I contemplated trying to rewrite the lyrics to the Bryan Adams song in the title to satirically fit this post but that would mean I’d have to listen to Bryan Adams and . . . ya, that’s not going to happen.
In 2009, the Cardinals made a pair of massive trades shipping off 5 of their more prominent prospects in exchange for Matt Holliday and Mark DeRosa. Obviously, the Matt Holliday trade and subsequent signing has gone pretty well for the Cardinals. Equally obvious was the unfortunate, injury flop that Mark DeRosa turned out to be.
But what about the prospects the Cardinals traded away? Where are Brett Wallace, Clayton Mortensen and Shane Peterson? How about Chris Perez and Jess Todd?
Brett Wallace is currently playing 1B for the Astros and is putting up some rather mediocre numbers. He’s corrected some of his walk rate issues from previous years drawing bases on balls about 11% of the time. He’s hitting like Adam LaRoche but without the plus defense. Wallace’s current trajectory makes him a 1WAR first baseman this year. Perhaps more worrisome for Astros fans is that ZiPS actually thinks Wallace is performing at expectations offensively — which is not a good sign for a prospect once billed as a big bat.
Clayton Mortensen put together a good season for the Athletics AAA affiliate but was released traded in the offseason before catching on with to the Rockies. He’s been a replacement level player for the Rockies including some spot starts despite some bad luck on home runs. With a strikerate around that of Kyle McClellan, Mortensen hasn’t exactly been blowing his fastball by hitters. Indeed, it’s a little troubling to see a 3 mph drop in his fastball velocity compared to last year. The last thing I’ll mention about Mortensen is that I think some team needs to teach him a cutter. He’s got a functional slider and changeup that he can rely on but his fastball, despite getting some groundballs, doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Even if everything breaks right and the velocity loss is temporary, Mortensen still looks to be middle relief or a back of the rotation type arm.
The last piece of the Matt Holliday trade, Shane Peterson, remains with the Athletics in AAA. He’s hitting .293/.377/.479 which is good but not great (113 wRC+) for his league and park after a similar effort in AA to start the season.
The primary piece to the Mark DeRosa puzzle was Chris Perez, now the Indian’s closer. Perez has a shiny 2.55 ERA that helps distract from his ugly peripherals. A strikeout rate under 6k/9IP and a walk rate that remains alarmingly high, Perez has never quite developed into the two pitch dominant closer that was promised. With worse luck, he’d be a middle reliever on another team.
The last player was Jess Todd who now finds himself back in the Cardinals organization. Todd has performed well at every stop he’s been for a significant period of time maintaining K/BB ratios near 3. Todd has quickly accumulated innings in Memphis this season appearing in 23 games and striking out 21 batters against 7 walks in 25.2 IP. Todd’s path is a bit odd to me as he’s bounced around from the Indians to the Yankees to the Cardinals despite performing reasonably well. This may be a matter of scouts versus stats but Todd still has a shot at contributing to a bullpen in the majors, imo.
At the end of the summer, the Cardinals have moved a lot of commodities that were perceived to have future value at the time. The team clearly made out like bandits for Matt Holliday and the only thing preventing the same assessment of the DeRosa trade was a wrist injury. All in all, not a bad bit of trading for GM John Mozeliak during the summer of 2009. Will he pull off a similar move in 2011?
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and Seth Blair as compensation for DeRosa
Billy Beane essentially got Michael Taylor, who looks less and less like a top prospect, and a few bad starts out of Clayton Mortensen for 6 cost controlled years of Carlos Gonzalez and Huston Street. Serves him right for absolutely killing us in the deal to get Dan Haren.
1. Mortenson was not released by the A’s but traded to the Rockies for Ethan Hollingsworth.
2. I dont think we’ve seen all we are going to see from Wallace or Mortenson so I think it is too early to put a final stamp on this trade on what they have done to date.
3. I am a firm believer that you can only look at the period post FA for an acquisition such as Holliday. I.e. the 2.5 months he gave us in 2009. The fact that we re-signed him after that shouldn’t enter into the equation (particularly when there is no evidence we got any discout because of it – we were high bidder and most likely would have signed him any case). I realize others have a different viewpoint here.
4. Even if Derosa had performed as he had the first half of the season prior to injury he obviously would have made no difference in our playoff chances. Whether he would have made much of a difference in the post season seems doubtful as well. Trading a cost controlled all-star closer for what we got or even could have gotten seems questionable at best.
5. Technically (if you just use WAR added) Holliday made little difference in our ability to make the playoffs. We won the division by 7.5 games. Holliday added 2.6 WAR.
