It's All About the Trades

Since I only seem to post when a significant trade goes down, it looks like it's my turn to actually post something here again. With rumors of a mega-trade going down between the Yanks, D-Backs, and Tigers, I thought I'd post a few thoughts. First the actual trade:

Yanks get: Curtis Granderson
Diamondbacks get: Ian Kennedy and Edwin Jackson
Tigers get: Max Scherzer, Phil Coke, and Austin Jackson

For unfair reasons I'm going to call this a four-way trade by adding the move that sent Brian Bruney from the Yanks to the Nationals simply because I think that particular roster move speaks to some of the greater concerns I have with this trade as a whole.

First Granderson:
Curtis Granderson is considered to be one of the best young"ish" players in baseball right now and a superior defensive outfielder. Given the expected holes in the Yanks outfield (with expected departures of Matsui, Damon or both) this makes sense. He is only 28 (going on 29) so he should roughly be around his peak. He hit a career high 30 HRs last year but drove in only 71 runs, scored 91, and hit only .249 with a OPS of .780 which, err, is not very good and represent significant declines from the previous two years - not, it should be noted, years in which he should be regressing. He will be taking over the CF position which, while definitely an upgrade at the position, still disappoints me as a Yankee fan since I've always enjoyed watching Melky in center and I was quite happy with the Cabrera/Gardner platoon. LF is a much more pressing position for the Yanks right now and I don't think they plan to move the before-mentioned platoon over to leftfield. More likely, I think they'll make a big push for Holliday now, particularly since Granderson has insane range in the OF and he can pick up a bit of the slack for Holliday defensively. Given how Holliday struggled in the AL last year, I'm not sure how I would feel about his potential addition. If you asked me 2 years ago how I'd feel about Holliday in pinstripes, euphoria would have been a close approximation. While I was living in Colorado, I would frequently razz my Rockie friends about how awesome Holliday was going to be as a Yankee when his CO contract expired. But I loved Holliday then and the man hit perhaps the most impressive live HR I've ever seen in my life (of course it was against the Yanks). Anyway, Granderson is obviously a very good player and it's possible he bounces back substantially in the next few seasons, particularly in this Yankee lineup (though it should be mentioned that the Tigers did not have a bad lineup either). However, though I've made this mistake before, arguing, for example, against a proposed Yankees Johan Santana trade that I thought gave up too many cheap young prospects, let me wade into these dangerous waters again and lay out while I am against the trade, despite its potential upsides (for example, a substantial Granderson bounce-back).

For whatever reasons, Austin Jackson's star has faded, though there does not seem to be a lot of statistical or even anecdotal data to explain why. Nevertheless, the man was still the Yankees #1 rated organizational prospect so he obviously retains some important trade value. I mean, his minor league stats are not mind-blowing or anything, but scouts seem to envision some pretty impressive development from him and, for purposes of evaluating his worth on the open-market, we will take these scout evaluations at face value. Now getting Granderson for Jackson would be a no-brainer, and the Tigers (or anyone else for that matter) would be foolish to even consider such a deal. But with the trade of Bruney to the Nationals, and the addition of Kennedy and Coke in this 3 team deal, I can't help but think that the Yankees have substantially weakened their bullpen in the process. To make matters worse, I am holding the Yankees at their word that they intend to move Hughes into the starting rotation. This leaves an enormous hole in a bullpen that, towards the end of the season, was considered one of baseball's best. Add another year to Mariano Rivera's age, and it's hard to tell what kind of devastated bullpen we could be looking at in 2010 (Jeez, 2010 already! Where did the decade go?). I mean, Kennedy would have been an obvious replacement for Hughes in the bullpen (or a backup solution in the rotation if the Hughes experiment failed) and now that safety net has been traded away. It seems like a curious decision to devastate our bullpen in a move that, in my expectation, marginally improves one position and fails to address holes in another (LF). Again, this might be a pre-cursor to an additional Holliday/Bay signing, but that has yet to be determined. Regardless, while the baseball masses absolutely HATE IT, I personally prefer when the Yankees sign free agents instead of giving up players AND money in trades. I mean, it's not my money - so what do I care if the Yankees throw millions of dollars around in the open market to plug up holes, real or imagined, in the Yankee lineup. But giving up talented prospects? That gives me pause. Don't misunderstand me. A lot of my disappointment in this trade is tied up in my belief that Granderson won't return to "form" offensively (though I continue to believe he'll be a force defensively). Obviously, I can be severely misguided in that assumption. Likewise, I can be severely misinformed as to the potential of Jackson and Kennedy. So far, Kennedy hasn't exactly set the AL on fire.

Anyway, as a Yankee fan, I hope to be wrong. God knows I have been before and one could have imagined an extra WS Championship or two if the Yankees pulled the trigger on earlier prospect-laden deals I opposed that would have brought in players like Johan Santana. But Cashman is a pretty wise GM and he's done right by us before. Let's hope he still has the magic.