Blue Jays GM sees Brett Wallace as 1st Baseman
Posted on December 16th, 2009 by azruavatar in Brett Wallace… as does everyone else. The Cardinals never fully believed he could stick at third. Don’t let people purport that revisionist (or simply inaccurate) history that he was going to be an average defender at third.
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I was for the Holliday trade at the time and I’m still glad they did it, but one thought keeps creeping into my head: Could the same package have gotten Cliff Lee?
Probably not.
i think the same package could have gotten us lee…but i think holliday brings more value(still not a fan of how they calculate pitching WAR) and was a bigger need at the deadline last year
Holliday may have brought more value last year, but Lee is signed for 2010 as well. Again, I don’t think the same package gets Lee. But it might’ve been close.
lets assume (. . . i know, ass out of u and me . . . or just me, whatever) that the Holliday trade had never been made and the walrus was still in the system–could the cardinals have gotten halladay for wallace, garcia, + 1 more piece–i would say robert stock but he can’t be traded yet.
who do you think the +1 could have been . . .
would you rather have holliday on a 5 year deal for 16 mil a season or have halladay on a for a season at 15 mil (+ the 6 mil that Toronto kicked in) and 20 mill for three seasons after that?
Bret Wallace had eaten himself out of the Cardinals 3b job. I bet in two years the Jays will see him as more of a DH after he has eaten himself out of their 1st-base job. That video of him taking grounders at third was the deathnail for me, he had fallen so far from the shape he was in in college. Major League ball might be a blessing for him because he will have more access to better training equipment and nutrition.
This brings me back to point I have made before. Wouldn’t it be a good investment for the major league team to put more money into the minor leaguers diet and training. These guys eat like crap all year and have poor access to training equipment on the road. In Walllace’s case this was worth millions.
It’s silly to say that trading for holliday would have more value than trading for lee for the simple fact that lee would have been the club’s for a season longer than holliday, at slightly more than we just spent on penny.
I don’t care how you figure pitching war; ten months of lee is worth more than two of holliday.
>>>”Don’t let people purport that revisionist (or simply inaccurate) history that he was going to be an average defender at third.”
Not sure how it can be revisionist history if he never had the opportunity to play there at the highest level. Logic failure.
The fact remains that the Cardinals didn’t believe he would stick at third after drafting him, that many scouts believed he had a better chance at making the majors as a first baseman or DH, and now his new team’s GM sees him as a first baseman. That view made Wallace–an elite prospect, especially at the plate–expendable and available to get somebody like Holliday as a return. I still think the Cardinals paid too much in that trade for a possible rental, but with Pujols at first, Wallace simply had no real future in the organization.
Good luck to Wallace making it at first base for the Jays. I think Wallace, Kozma, Jones and a pitcher might have gotten Halladay or Lee. But the braintrust determined they needed a hitter instead. Happy with the trade for Holliday except for the division series.
Does anyone think Wallace will be playing at Skydome 2010? If he tears it up
in the International League he could be after the break as a rotating DH .
Have to agree with the Robot and BigJawnMize. Wallace will be lucky if he can last 5 years of major league service time. The dude is a fat pig. From one fat pig to another, your body goes pretty quick in all areas. I wish him the best though. I never came close to regretting the trade.
bigjawn – couldn’t agree more on that video. that was an abomination (assuming he was actually trying and not out there screwing around after a bender the night before – being drunk would be the only excuse for that lack of timing).
wallace will be a fine hitter in the majors for a long time – he doesn’t need to play much defense (see sean casey, matt stairs, etc.). But he had little future role with the cards.
bc
Your right he can hit…he will not lose that skill. I don’t see him as a huge run producer. The problem is that he is a high OBP DH that can’t run. High OBP guys need to be able to run the bases well to score a high number of runs.
AZ — your statement about “revisionist history” seems to imply that Wallace could not have been an average defender at third because the Cards never really saw him as a third baseman. Wouldn’t that same logic then also apply to Allen Craig, who’s never really been given a chance as a third baseman?
I agree that he was never seen as a third baseman long term, or maybe even short term, but just because the Cards never believed him to be a third baseman doesn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t have been adequate in the short term.
tom….i was just talking about last year…of course lee had more value in the long run, but i was looking at it from the persepective of last season’s playoff run