Gammons: Teams Reluctant to Part With Prospects

by Matt Buggenhagen on Jul 25, 2009 8:11 PM EDT Comment 3 comments

Peter Gammons of ESPN.com delivers a good column today with a lot of good information. Lets get right into it. Here's a snapshot.

Gammons said it would take a "gaggle" of prospects to get Roy Halladay, Victor Martinez and even Zach Duke. Teams just don't seem to want to part with top prospects.
Many small-market teams think big-market teams "overvalue" prospects.
Tony LaRussa was able to convince Cardinals ownership to trade for Matt Holliday. Apparently LaRussa knew the Cardinals were getting hosed in the deal, but he believed the team had to try and win now.
The Yankees approached the Blue Jays about Roy Halladay, and they were told the package would be Phil Hughes, Jesus Montero and Austin Jackson. No chance they make that deal, especially after Hughes recent performance.
Red Sox GM Theo Epstein wont trade Clay Buchholz. Epstein views Buchholz as a front-end rotation guy, and given the age of his pitching staff, and the fact that he's got Buchholz locked up for about six years, there's no reason to move him.
Dodgers GM Ned Coletti feels the same way about left-hander Clayton Kershaw; no shot he's moving either.
If the Mariners elect to move Erik Bedard they'll never be able to recoup what they gave up for him.
Cincinnati wants to move a few contracts, possibly Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo.
Read this paragraph. Adolf Selig at it again.

The advantage that the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and Dodgers have is that they can restock their organizations, either by spending in the international market or going over slot to sign draft choices. If you are the Royals, not only are your revenues light, but the commissioner's office has threatened to take away your 2012 All-Star Game if you go ahead with the agreements you have in place with two high picks.

The Rays poor attendance is affecting their ability to make moves. Low revenues likely would prevent the Rays from making a deal to acquire Victor Martinez due to the fact that they wouldn't be able to take on his $7 million contract. However, the Rays could consider trading Scott Kazmir to free up space, but it appears most teams don't value Kazmir as much as they did two years ago.
Teams looking to sell relievers are finding the offer very light.

That's about all from Gammons for today. As always he provides us with a lot of information to take in.

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Comments

Glad the Yanks are holding onto the youngins

Hughes has been untouchable for years, and only now he’s untouchable in the actual games and showing why it’s a smart move to hang onto him.

Hallady would be nice, but the Yanks don’t win the WS this year or next, then its a waste and they may not be able to win after that either with no future players in the pipeline.

by FreeBradshaw on Jul 25, 2009 9:28 PM EDT reply actions

where is the link to Selig taking away the all-star game if the Royals go overslot?

my understanding was that Selig was not allowing over slot bonuses to be finalized until the deadline so that the players picked under them won’t want twice as much, which of course they would.

If this strategy worked in keeping down overall bonuses by 10%, this will be better for the small market teams in the long run. If they go up 10% every year, those 1 million bonuses will be 2.5-3 million bonuses in 10 years. The best thing about baseball compared to other sports is that the team gets basically the same high pick the next year if they do not sign, so its not the worst thing in the world for the team if someone does not sign.

I don’t think he should allow Strasburg to sign for more than twice as much as the last biggest bonus. We don’t want this turning out to be football where the worst teams want to trade out of the early first round because they can’t afford the give a guy who has never played a down, be the highest player on the team good or bad.

I think the biggest problem is that the whole draft process needs to bargained for better my MLB to even out the problems with small market/big market teams.

1) There should be some sort of International free agent draft, separate from the other draft. If Strasburg goes to Japan or a Cuban goes to Mexico first, and a team drafted him in the international draft, they team retains the rights to that player for at least 3 years at which time the player is now eligible to become drafted again. These picks in the International draft can be traded/sold, so at the very least the small market team can get prospects/$, rather than nothing, out of having top picks and drafting the best possible players.

2). In addition, the revenue sharing plan should include small amounts from the top 5 revenue teams, regardless of the total amount, to transfer to the bottom 10 revenue (not payroll) teams. I’m thinking 3% which would mean about 20 million going from the (Yankee’s +4) or 2 million apiece to help those 10 teams compete in the draft. You could even go sliding scale, so that the Yankee’s pitched in more and the worst 3 teams got more.

"Gratuitous gesticulating together sounds even better"

by OmahaHi on Jul 26, 2009 2:28 AM EDT reply actions