I think you are highly overstating these trades in terms of their value. Holliday for half a season seems like it is possible we got the better end of the deal (but only if you assume we wouldn’t have won the division without him – which is debatable statistically) though the jury may be out as Wallace has less than a full season under his belt in the majors. The Derosa deal (even if he had been healthy) seems like a loser to me.
1). I missed that trade.
3). I understand that sentiment but I think it’s only one way to look at it. It also ignores the comfort aspect that players familiar with a team may become more comfortable there after being in that climate. Whether that played a role in Holliday signing — neither of us know.
5). Things you could not have know at the time of the trade: the Cardinals eventual margin of error. The 7.5 games is completely irrelevant.
I think you are highly understating how little the prospects we traded have actually produced. I don’t know that I would make the DeRosa trade again but I’d make the Holliday trade again easily — and I was one of few people who backed it at the time. More important than what Wallace has produced to date is that we sold while scouts were still high on him. That’s not nearly the case at this point. We moved several players while they were at their peak (to date) of value.
Could they still reach a higher peak? Sure. Does the Holliday trade look good for the Cardinals and the DeRosa trade look ok? I think there’s an easy case for that statement. You can quibble with the semantics that I used in the article but I think you’re offbase on most of your other points.
I’m not sure where to find this, but I’m assuming Matt Holliday was a Type A free agent. Wouldn’t that have impacted the Cardinals decision whether or not to sign him?
And fwiw, if he was indeed a Type A FA, that pick they didn’t have to give up turned into Zack Cox.
I understand what you’re saying regarding only viewing Holliday’s impact on the intial rental time. However, I think that a long term view is needed as well. Wallace was/is blocked by a future hall o’ famer, had no shot to stick at third. Mortenson is replacement level, same for Peterson. Basically, Holliday was acquired for an average mlb first basemen (w/ some room for improvement) and two replacement level players. That trade is a definite win for the Cardinals, short term and long-term. Long-term in the sense that his time in St. Louis objectively seems to have influenced his decision to stay–he has been one of the best, if not the best LFs in baseball since we got him.
The Derosa trade was a bit of a bust, but I like the chance that the FO took in trying to improve a good team. What the Derosa trade comes down to, in my mind, is whether the risk of putting a team on the field that had a good chance to go deep in the playoffs (instead of simply making the playoffs) outweighs what Chris Perez could turn out to be? Without the benefit of Monday-morning quarterbacking the trade, I liked the deal at the time. Obviously, no one could have predicted Derosa’s wrist exploding shortly after the trigger was pulled. (Still wish Motte was in Cleveland instead though).
You, again, are missing one of my 2 main rebuttles of “these were good trades”theories.
1. We would have ended up with the same results without them. (short term)
and
2. It is still too early to make a definitive call on the players given up.
“…objectively seems to have influenced….” the only thing that seems to be objective (from press reports) is that he went to the team that offered the most money/years. Anything else relating to his motives for coming here seem far from objective.
Again, I understand your point. My point was that Holliday and Derosa were acquired not only to make the playoffs, which concededly was more likely than not to happen w/o either, but to enhance the Cardinals’ chances in advancing past the first round in the playoffs. **The view of the acquisition(s) was to make a serious run at the NL penant.
Additionally, it was no secret Holliday was acquired w/ the purview of signing him long term. Holliday himself said that he enjoyed his time in St. Louis and was impressed w/ the organization. These statements (from press reports of interviews w/ Holliday) are circumstantial objective evidence of Holliday’s motivation.
Finally, while the players given up are still young, its not too soon to project, and the projections on the three are not promising. Mortenson has average stuff and Wallace is physically limited and is unlikely to develop anything but average power. The projections, coupled w/ the actual results show that the Cardinals won the trade.
I don’t think you can definatively say we would have the same results had we not got the players. As I said the team was imploding. Would the team have won with Duncan in LF and hitting clean up, and Thurston at 3rd for the rest of the year? I don’t believe for a second that would have happened. Pujols cooled off considerably once Holliday showed up and it’s hard to say that he would have kept up his crazy 1st half 09 pace had we kept the team as is.
True, playoffs weren’t a certainty. Obviously, its hard to predict the results by removing Holliday and Derosa from the second half. I tend to agree just because of what the metrics say, but your point is valid. Prior to Holliday and Derosa, the 09 team was extremely and maybe fatally flawed.
