Re: Only the coupon Wilpons !!!!

I'm pretty certain they knew he was HIV positive.  Between 1988 to 2001
he had a 121 OPS.  Respectable enough.  He was also 34 and spit on an
Umpire.  I was kind of confused by this trade, actually.  The one thing
the Wilpon's do generally well is avoid players who cross their line for
bad behavior.  They silently got rid of their steroid users.  That is one
of the many reasons I put ZERO stock in the "Piazza did steroids"
speculations.  I doubt the Indians though Alomar would drop all the way
to a 80 OPS+ but they damn well knew he was aging 2nd baseman and damaged
goods and unloaded him.  It was flat out smart baseball management.

Oh please. They were dumping his contract because they were cutting
payroll. It was a classic salary dump. They let Juan Gonzalez, Marty
Cordova, Kenny Lofton, and Dave Burba go. They traded Alomar. The
next year they let Nagy and Thome go. In that time they basically
signed nobody. If you want to call it smart baseball, go ahead, but
it was no different from a classic Marlins fire sale. They acquired a
bunch of young players and because they have very good scouting some
of those young players became very good players.

But if the Alomar trade was such a brilliant baseball move, then why
didn't any of the players they actually got from the Mets have any
relevance? Simply put, because it was a fire sale. It was a salary
dump. Alomar had 2 years left on the deal and the Indians wanted out
of it.


Carlos Beagra, OTOH, was only 27 years old, and they still unloaded him,

Look at his career path . . . something was clearly wrong. His
numbers had been falling like a stone for three years. When the
Indians unloaded him, he was having a TERRIBLE season. He actually
rebounded slightly the next season in NY, but there was clearly an
issue.

AND they received Jeff Kent, already a prove hitter.  Thome and Ramirez

It was an incredibly stupid deal on the part of the Mets.

were a different ball of wax.  The couldn't keep them.  Thome walked away
as a Free Agent, and they used their money elsewhere.  Not really a bad
choice...not that they had much of a choice.  Ramirez walked away as a
Free Agent as well, and they received their draft picks.

Again, that was salary motivated. Don't make these baseball
decisions. They are, but they're heavily influenced by salary. Do
you think the Indians didn't want to keep Jim Thome or Manny Ramirez?


BTW - just for the Thread Drift, this is a classic example of the
misguidance of the positional value theories.  You shouldn't take your
best bats and put them in the middle infield if you have a choice.  You

I could not possibly disagree with this more. I'm not going to start
this though because at the end of the day you and I will not agree on
this point and I don't have the time.

decrease the ball players value, not increase it.  You can't hit if your
laying on your backside with a torn shin from a 3-4-3 double play.  
Hitters need to be protected, not exposed.

The value of a hitter is their value in the baters box.  The value of a

Sure, if he's a DH. Everybody else is more valuable in the field,
especially infielders. 1B, 2B, and SS, on average, affect more plate
appearances as fielders then they do as hitters in a typical game. A
poor defender at any of these positions will cost you more then his
offense will benefit you.

fielder is their value in their position.  The two do not mix and a great
fielder makes outstanding contributions regardless of their position.  
Imagine that WARS reduces Hernandez overall value because he played 1st
base...maybe they should have given him more value for playing second
base and the pitchers position at the same time.

The problem with using Keith Hernandez in this conversation is that
he's arguably the greatest defensive first baseman of all time. It's
like using Ozzie Smith or Bill Mazeroski or Brooks Robinson in these
arguments. These are the outliers among outliers. They skew an
already skewed scale.

.

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