Any body wanna comment on the deals that happened at the deadline? --Nomar to the Red Sox in 4 team deal with the red sox ending up with Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz and Dave Roberts --Benson and Zambrano to Mets --Dodgers messing with success --yankees getting rid of Contreas I personally i think the dodgers were the biggest losers of the deadline. and the marlins and cubs were the winners
the deals were actually discussed (complete with a great state of the Red Sox debate) right here: http://bbs.clutchcity.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81700
I'm with you, dude. I really don't understand what the Dodgers are doing. Can someone rationalize it for us?
Well, I'll give it a shot. DePodesta is one of these moneyball GMs and I guess (?) these guys dont believe in chemistry so much as pure stats. Penny adds a great arm to their rotation and makes their starting 5 decent again. Perez Penny Ishii Weaver Alvarez Not a bad rotation, but certainly not the same as the Cubs They get Finley, who is a big upgrade in CF for them and gives them a lot of depth (werth coming off the bench is huge for them, he is a good player) Hee Sop (sp?) Choi is a good prospect who can mash, I think people are underrating him. The ridiculous thing was they gave up Mota, baseballs best setup man. Duaner Sanches and Darren Dreifort are good, but not nearly as good as Mota. I think it was a pretty good trade for the Dodgers really, starting pitching wins world series, but somebody in that pen is going to have to step up.
I assume in the post season, with multiple days off, Gagne will be slated to go 2 innings in almost every game... thus eliminating the need for Mota. Of course, the key is getting to the post-season... setup men are very valuable in regular season play. I still think their overall goal was to package Choi and Penny with prospects to somehow get Randy Johnson... but that didn't work out too well.
I suppose I should have been more specific - I don't understand their trade with the Marlins. Penny's good, sure, but didn't they give up too much? You didn't mention LoDuca. Does anyone know offhand about LoDuca and Mota's contract status? Or about who'll now be LA's every day catcher? The Marlins deal from a position of relative strength and get shore up two areas that have been near disasters for them - catcher and bullpen. They have several people who can play first, although none will be as good as Choi. I just can't see how the Dodgers have made their team better on the whole.
The Dodgers made the deal with the assumption that they could get Charles Johnson to play catcher and Randy Johnson from 'Zona - when both deals fell apart, their previous deals looked silly.