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I think this merits a separate discussion, because it's an interesting topic that should illustrate how far the thinking of GMs has come in seven years.

In the Gord Ash trade catalogue thread, dp said that he thought the Garcia/Merced/Plesac for prospects deal was "just bad luck" in the way it didn't turn out. I'm not picking on dp, who typically gives great insight, but I have to disagree with him here -- I don't think the Jays got very much, and they should have known it at the time. Let me explain why.


First, let's recap the trade from Leigh Sprague's terrific catalogue.

Toronto trades P Jose Silva, SS/2B Abraham Nunez and 1B/OF Craig Wilson to Pittsburgh for 2B Carlos Garcia, OF Orlando Merced and RP Dan Plesac. [We should remember that Toronto also sent minor leaguer Mike Haperin to Pittsburgh as a PTBNL, but that's pretty irrelevant.]

How to analyze the trade? I like trying to imagine the deal going down today, and finding equivalents to those Pittsburgh players to see what sort of deal this was.

Think of it this way. Garcia, going into his age-29 season, was pretty much equivalent to Marlon Anderson now (Anderson's OPS+ were 97, 90, 86 in the last three years... Garcia's prior to the trade were 75, 98, 89). Garcia had high batting averages, so everyone thought he was better than he was, but he wasn't very good defensively (how bad? Jim Leyland, who knows something about baseball, was using Jeff King as a part-time second baseman in '96, and Nelson Liriano in '95) and defensively was going into the tank early as second basemen do. Garcia and Anderson are very close comps in my mind.

Merced, a perfectly good defensive rightfielder, was coming off years of OPS+ of 96, 117, and 111. His best current comp is Matt Lawton, Jacque Jones or Bubba Trammell. I'll go with Jones, who is closer in age (28) to Merced (29) than Lawton (31)... despite Jones being a LF, he's a very good one defensively.

Plesac was a good consistent lefty reliever, a tiny bit above average (ERA+ of 91, 122, and 107). His best current comp is Mike Matthews, or maybe Felix Heredia, though both are much younger than Plesac was. Matthews is closest.

Garcia was scheduled to make $2.55 million dollars in '97, the equivalent of $4.25 million today (multiply the 1997 figures by 1.7, since the average team salary was $40 million and is about $68 million now). Garcia was in his walk year.

Merced was scheduled to make $2.7 million dollars in '97, the equivalent of $4.6 million today. Merced was also in his walk year.

Plesac was due to make $800,000 in '97, the equivalent of $1.4 million today. I don't know about the terms of his deal, but it may have been a 2-year deal, and I'll assume that.

So in 2004 terms the Jays got:

* Marlon Anderson in the last year of a contract paying him $4.25 million

* Jacque Jones in the last year of a contract paying him $4.6 million

* Mike Matthews in the first year of a two-year contract paying him $1.4 million a year

For that, they gave up Jose Silva, Craig Wilson, Abraham Nunez, and Mike Halperin... the first three of whom were considered very good prospects. I don't think that's a good deal. It's not a deal that a 74-88 team would make today. But that's not the end of the consideration.

At the time, the 74-88 Jays had just finished a season with 22-year-old Tomas Perez at second base and 23-year-old Shawn Green in right field. Both players had had some struggles in '96, but both were young and showed lots of potential. Even the year before at 22, Green had done more than what Merced had done in Pittsburgh.

The response from the 74-88 Jays was to pull Perez and Green from the lineup, sit them on the bench, and trade for these high-priced, middling veterans to take their place. A very different response from what the team would do nowadays. From what any team would do nowadays.
Anatomy of a Trade | 17 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
_MatO - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 10:33 AM EST (#80196) #
Absolutely right. While every trade needs to be evaluated in hindsight we often forget about the affect of the trade at the time it occured. What players are being blocked because of the trade? What are the financial ramifications? How does the trade move you in the direction of winning World Series? This trade failed miserably at the time it was made. The Steve Parris trade is another example of this even though neither pitcher given up in that deal amounted to much.

P.S. Jose Pett and Brandon Cromer were also included in the deal to Pittsburgh.
_R Billie - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 10:43 AM EST (#80197) #
True. It's not that Merced/Garcia were terrible players (though not nearly as good as was suggested) but the trade was really quite pointless at the time. Taking all that salary on for a year when they could have probably found comparable players for less cost. And why Green was so consistently blocked at the time by the likes of Merced and Jacob freaking Brumfield I'll never understand.