People continue to over-rate Chris Perez IMO. If he hasn’t figured out how to get the ball over the plate now, I’m not convinced he ever will. As Azru stated, with neutral luck he’d be a wild middle-reliever somewhere. He might have an Aaron Heilman-esque career but I really don’t see, at this point, that we’re going to miss him much.
Did you really say that if Mark Derosa had been healthy, “Whether he would have made much of a difference in the post season seems doubtful as well”? That is an impressive level of speculation.
Which is greater speculation – what I said or to imply that Derosa alone would have been enough to overcome a team that swept us 3-0 in the playoffs? I’ll stand by my statement. (for me anything less than changing the final outcome of the series is really no difference.)
“Which is greater speculation – what I said or to imply that Derosa alone would have been enough to overcome a team that swept us 3-0 in the playoffs?”
Talk about a false choice. I just don’t care enough about this issue to debate it much but I will say that there is no point in asking which is the “greater speculation” between two utterly unknowable and speculative questions.
If DeRosa is healthy does Holliday take a fly ball off of his nuts? Does the ball even get hit? Have we already won an earlier game? Do we even play the Dodgers in the first round? This could go on forever.
I think you are wrong on #3. If the Cards had not signed Matt after free agency, I’m pretty sure they would have received 2 compensation picks in the ’10 draft. If I’m right, we would have 2 more prospects in the system that would go down as compensation for that trade. So signing Matt would have to be considered part of the whole thing. Right?
3) That is fine. But then the cards also wouldn’t have zack cox. So if you want to look at it that way, then you include Holliday and Cox as part of the deal.
4) The cards didn’t trade a cost controlled all-star closer. They traded somebody who turned into a cost controlled closer. In the playoffs, the cards lost 2 games by 2 runs or less. Not sure you can say he didn’t make a difference.
5) Again, its Holliday and Cox.
I disagree with alot of what you just posted Carioca. The Cardinals like to have a little test run at a player before signing them. Would we have invested in Hollidays contract without having had him play for us the second half of 09? There is no way to know but I doubt it. I don’t see how you say Derosa didn’t make an impact on our playoff chances. I remember a team in 09 going into the break with a horrible downward trajectory. The pitching was great the first few months but they were a .500 team after that and the clubhouse was imploding. We were working on our 4th thirdbaseman at the time. Also the Duncan and Ankiel situation was reaching a critical point. I believe TLR said that STL fans wanted to make him vomit. I really doubt if we would have won the division in 09 has those two moves not been met. Along with that which of the 5 players that we gave up would have been in STL right now? Wallace probably as a reserve 1st baseman. Perez yes, Mortenson probably not, Todd maybe and Peterson I highly doubt it.
I understand what you are saying about how the Cards often do business – that doesn’t mean it is proper, necessary, or the right way. (I’m also not saying it is the wrong way). How many good player signings have we missed out on because of that way of doing business?
You can argue all you want that Derosa made an impact on our playoff chances but he was only a half win above replacement statistically in his time here – was that worth Chris Perez?
I’m not sure how the fact that TLR totally misplayed his hand on both Ankiel and Duncan to the detriment of the team justifies these trades one way or another.
I have little doubt all 5 of those players would have played in STL at some point if they stayed with the organization. I have no idea how they would have done here. Would Mortenson have been a lights out GB pitcher under Duncan’s tutelage? would Chris Perez have landed quickly in the TLR/Duncan doghouse for not pitching to contact?
I realize many people dont agree with me and that’s fine. I feel confident in my argument from a statistical viewpoint. Their may have been psychological aspects that that fails to take into account but I have no first hand knowledge of those one way or the other.
“You can argue all you want that Derosa made an impact on our playoff chances but he was only a half win above replacement statistically in his time here – was that worth Chris Perez?”
Statistically, I’m pretty sure I’m right in saying Perez has been worth about half a win since the trade, and has been extremely lucky on flyballs (if you use xFIP or SIERA to rate him, he’s been sub-replacement) so the answer (so far) is probably yes. You also have to account for the fact that DeRosa netted a supplemental pick, so Perez really has to out-perform that pick (who I thought was actually Jenkins, not Blair, who may find his way into a few top-100 lists this year).
5. Isn’t it part of managements job to asses the competitive climate accurately. I dont think it is fair to relieve them of that responsibility.
To declare a trade a winner, shouldn’t it have to make a difference? Statistically, it is hard to make that case. The Cards won their division by 7.5 games and Holliday/Derosa only added 3.2 WAR. Doesn’t make it a loser necessarily but hard to make a compelling case that it was what put the 2009 team over the hump.
I respect that you disagree with me and have a different point of view on these trades. I guess I would have considered it slightly rude to say you were off base – which is why I didn’t.
