you could? It's ridiculous to say 6 years is too long for even the best pitchers. I smile every time I think of the Red Sox signing Pedro for 7 years. Johan is no Pedro, but he's the best pitcher in baseball right now. He's thrown over 200 innings for 4 straight years.
Wakefield is 40 and has thrown 2600 innings in his career, I don't think your comparison holds. Also the Red Sox have pitching depth, certainly through next year, as they have 6 starters right now.
This isn't to say that it's definitely worth it. Giving up so much talent to get Johan isn't worth it just because it's sensible to sign a great pitcher to a long deal.
I think I've seen you work this philosophy successfully in FLB and no doubt it works if your drafting well and discerning the players that will be true superstars in the future from those who are merely good.
However, in the Red Sox case I think this has them dealing Lester, Ellsbury and Lowrie but not Buckholtz. Buckholtz could be a star quality guy. I also think that the Red Sox are (likely) in the playoffs next year regardless so it doesn't seem like it's worth dealing quite as much for extra wins in 2008.
A playoff rotation of Santana, Beckett, Matsuzaka and Buckholtz could be pretty nice over the next few years.
But did you check the attrition rate?
2007 7%
2008 11%
2009 29%
2010 32%
2011 39%
Even if you accept that a healthy 2007 pushes these all back a year (not exactly true), there is a 30% chance that he'll have a big drop in his innings in 2010 and the odds get worse after that.
Pretty much the same, he was great in the minors, IIRC.
His multiple elbow surgeries attest to that fact.
Well. There it is, then. 150 million to a guy who has a history of elbow problems doesn't seem like such a good idea to me.
I'm not meaning to imply that. I'm only saying that Kyle's example, while an important reminder of the value of prospects, is not a perfect comparison to the current situation. The Javy Vazquez trade that the Yankees made at that time might have been a better (or similarly decent comparison):
--Javy wasn't as good as Johan, but he was a guy who had four straight 200 IP seasons, with an average ERA+ around 125.
--He was traded for a top young position player/prospect, another pretty good prospect, and Choate.
I think the takeaway from that trade is quite different. Johnson and Rivera have been pretty good players, but nothing special. Vazquez has generally been decent, rather than the stud he was considered to be.
Here's an interesting question, that's sort of relevant. Who's future more predictable: a rookie hitter with a great minor league track record or a veteran pitcher with a great pro track record?
6/150 is a great contract for Santana. I think that if he were a free agent, we'd all want the Sox to pay that out, right away. He's not going to be a free agent, and the problem with free agents is that you might not get them - if you squirrel the money away, you have to be very certain that the good players are going to be there, and that you'll make the best offer, and that the offer you make is the one you predicted. Otherwise it's very easy to be left holding the bag, with a big pile of money and no one to give it to, and those are the situations that produce either efficient payrolls that just miss the playoffs or Edgar Renterias and Julio Lugos.
I tend to think that the market for superstars will explode soon enough - the owners seem to be tamping down on the highest-end salaries but not the 80th percentile guys (Hunter / Soriano), which is both odd and bad business. The guys who are worth the money are the Cy Young / MVP candidates. The Sox should be going after them before their salaries get back to market value.
If the best pitching prospect in the game (or 2nd or 3rd best, depending on what you think of Joba or Fill In The Blank) is "highly unlikely" to ever be a solid Cy Young candidate, then well...let me just say that guys like Santana/Pedro/Maddux et. al just don't spring out of holes in the ground. Clay has a much better chance of that than "highly unlikely"-that's just ######## pure and simple.
I am pretty much shocked at the consensus of opinion that is forming here vis a vis good young prospects; you guys sound just like the mainstream media, which refuses to acknowledge any value to a young player until said player "proves" himself at the ML level; until then he's just a mere bargaining chip. Good young prospects are highly valuable for two main reasons:
1. Cost controlled for a goodly number of years, which provides you with payroll flexibility
2. Often will develop from "good" young players into "great" young players-you don't need very many of your kids to do that to get a huge benefit. Yet almost all posts here and elsewhere don't even acknowledge the possibility of rapid-fire development-even if one of the 4 guys on the table does that, goes from a solid ML regular to a star or even superstar, then the Twins win the trade big time (or the Sox hopefully break even at least with Santana still pitching great thru his contract, a la Beckett and Hanley). Zips projections (et. al) are ALWAYS conservative (both going up, and going down, for past-prime vets), and I don't put a huge amount of stock into them.
Thus, the tide of history runs strongly against your opinions. Good young players tend to get better, often MUCH better, and are cheap. Veteran players decline much quicker than you think, all told, and are typically overpaid. Take a look at Johan's comp list (yes with all the caveats which apply): none are in the HoF, many burned out by their early 30's. A team which has plenty of the former, as the Sox do right now, is in pretty good shape, allowing the team to either stay at a high level (as Boston is right now) or quickly zoom forward into contention (as Washington and Tampa Bay are trying to do), or yes trade some of the excess away wisely to fill a hole. Going with veterans is the old Treadmill Strategy: I had thought that the Yankees were going to get off the thing, but I guess not. Let them trade away most of the rest of their young talent to get Santana, while keeping Jorge, ARod, and Rivera until they can apply for an AARP card; the Sox will then be in such a superior position it won't even be funny.
[And even if they're "average" and never develop beyond what Zips says they still have lots of value.]
Now, I don't have any idea how to quantify this. There are so many variables and unknowns - where would the saved money be spent? what is the value of knowing where you'll spend your money? how much money is there? - on top of the uncertainty that accompanies young players. I think there's a problematic tendency among stat-influences fans to imagine that money simply turns into wins, when I think that theorizing exactly how that happens includes a massive number of overly complex variables.
I thought those deals stemmed from having a desperate need at a position, not having money to spend but no one to spend it on. I think when the Red Sox have encountered situations where they can't find a player that they like to fill a hole, they go with a stopgap like Alex Gonzalez.
The Red Sox have used it though. They've used it on Schilling, Matsuzaka, Manny, Drew, etc. Using it on the top pitcher in the league is a good idea too, of course. It's just that there has to be a limit to how much you're willing to give up for the right to pay that pitcher top dollar.
I also don't think it's a forgone conclusion that 6/150 is a great deal for Santana. It may be the going rate, but longterm deals for pitchers are really risky. Investing in a great position player might be a better bet.
I think Santana's contract will be lower than his true value to the Red Sox (because, as some have said, elite players should command exceptionally high salaries and the market doesn't seem to be acting that way), so they could throw in some players. There's no reason to toss an elite prospect in though, and if someone else does they shouldn't outbid another team's mistake.
AJ Burnett seems like a good buy-low guy. For some reason the team hates him and he hates the team. He's a health hazard, but with our rotation depth we can afford for AJ Burnett to pitch 150 IP.
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