Swisher Trade Revisited (My how times have changed)

[caulfield12]

Cunningham has a chance to be another Rowand, which is probably going to end up as better than Ryan Sweeney.

 

He has consistently put up OPS's of around 900 or better, and really did well in AAA at the end of last season. I know Sweeney would be a competent CF (compared to the likes of Everett, Griffey, Swisher and Mackowiak), and he has a better throwing arm and mechanics than Jerry Owens, but I'm not sure he'd be even major league average for that position, probably just a tick under.

 

Cunningham comes with the same problem...although he has better speed than Sweeney and Anderson. It's interesting, because all four of them (including Rowand and Jeremy Reed in the discussion) were thought to be fourth outfielder types at different points in their careers. For such a young lefthanded hitter, we really gave up on Sweeney quickly, but the feeling had to be that USCF wasn't the best fit for him. He belongs in a stadium where he can bang out (eventually) 35-40 doubles. If he can do that, he can still end up at 825-850 in terms of OPS, as long as he hits .280-.310 and gets his share of walks, too.

 

The odds of DLS and Gio making major impacts in their careers...well, neither one has the odds in their favor at this point in their careers, but TJ surgeries are a lot easier to recover from than shoulder/labrum ones (see the article on Schilling in the Trib today for more).

Edited March 8, 2009 by caulfield12

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

I saw DLS pitch and if Nunez's stuff is even comparable to DLS's, then damn the Yankees are stupid for trading him. And from the little of Nunez I have seen this spring, he doesn't compare to DLS. That isn't to say he might not be a decent reliever, but you get DLS healthy and keep him healthy in a bullpen role, and you're talking about potentially a dominant SU man and potential closer. Now for all we know DLS will never be the same after TJ, but I'd still take his potential over Nunez, any day of the week.

 

Gio got "blasted" but that was in a CUP OF COFFEE in the bigs. Lol, remember when Floyd got blasted with his first stint with the White Sox? Take his stats from last year with a grain of salt. And the concerns about Gio's frame aren't that he'd have to move to the pen, but how long he will last as a starter. Right now the biggest concern with Gio is his control. And Gio has much better stuff. The only pitch Marquez has on Gio is his sinking fastball.

 

And Sweeney, in his rookie season (which was sidetracked w/ injuries) showed he was a competent hitter. Something Anderson still has not been able to show. He had a very solid rookie season and there is no reason to think why he won't improve. Sweeney has a much more refined swing and approach at the plate while Anderson still has plenty of holes in his swing and approach. Anderson's also the better defender in CF, but Sweeney is decent out there as well. Also, a platoon of Sweeney and Anderson in center sounds A TON better then any other option we have right now. However, this does remind me of how much we could have used Cunningham right now. KW really put all his money on Anderson.

Agree with this. We gave up a lot more talent to get Swisher than we got in return for him, and I don't know how that can be disputed. Gio was one of the top lefty pitching prospects in baseball and DLS had an arm that far exceeds anything in either deal, plus Sweeney wasn't exactly a bust when dealt him. IIRC he was only 22. Whether or not any of the minor leaguers in either deal pan out, talent-for-talent the package to net Swisher blows the return package out of the water.

 

That said, in hindsight I don't regret trading those guys. I just regret getting the player we got. Every time I see Josh Hamilton I think, what if we'd offered the Swisher package? Or Josh Fields? Or what if we'd offered Fields for Volquez and the Swisher package for Hamilton? Maybe those deals don't get made, but it just sucks we gave up so much for so little production.

 

Then again, I saw in another thread where a poster mentioned Torii Hunter passing on the Sox offer of $15M/year for 4 or 5 years (forget how many years it was exactly). I guess it counts that in retrospect we could have been much worse off than we are now, so overall I'm happy with the way things turned out. We wouldn't have been able to move Torii if we'd gotten him, which would've meant no Viciedo and perhaps less money available for the draft this year as well.