I don’t think I am understating how little these prospects have produced. I made no claims to any of their production to date other than to say that Perez was an all-star closer (is that debatable?). I simply acknowledged that it is possibly too early to make a final judgment.
FWIW – I was for the Holiday trade at the time and against the Derosa trade. My thinking that Derosa wasn’t going to be a difference maker but that Holliday possibly could be.
A 7.5 end of season result is not necessarily indicative of the club’s internal end of season predictions made in mid-season. Even if the club was predicting a win by 3 games or 2 or 5, there’s still an added probability of winning that the addition of Matt Holliday and Mark DeRosa would have represented.
(Side note: Off base is not, in my lexicon, meant as a pejorative. I simply use it when I think people are missing the mark with their opinions. Don’t take offense at it.)
1. Good point. And of course the real hope is it makes difference in the playoffs (Holliday didn’t/ Derosa we dont know if he could have).
2. Fair enough. (but if my aim is off it is only slightly :) )
bottom line to me was/is
we did not need to make both trades
even at the time, one was highly probable to provide whatever improved odds the FO thought we needed
So to move past 2009 and get to the last question in the article: what does 2009 tell us about possible trade-deadline actions for 2011?
I think we can all agree that none of the prospects traded in 2009 held as much promise as Shelby Miller and Carlos Martinez do now. In all likelihood, none of them held as much promise as Oscar Taveras and Tyrell Jenkins do, nor Matt Adams if the optimists are right about him. So assume that the team won’t trade any of those five. They can’t trade anybody drafted this year, and as I understand it, they can’t trade Cox yet, although they’ll be able to soon enough.
With these constraints, suppose some other team comes to Mo and says, “I’ll give you player X, who’s destined for free agency after the season, for my choice of any three guys from your farm system other than your top five or 2011 draftees.” Is there a player X that makes that a good trade for the Cardinals, yet one that the other team would actually go for? Because that is essentially what happened in the Holliday deal.
hmmm….. Wallace was a top 50 prospect and Perez had previously been a top 100 prospect (barely) and performed with promise at the major league level so I’d say either one of them was equal to or above all of Jenkins, Adams and Taveras in the experts eyes (myabe slightly less upside but much higher probability).
Whatever the pundits thought of Wallace at the time, he really held little value for the Cards when it was determined that he could not play 3B. Wallace is a high average, low power 1B/DH. For a National League team with Albert Pujols on its roster, Wallace just didn’t have much value. I like the upside of Adams as a 1B/DH much more than Wallace due to the power. I’m not sure what other teams thought of Wallace at the time but given that he has been traded three times in his young career has to mean something. I know it is a slow baseball news day but why bother arguing against the point that the Cards got the better of the Holliday trade? As you point out no one knows for sure until the players involved finish their careers but speculation is stock in trade for we who post on baseball blogs. We speculate on everything else so it doesn’t strike me as wrong to offer opinions on the Holliday trade as we actually have a few years of data to work with.
+1
I think that by the time of the trade, it would be more accurate to say that Wallace was “formerly” a top 50 prospect (which he certainly was at one time). Some of the bloom was off the rose, with the realization that he wasn’t going to be able to play at 3B, and also with some slowing of his progress toward the majors from a hitting perspective.
However, I’ll give you the point at least to the extent of allowing the potential trade list to include Matt Adams. There are resemblances between him and Wallace: masher at the plate, bad body, big differences of opinion as to how he’ll play in the majors. There is also one very important difference: Adams has been getting better as he rises through the system. Wallace did not.
The rubber will meet the road next season in AAA for Adams. 1) Will he commit himself to a workout regime in the offseason to improve his body? 2) Will he maintain the power numbers in Memphis? Can’t wait to see how it plays out for Adams. The Cardinals could have themselves a very valuable prospect in Adams come this time next season. If he stumbles in Memphis in 2012, Adams is still young so it won’t be fatal but his stock will drop.
Wallace at the time was thought by some teams as a possible third baseman. That was his value. The cards sold high. a DH/1st baseman that doesn’t hit HRs isn’t as valaube.
Perez perfomed with promoise? That is a bit of a strech. Salas is performing with promise. Actually, he has out performed Perez.
Both have articulated the vagaries of the trade well. It is problematic whether we would have ended up with Holliday had we not traded for him first. If I understand correctly, carioca begrudgingly acknowledges that Cardinal practice (test riding players) might have precluded the FA signing but is a policy that should be reviewed.
