Thursday, July 01, 2004

 

Let's Talk Trades

First off, how about Brett Tomko last night? Wow. That might have been the best outing by a starter not named Jason Schmidt since, well, uh, Noah Lowry the night before! I'm trying not to get too psyched about Lowry. He's got a nice 2.04 ERA for June. On the other hand, this year in Fresno his ERA is 4.58 in 59 innings. He's only 24, and should continue to get better. Really, though, it's too much to ask for him to be consistently good.

Tomko has had two good outings since his return from the DL. I would love for him to suddenly transform into a dominant starter, but let's face it, that isn't going to happen. What's more telling, the 1.26 ERA in 14 1/3 IP since he came back from the DL, or the 4.68 ERA in 1100+ IP for his career? Right. So don't count on him to keep this up either.

This brings us to the topic of trades. As in, the Giants should be looking to bolster their starting rotation via a trade. Brian Sabean knows this, and he's working on it, I'm sure. I'm glad he's the one in charge, and not me. But that doesn't stop me from coming up with wild trades in my head and putting them out there for public consumption.

Here are my assumptions:

* The Giants don't care about next season. Their philosophy has always been "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it." No reason to think that's different now, since they're in first place.

* As usual, the owners will be willing to open their wallets a little for the right opportunity.

* Joe Garagiola Jr. is indeed completely insane.

Here is my proposed trade:

Matt Cain, Merkin Valdez and Yorvit Torrealba for Randy Johnson and cash.

Why the Diamondbacks would go for it:

* Their season is already over. Time to rebuild.
* They need a catcher. Hammock isn't doing the job.
* They need more young pitching to go along with Webb, for the days when The Big Unit is gone. Cain and Valdez are great prospects.
* They need to cut expenses, and they could save $5-6 million this year even if they pay the Giants $2-3 million as part of the trade.

Why the Diamondbacks wouldn't go for it:

* They don't want to strengthen a division rival.
* They don't want the fans to storm the Bob with pitchforks and torches.

Why the Giants would go for it:

* Your starting rotation is now Johnson, Schmidt, Williams, Rueter and Hermanson. Duh.
* Create huge buzz among the fans. Not that the Giants need to sell more tickets, but you'd sell out whatever was left, and guarantee postseason revenue.
* In the postseason, you have two aces.
* A chance for Sabean to make a Fucking-A Trade that would put anything Billy Beane did to shame.

Why the Giants wouldn't go for it:

* They love Matt Cain and Merkin Valdez.

Chances of a trade like this happening:

Yeah, pretty much zero. It's just too good to be true. But it makes sense for both sides, doesn't it?

EDIT: Son of a gun. Not five minutes after I posted this, I see in Steve Shelby's blog that Carl Steward wrote an article in the Trib advocating this very trade!

I hereby declare this a bandwagon.

Jefferson 1:26 PM

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