Why My Friends and Family Blockbuster Has Worked Out So Far (Knock on Wood)

• By: Chris Liss
• On: 6/29/2009 10:19:00 PM

Related: Chris Liss 


• View Comments : 1

On June 3, despite being comfortably in first place in the Yahoo Friends and Family League, I made the following blockbuster trade: I dealt Carl Crawford, Jayson Werth, Jorge Posada and Gil Meche to Mike Salfino for Hanley Ramirez, Geovany Soto, Roy Oswalt and Carlos Quentin.

I wanted to make a trade because after losing Rickie Weeks, I was weak at middle infield, and I had such a massive surplus of steals (more than 30 over second place), that I needed to find a taker for Crawford. Believe it or not, it was hard to find one, but Mike, to his credit, accepted my initial offer within five minutes of my making it.

My initial reaction was to panic: "What have I done to my first-place team?" You don't make a blockbuster when you're team's in first! But I needed to move Crawford for close to full value as soon as possible, and I wanted to upgrade my pitching and batting average. Moreover, I didn't care at all about Werth's or Crawford's steals.

About a week and a half later, when Meche struck out 11 in a dominant performance, his second good start in a row, Oswalt got knocked around a bit and I learned that Quentin instead of coming back the following week, was likely to be out until the All-Star break, I had my doubts. I also temporarily slipped out of first place, with Scott Pianowski, surpassing me. But since, Meche has imploded, allowing nine runs in one three-inning start, Soto, Ramirez and Oswalt have heated up and I'm back in first, though not by a huge margin.

Here are the totals for the relevant players since the trade:

Hitters Acquired	R	HR	RBI	SB	AB	H	AVG
Ramirez	14	4	27	3	91	30	0.330
Soto	8	6	12	1	67	17	0.254
Total	22	10	39	4	158	47	0.297

Hitters Dealt	R	HR	RBI	SB	AB	H	AVG
Crawford	12	5	12	7	91	30	0.330
Werth	16	7	16	0	86	27	0.314
Posada	7	2	7	0	58	11	0.190
Totals	35	14	35	7	235	68	0.289

Pitcher Acquired	IP	H+BB	ER	K	W	ERA	WHIP
Oswalt	36	44	14	28	2	3.5	1.222

Pitcher Dealt	IP	H+BB	ER	K	W	ERA	WHIP
Meche	30.1	42	14	23	2	4.19	1.395

Here's why so far, I'm happy with the trade. If you net out the hitting totals, I'm -13 runs, -4 HR, +4 RBI (one of the categories I needed most) -3 steals and +8 points in average (though in 77 less at-bats).

From the hitting side, it looks like Salfino won the deal, but he did not. Remember, he was using four roster slots to my three. Which means my totals are missing whatever players I used to fill in the extra spot. In roughly 22 games, I'd guess I got at least 8-10 runs and 6-8 RBI from that last slot plus a HR or two and a SB or two. When you add that in, he's got a very small advantage in runs and HR, a decent loss in RBI, a negligible gain in steals which doesn't matter at all to me and close to a wash in average, though if anything, I probably have the edge. (It's impossible to say because I used a variety of players in that extra slot).

As for pitching, Oswalt has clearly been the better pitcher. Moreover, because I don't trust Meche, and I had previously been spot starting him, it's not 100 percent clear I would have started him on the road (against the Indians) for his 11 K start. But it's 90 percent the case that I would have started him after that when he had a complete game shutout against the Diamondbacks and 100 percent the case I would have ridden the hot hand when he got destroyed at home against the Cards - allowed nine earned runs in 3.1 IP. So whatever Meche's numbers are, I would likely have had worse. Oswalt, on the other hand, I've kept active for every start.

Bottom line, so far I'm happy I made the deal (knock on wood), and hopefully Quentin will come back healthy in a couple weeks. Still, there's a lot of season left, and a month from now, I could very well be cursing myself for even writing this blog post.