I don’t see how we could assume that, without the trade, Holliday would have ended up a Cardinal. Even if we could overcome the practice of a huge ($120M) free agent purchase without testing the chemistry, whose to say we do that? Holliday may well have formed his opinion on where to land based on the positive experience in St Louis. Had we not made the trade who knows what other positive experience he could have had with another team? Moreover, we are heavily geared to draft selections and signing an arb eligible Holliday, which he most certainly would have been, would have cost us our 2010 draft pick, Zack Cox. In any event, it is hard to fault DeWitt for wanting a test ride for his $120M.
To those optimistic of our chances to sign Holliday, you would have to measure the value of 3 mos of Holliday and Zach Cox vs the services of Wallace, Mortensen and Peterson. Those of us who truly doubt the signing without the 2009 experience, view it as gaining 7 plus years of Holliday and Zach Cox for the three players. Since I don’t see how Wallace fits into our needs (particularly with Adams close), and acknowledging Mortensen’s and Shane’s struggles, I’m quite content that Zack Cox argues the trade almost by himself. We, after all, might find him most beneficial at 3rd base or as a very valuable trade piece in a year or two.
Using a similar argument for De Rosa just doesn’t get much better by acknowledging that our draft gain for him was Blair who struggles mightily. Perhaps expunging the De Rosa experience from our minds is the best we can hope for.
Finally, I understand the argument for WAR but I just can’t buy it. I don’t think WAR is adequate to measure Holliday’s full impact to the Cardinals in 2009. When we got him, we were in a dogfight. That we ran away with it simply cannot be proven attributable to factors other than Holliday’s presence…one way or another. Yes, it can be argued and that’s what we’re doing, but we cannot know.
I have never seen the value of revisiting trades. I get the sick feeling everytime I think about Haren v Mulder, etc. Once a trade is done I find it most appealing to simply get on board and hope for the best. I’ll leave the GM pronouncements of genius and imbecilic to others.
“Finally, I understand the argument for WAR but I just can’t buy it. I don’t think WAR is adequate to measure Holliday’s full impact to the Cardinals in 2009. When we got him, we were in a dogfight. That we ran away with it simply cannot be proven attributable to factors other than Holliday’s presence…one way or another. Yes, it can be argued and that’s what we’re doing, but we cannot know.”
Agreed. Comparing WAR to fluctuations in standings against other teams (not some baseline “replacement” level performance) is so statistically flawed as to be fundamentally worthless. One would be better off using WPA actually, though that would be flawed as well.
Statistics within the given season (in this case ’09) can be used in trade discussion to make valid points, I’d agree. But trying to assay these trades down to their purest ores to value their worth is a hard thing to nail down. The evaluation is slithery. Results evolve over time. As has been said, the jury is still out. Even two years later.
Again, one outwash of the DeRosa deal was the compensatory selection of Seth Blair the following year. If he develops into something resembling a useful pitcher, that has to be considered in the evaluation. Does he have to be as good as C. Perez for it to have been a good trade?? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe that would be one way of finally evaluating that transaction.
I held on to a lot of hope for Wallace long after most had seen the handwriting on the clubhouse/outhouse wall. Turns out, I was probably thinking too highly of Wallace at the time. (Faberge egg syndrome, no doubt)…..
In my humble, unscientific, and data bereft opinion, the Holliday trade seems, for now, to have turned out pretty good for the Cardinals—even when Holliday took one in the family jewels on national television in the playoffs. As Spanky McFarland from the “Littlel Rascals” used to say, “Aw–that couldda happened to anybody!!”
The DeRosa trade??? Maye not so much. But if Blair continues to develop, then I think evaluating that trade could change over time as well.
Wallace’s defense is all over the board according to defensive metrics. Last year it was great according to UZR, this year it sucks. Currently, for his career, it’s at -.8 UZR/150 – basically average at 1B.
Also, Wallace’s total WAR this year is at .4WAR because of “defense” (very flawed in half-season sample sizes) a few less PAs than others with essentially the same wRC+ (and similar defensive stats). Wallace has bascially performed on par with Ryan Howard and Carlos Pena this year.
This last fact should also disgust you if you are a Phillies fan.
I know people hate the A-Rod deal, but I’m really leaning to the conclusion that that Howard contract may be the absolute worst in baseball, simply because Amaro didn’t need to do it. That deal stinks NOW, and in 5 years it’s going to be absolutely embarassing. At least guys like Lee and Soriano provided SOME value into their 30s. I could really see Howard being more or less out of baseball (or a DH somewhere with the Phillies eating most of the deal) by the time he’s 35.
Shane Peterson is playing at AA, not AAA.