Generally when talking about moving players around the board of a professional franchise, you have to take into consideration more than what meets the average fans eye. There are many things that come into play that we just aren't privy to such as scouting reports, contracts and agent relationships. Lots of times, all we can see is the obvious things like we need a catcher, so this player fits for these reasons while that player won't fit for some other reasons. We have some access to contracts and player abilities through either the paper or the Internet or our own observations but these are generally the tip of an informational iceberg. We really aren't able to see the mountain of info a major league team has on each and every player in the many different leagues around the world. With that in mind, it's sometimes hard to really know when a GM is making a trade based on info we fans have absolutely no idea about.
That being said, you can certainly analyze what other teams are offering and asking for in comparison to what they are doing with other teams with respect to certain player or players. That is the best way to gage if something is up concerning how eager one GM is in obtaining a player, with all things being equal, or if a GM is just making a token effort. I say "with all things being equal" because some GM's treat other GM's differently. Maybe they have had some bad dealings before or they have some prior agreements that they don't want to really explain to the fans that are now being settled. Also, most teams will be very hesitant in trading within their own division and, therefore, may take a lesser deal outside it.
After bouncing those thoughts around in your head, lets talk about our main man in charge, Dan O'Dowd. I think, for the most part, especially when chatting about the growth of the farm system, O'Dowd has done an excellent job. As good as anyone really could given the resources he has been allotted by ownership. However, it is fairly obvious that he has lost a certain esteem within the GM circles.
Okay, so let me explain this a bit. The baseball winter meetings just concluded. This is the main event of the offseason for all GM's to gather together and strut around with cell phones stuck in their ears while acting important, which they basically are when talking about franchises and players worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Rockies were in a few deals, some we aren't privy to and some that leaked out. For instance, O'Dowd talked with Atlanta about acquiring catcher Johnny Estrada. Catching was one area that the Rox felt they needed to shore up while down in Dallas. John Schuerholz wanted O'Dowd to send him Matt Holliday and Brian Fuentes, which ended the conversation quite abruptly. A few hours later, Atlanta then sent Estrada over to Arizona for two, run-of-the-mill bullpen pitchers.
Ok, so what can we read into this deal? At first glance, you could say to yourself that Atlanta messed up by not being more realistic with their demands from the Rockies because equal value to what Arizona gave up would have been something like trading David Cortes and Scott Dohmann or Chin Tsao from the Rox. However, the deal speaks louder than that if you think about it for a little bit longer and combine it with other deals that have and have not gone down for O'Dowd.
So lets go back in time in order to analyze this better and find out why a uneven deal like that was explored. Last summer, O'Dowd decided he just had to get rid of Shawn Chacon and Joe Kennedy, both 27 year old starters just coming into their own at the big league level. He fulfilled his desires by giving Chacon to the Yankees for two AA fringe prospect pitchers and also satisfied another fix by handing Kennedy over to his buddy in Oakland, Billy Beane, along with Jay Witasick, a serviceable reliever, for a AAA infielder (Omar Quintanilla) and a 5th outfielder (Eric Byrnes). Byrnes was eventually traded away to Baltimore for Larry Bigbie because O'Dowd thought he had another deal worked out for a catching prospect from Boston.
Those two horrible deals O'Dowd made for Kennedy and Chacon are still reverberating through the halls of Coors all the way down to the winter meetings in Dallas. Now no GM is going to deal with O'Dowd without first requesting outrageous demands. These initial demands probably hasten a quick ending to any transaction because O'Dowd can't possibly respond when the conversation begins at such a preposterous starting point. For instance, the request by O'Dowd for a second string catcher like Estrada followed by Atlanta demanding a cleanup hitter and a closer, followed a nano second later by the slamming of the phone down by ODowd, followed soon after by the news that Estrada went to Arizona for two marginal relief pitchers.
Another deal that didn't happen recently has you sensing a similar ring. Florida was trying to get rid of Paul LoDuca and asked straight up for Marcos Carvajal and Chris Iannetta. Yet, Florida turns around and settles for a single A pitcher and outfielder from the Mets straight up for Lo Duca. Again, the conversation started so uneven between O'Dowd and Larry Beinfest that it probably ended fairly quickly.