And it's not like they gave up nothing. Craig Wilson is a pretty decent hitter though it's taken him a long time to get a real chance in the bigs.
Mike Green - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 11:10 AM EST (#80198) #
I agree with you, Craig, but there is no way that Shawn Green would have progressed through the system as fast now as he did then. He had his struggles in the minors (.273/.319/.345 in single A at age 19 but promoted to double A; ..283/.339/.367 at double A at age 20 but promoted to triple A). I am quite sure that if his equivalent were in the system today, he would have been promoted more slowly, and he would not wear the major league uniform until after the All-Star break of his age 23 season, or at the very earliest until after the All-Star break of his age 22 season.

As it was, the Jays of the time got the worst of all possible worlds. During Green's high-value non-arb years, he was not getting the number of at-bats that he should have and he was not performing as well as he might have.
Craig B - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 11:15 AM EST (#80199) #
Sure, Mike, that's true. But Green had already played two full years in the majors; he had shown he could hit major league pitching just fine (though he had to develop, yes). There was nothing to be gained from sitting him down and paying millions of dollars to a replacement who would project to be about as good as Green was.
Mike Green - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 11:32 AM EST (#80200) #
I agree, Craig.

I'm not sure how much of this should be attributed to Gord Ash, and how much should be attributed to Cito, who got along poorly with Green. I'm guessing the conversation between them went something like this:

Cito: Green just can't hit lefties, Gord, I really need a platoon partner from him. At least to spell him off against the tough ones.

Gord: Well, I don't know. He's quite a young hitter.

Cito: He's so young. I need to bring him along slow.

Gord: I'll see what I can do...

This view of youth was not unique to the Ash/Cito administration. Jesse Barfield was held back in the platoon cage about a year longer than he should have been for similar reasons.

I guess it's the GM's job to know when to say no to the Manager. Somehow I don't think Ash would have been too good at that.
_Ryan - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 11:33 AM EST (#80201) #
Merced really didn't block Green. If he blocked anyone it was John Olerud, who was dealt to the Mets not long after the Pittsburgh trade. Green moved over to left field to accomodate Merced, with Joe Carter taking Olerud's spot at first base.

Green got roughly the same amount of playing time in 1997 as he did the previous year. He continued to get platooned with Robert Perez and Jacob Brumfield (which may or may not have been a good idea), but I don't see how Merced's presence on the team significantly affected the way Green was used. Only four players on the team had more at-bats than Green that year.
_Wildrose - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 11:47 AM EST (#80202) #
I think any discussion of Gord Ash and his trade record must include, given his limited on-field baseball experience, the input of his advisors.

As Craig points out this trade had the effect of blocking 2 young developing players. This trade(and the trade a few weeks later of John Olerud) has the hand writing of Cito Gaston all over it.

I think it very poor practice for any G.M. to take much advice on trade matters from his manager,given the short term goals most managers operate from. Gord's greatest failure as a G.M. was to surround himself with a poor quality of baseball advice. Dave Stewart,Jim Fergosi,Gaston all are culpable in this regard. Conversely I think it fair to say the minor league operations were run quite well.
_Paul D - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 02:03 PM EST (#80203) #
Assume you're the Blue Jays.
Gord Ash gets let go by the Brewers.
Do you offer him a position? Put him in charge of minor league development or something?
_S.K. - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 02:26 PM EST (#80204) #
Considering that all Ash has done since he left was badmouth the current Jays regime, I think all parties involved would have to be extremely drunk for such a thing to happen.
_R Billie - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 02:29 PM EST (#80205) #
Tim Wilken was probably the most prominent name involved in minor league development. Gord wasn't a scout or a baseball guy.
Mike D - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 03:15 PM EST (#80206) #
The most amazing thing about this site, as often noted by my fellow authors, is the combination of quality and civility in virtually every discussion thread. Mike Green, for instance, just sketched out an imagined conversation that was actually contextually plausible and helpful to our analysis of the issue.

It's a far cry from people posting under baseball pseudonyms to the effect of

Brian Sabean: Duuuhhh, what's on-base percentage?

Etc., etc. Da Box rules.
_Matthew E - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 04:04 PM EST (#80207) #
Assume you're the Blue Jays.
Gord Ash gets let go by the Brewers.
Do you offer him a position? Put him in charge of minor league development or something?


No. Why would I? I might hire him as a Tim McCleary-type, but the Jays already have one of those. And it's not like such a move will bring more fans to the park.
Dave Till - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 04:06 PM EST (#80208) #
One thing no one mentions when discussing this trade was the expansion draft after the 1997 season. The Jays would definitely have lost some of these guys in the draft, and they didn't have room to protect all of them.

Also, Ash wasn't really allowed to rebuild the way J.P. did. Interbrew was putting pressure on Ash to try to win now, so that they could sell the team (which they'd inherited from Labatts as part of the takeover of the brewery).

And, finally, it's not like the Jays lost the trade in the long run. Garcia was useless, and Merced was overvalued, but Plesac proved to be the best player in the deal (and they eventually got Tony Batista for him, which looked like a steal for a while).

