Cardinals Complete Trade For Matt Holliday
by Matt Buggenhagen on Jul 24, 2009 12:29 PM EDT
10 comments
According to Buster Olney of ESPN The Magazine the St. Louis Cardinals have completed a trade for A's slugger Matt Holliday
The Cardinals acquired Holliday in exchange for third base prospect Brett Wallace, outfielder Shane Peterson and right-hander Clayton Mortensen.
Wallace, the Cardinals 2008 first round draft pick currently plays for their Triple-A affiliate Memphis. The former Sun Devil is widely considered one of the top prospects in the Cardinal organization. John Sickels of Minor League Ball ranks him as the second best prospect in the Cardinals system. Furthermore, Sickels said Wallace has a "Monster bat and should be ready within a year."
Wallace has been performing very well at the Class-AAA level. He's currently batting .293 with six homers and 19 RBI's in only 32 games.
Mortensen, also a member of the Cardinals Triple-A affiliate Memphis, was the teams 2007 first round draft pick (36th overall). He's a big right-hander (6'4") who has had a pretty solid year in Class-AAA. Mortenson is 7-6 with a 4.32 ERA in 17 games started. Sickels grades Mortensen as a C+ and ranks him the Cardinals 17th best prospect. He also said the following about him "Gets grounders, could be an inning-eater, but strikes me as overrated by some other sources."
Unlike the other two Peterson isn't a member of Triple-A Memphis, rather he plays for the Cardinals Double-A affiliate Springfield. Peterson was selected by the Cardinals out of Cal State Long Beach in the second round (59th overall) of the 2008 Draft. Sickels also grades him as a C+ and has him rated the Cardinals 23rd overall best prospect. Sickels says he's a "High OBP college guy with gap power, but not many homers." Looking at the numbers it looks like John is fairly accurate. Peterson spent the first-half of his season playing for the Palm Beach County Cardinals (Single-A) where he hit .298 with six homers and 39 RBI's in 285 at-bats. He also posted a .367 OBP, and stole 10 bases in 11 attempts. Now in Double-A Peterson is batting .284 with one homer and seven RBI's in 74 at-bats.
As we've said here before Holliday is having a bit of a down year this season. He's only batting .287 with 11 homers and 54 RBI's. However, Holliday has been playing better as of late, he's hitting .344 this month with a .421 on-base percentage.
Holliday is a huge addition for the Cardinals who finally found someone to protect Albert Pujols in the lineup. With the addition of Holliday and Mark DeRosa the Cardinals are starting to round out a very formidable lineup.
In terms of money Holliday is in the midst of a one-year $13.5 million deal, and will be owed approximately $6 million for the remainder of the season, however, Olney notes that the A's will throw in about $1.5 million. He's due to be a free agent at seasons end, and likely will command a big payday.
The Cardinals are currently 52-46 and have a 1-½ lead over the Cubs and Astros in the NL Central. With the addition of Holliday the Cardinals not only catapulted to the favorite in the NL Central, but rather they might be the favorite to win the NL. We'll have to see if this move entices the Phillies or Dodgers to go out and make a splash as well. Maybe Roy Halladay?
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good trade for both teams
Nice trade and a win win. Cards get the big bat to help Albert.. Even with Holliday’s down year, he was the best available bat. His numbers may not match the ones he accumulated while playing at Coors, but they’ll more than likely exceed his numbers at Oakland. Oakland is not only one of the worst hitter’s parks, Holliday had been hitting better lately.
Beane gets some good prospects back. He gets 2 of Card’s #1 draft picks and a 2nd rounder (#13 overall 2008, #36 overall 2007, #59 overall 2008). Wallace is the big key as the other 2 grade out as mediocre players. But this would appear to be better than the 2 compensation picks he would’ve gotten had Holliday left as a FA, and there’s no risk that he’d get stuck paying Holliday $15M or so in the unlikely event Holliday opted for arbitration instead of free agency.
Jones/Boggs
I think that although the Cards get an upgrade on offense for 2 months, but they were fleeced.
Holliday has a value of about $10mm according to the Kalkman Calculator. Its actually just over 8, but seeing as how you figure it gets them to the playoffs and dealing with Billy Beane, $10m is a nice round number.
That value translates to a B level hitting prospect and a C level pitching prospect. Wallace alone is almost twice as valuable as Holliday. The Cards could have gotten fair value in this deal with Daryl Jones and Mitchell Boggs.
I agree
Way too much for two months of Holliday. The name obviously upped his price in spite of his production this year, but I wouldn’t have given up Wallace in a trade for him.
by Brendan Scolari on Jul 24, 2009 2:21 PM EDT up reply actions
I like the Cardinals making these moves...
the Cubs and Brewers have yet to be heard from…who knows what they’ll do…with the moves for DeRosa, Holliday and to a lesser extent, Lugo, now the other teams have to make moves to counteract what the Cardinals have done.
A number of Cardinal fans are bemoaning the loss of prospects in this deal…however, everybody can’t play in St. Louis or whatever ML team you are talking about…that is why you have a farm system…stockpiling prospects means nothing if you cannot move some of them, when needed, to help the major league team.
The Cardinals are in a winnable division…get to the playoffs and anything can happen, as they proved in ’06.
stand pat
I think the Cubs stay put and hope for a good 2nd half from Bradley and Soriano.
And the Brewers even with a Halladay type move still fall short. A Lee/Halladay/Bannister move only gets them to about 85 wins. The division winner is going to need 88 I think.
Holliday gives them 2 more wins probably, pushing them up to 87.
Brett Wallace could easily play in St. Louis, he would have been starting 3B at the beginning of next year on. He’s really their only big time prospect (outside of jess todd who could very well be the PTBNL in the DeRosa deal) and they only get .5 a season of Holliday and two draft picks. I’d take Wallace, especially when most already considered them the division favorites
by McCann's the Man on Jul 24, 2009 2:05 PM EDT up reply actions
I like the deal from an Oakland standpoint....3b or not, Wallace is a middle of the order threat....which OAK needs.
What you fail to understand in your joyless myopia is that baseball is the key to life-- the Rosetta Stone, if you will. If you just understood baseball better all your other questions your, your... the, uh... the aliens, the conspiracies they would all, in their way be answered by the baseball gods.
The Deal
The Cardinals were looking for immediate impact, which they get with Matt Holliday. The A’s are looking for future impact, which they get with Brett Wallace. In the long run the A’s probably will be the winners in this deal, but you can’t fault the Cardinals for making the deal. They’re right in the mix to compete for a World Series title and Holliday improves their chances right now. They’ll have plenty of time to find a way to replace Wallace down the road.
by Matt Buggenhagen on Jul 24, 2009 2:06 PM EDT up reply actions
Oh yeah, I'm not saying it was bad for the Cards
I completely agree that he will be a force in that lineup, and they have to be favorites to win that division now, but I was just saying as an Oak fan, I’m happy with the return.
What you fail to understand in your joyless myopia is that baseball is the key to life-- the Rosetta Stone, if you will. If you just understood baseball better all your other questions your, your... the, uh... the aliens, the conspiracies they would all, in their way be answered by the baseball gods.
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