At the meetings, O'Dowd finally made a couple deals. The first being the acquisition of Ray King from St. Louis for Larry Bigbie and Aaron Miles. On the surface, this looks like a fair deal for both sides. The Cards get an outfielder they desperately need because of the retirement of Larry Walker and the decision not to re-sign Reggie Sanders, and the Rockies get a valuable lefty for their pen. However, remember how O'Dowd acquired Bigbie and Miles? That's right, Miles was obtained by trading off Juan Uribe to the White Sox (another horrible trade) and Bigbie was acquired indirectly by trading Kennedy to the A's. In other words, Ray King, a 32 yearold lefty reliever is now a Rockie through the trades of Joe Kennedy, a 27 yearold starter with no history of arm problems other than the typical sore shoulder once in awhile, and Juan Uribe, a 26 yearold starting shortstop for the World Series Champions Chicago White Sox.
The second deal Dan O'Dowd made at the meetings? Oh my fellow RoxHeads, are you sure you want to read it? That's right, another horrible deal that might turn out to be the WORST one yet. The Rox traded two players for Seattle's Yorvit Torrealba. The first Rockie player was a 20 yearold, hard throwing Marcos Carvajal. Caravajal was ticketed for the minors this year to be groomed for a starting spot in a couple years. Anyone who watched this kid pitch and has any kind of baseball eye at all knows that he will have a chance to become a top of the rotation pitcher once he develops a better off speed pitch. The second was a 22 yearold, hard throwing left-handed AAA pitcher, Luis E. Gonzalez, who was a Rule 5 pick just drafted recently from the Dodgers. In other words, the Rox traded two very young, hard throwing pitchers for a 27 yearold catcher that is now on his third team.
If one has come to accept the fact that in order for the Rockies to compete they have to rebuild from the farm system, then why are we seeing the GM trading off young players? And when you look at the situation from afar and try to read between the lines written all over the Internet and in the local Daily's and see how the other GM's are communicating with O'Dowd through potential player movements, then you come to understand that Dan O'Dowd has a tremendous uphill battle in front of him. Not only is he handicapped by the owners, who are not able to fiscally compete in a system without a salary cap and revenue sharing, but he is also being squeezed at every turn into throwing his best cards away for lesser ones.
Kennedy.. Trade him or keep him?
Rox Head has been reporting for a while now that Joe Kennedy has been the worst Rockie starter this year so far. His uninspired efforts have drove most fans nuts and the Rockie front office to cover their eyes while looking to dump him. He currently has a 3-6 record with a horrible 7.22 ERA. Out of his 12 starts so far, only three have qualified as quality. This means he only gives his team a 1 in 4 chance of winning every time he toes the rubber.
With all this going against him, I'll report to you now that it would be a mistake to trade him. Let's look at things a bit deeper. Kennedy is only 26 and a durable left hander with no history of arm problems. He has the ability to pitch over 200 innings every year he goes out there. He is a big man at 6'4" 245 lbs, the perfect size one looks for to pitch season after season at altitude where the park tears up pitchers through the summer months. When things are going well for him he has the capability to pitch complete games (7 in his career). Let's not forget that just last year Kennedy posted a 9-7 record with an eye popping 3.66 ERA, the best starting ERA in Rockie history. He has not suffered any type of arm injury since then and continues to plead with management to just be patient with him and he'll come around with more work.
O'Dowd surely hasn't forgotten this yet Kennedy's name keeps coming up here and there in trade speculations. Well, duh ... other teams know the reason's I listed above, too and if they see that O'Dowd is really so dumb as to replace Kennedy with Byung-hyun Kim, then they are going to try their level best to snag him. Why would the Rockies bother with Kim? He won't be a Rockie next year even if he goes 10-0 the rest of the season because they will have to offer him at least $5 million through arbitration. That's not going to happen. Aaron Cook is still damaged goods with an unknown future. With that in mind, why would you even think about dumping Kennedy?
Oakland is obviously trying to steal him for a hard throwing AAA reliever who can't find the strike zone. Bean seems reluctant to throw in Eric Byrnes, who would make this trade at least some what understandable, however, the Rox don't need any more outfielders. The Dodgers and the Rangers are on the phone also because they all know that big durable lefties are hard to come by. If the Rangers sent us Alfonso Soriano and paid his salary for the next ten years, then I might change my mind.
So, what to do with big Joe? For right now, he should be demoted to long reliever in Kim's place. This is normal procedure when a starter is struggling. Leave Kim in the rotation for now if only to get some return in value for that big contract and to buy time for Kennedy, Cook and Shawn Chacon. Let Kennedy work on things and wait his turn to get back in the rotation. He's pitched in relief before with Tampa Bay so it's not a completely foreign thing for him. If, at the end of the season, you are still convinced he can't pitch here in Denver, which is a real possibility, then look to trade him at that point. His value won't have dropped any. You can still get the same fringe prospects as you can now. But if you lose him, then you can't ever get him back and is that a wise thing?
It certainly isn't in my opinion.