Having said all that, I agree with the general consensus that it was not a good idea, and that nobody would make such a trade today.
_George Tsuji - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:30 PM EST (#80209) #
Trying to remember why I "defended" the deal at the time, I was reminded of the following:

At the end of the 1996 season, the Jays had a LOT of semi-decent young pitchers, and thus could afford to lose Pett and Silva (whom, along with Nunez were considered the main parts of the deal). They lost several pitchers who had recently been "highly-touted" on waivers (Scott Brow, Mike Gordon and Jeff Ware), and lost Mike Johnson in the Rule V draft to the league's best team -- Baltimore (who actually put him in their rotation for awhile).

Craig Wilson, the only prospect who really turned out, was a 20-year old without a position... pretty much a throw-in. (He was one of the PTBNLs in the deal, of which Nunez was the key). Portraying Wilson as a "key" part of the deal can only be done with hindsight. I'd suggest that, looking at the makeup of the Toronto roster at the time, the cost was minimal.

More to the point, though, is that no transaction can be properly evaluated in isolation. Remember, this deal was really about "showing" people that the club was serious about returning to contention in 1997. Without this trade (or other moves like it), the club probably wouldn't have been able to complete its most significant transaction of the off-season -- the Roger Clemens signing, of course.
_Geoff - Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:42 PM EST (#80210) #
All trades require a certain amount of luck...who would've guessed that acquiring a 30 year old left fielder with an OPS+ the year before of 85 and a 22 year old second baseman with an OPS+ the year before of 98 in exchange for a 26 year old 1st baseman with an OPS+ the year before of 157 and a 28 year old SS with an OPS+ the year before of 106 would turn out to be the biggest and perhaps best trade in Jays history?
_WillRain - Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 12:53 PM EST (#80211) #
First, a small note - we are forgeting the immortal Jose Pett in all of this.

First, let me be clear, AT THE TIME I thought it was an awful deal. One can argue it led directly to another aweful deal (giving away John Olerud) and either way it blocked young promising players (though I had no illusions about Tomas Perez).
Beyond that, I thought at the time (erroniously as it turns out) that Pett was going to be the real thing, that Silve would be quite good and that Nunez was a coming stud. I had no idea who Halprin or Craig Wilson were.
In return, we were getting Merced, whom I had never liked, Garcia (whom I had a higher opinion of than was justified but not high enough to justify trading three prospets I loved) and Plesac whom I had no real opinion of. I hated - absolutly HATED this trade on the day it was made.
There was no question in my mind that- and still isn't - that looking at it based on what was knowable at the time, it was a bad, bad, deal.

Now, however, looking back, I think it was a wash. Halprin and Pett never made it, Nunez turned out to be a fungible bench player who would have made no contribution of note to the Jays, and Silva was a medicore middle reliever of the sort which get passed around like cur puppies every off-season. That leaves only Wilson who turned out to be anything important.

We got a complete bum in Garcia, a middling guy in Merced who, in his one year, contributed as much to the Jays (or more) than Silva and Nunez ever gave the Pirates, and Dan Plesac.

So, in the final analysis, it's Plesac v. Wilson. Plesac got us two great years of work, plus Tony Batista, plus established a relationship with him such that we were able to bring him back for more great work later. Wilson has been an okay hitter but has contributed less to Pittsburgh in his three seasons than we got out of Batista in his first year and a half as a Jay, without even going into what Plesac did.

So, in retrospect, (and I'm not smart enough to factor in the G/O situation in any quantifiable way) if you don't factor in what acquiring Merced did to the whole Green/Olerud situation, it's a clear win, IMO.
Craig B - Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 08:52 PM EST (#80212) #
We got a complete bum in Garcia, a middling guy in Merced who, in his one year, contributed as much to the Jays (or more) than Silva and Nunez ever gave the Pirates, and Dan Plesac.

And paid $6 million dollars for them in 1997, the equivalent of $10 million today and money that could have been used to sign, oh I don't know, a real rightfielder, maybe Larry Walker? Walker signed for about $6 million around that time. Or maybe Craig Biggio for second base... Biggio signed for about $6 million then too. The Jays had just signed Roger Clemens, and got him at $8.5 million a season.

There were only about 25 players in baseball making that much money then. $6 million was a substantial amount of money, and the Jays - with eyes wide open, mind you - decided to spend it on two guys who it would be a stretch to call middle-class talents.

My only point about the deal was that it wouldn't be the kind of deal you'd do today. That anyone would do today. Eight years ago it was much more common for GMs to badly misunderstand the economics of their own business... it's not like that now.
Anatomy of a Trade | 17 comments | Create New Account
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