Comments on: Revisiting the Gerut Deal

By: bjm

bjm — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:59:48 +0000

What crappy analysis. Depo is smart enough to know not to judge a trade as player-to-player. Gerut’s ABs will mostly get shared among Hairston, Giles, and Headley, with Gwynn and Macias getting more looks. So that OF is no worse off today, and no worse off down the road.

And for this they save a few million bucks, bring some younger guys along, and take a shot at having Gwynn mature into a producer.

You really think other mlb teams were lining up Gerut for $1.8mm? You’re the reason people hate on Depo, while he quietly contributes to winners everywhere he goes…

By: Elias Laniado

Elias Laniado — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:04:20 +0000

too much stats analysis…Gerut is slow and injury prone, was hitting .206…what, his BABIP was too low? His average is projected to rise?…come on, your BABIB will suck if you never hit the sweet spot and keep getting jammed with every inside fastball. Also 4steals so far and 6 total last year, Padres needed a leadoff hitter and Gwynn is better than Gerut for that purpose, not to mention much better defensively.

By: wobatus

wobatus — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:16:04 +0000

In revisiting the deal, did you notice or did Podesta say anything about the kinda glaring increase in Gwynn’s BB rate in AAA this year? i know, small sample. But it kinda sticks out. he has more walks in AAA and majors this year then he had all last year in AAA in fewer at bats by far. Now 1-1.

Not that staheads would look at something like that.

ah, i am just bein’ snarky. don’t let the mouthbreathers get ya down.

By: Will

Will — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:13:24 +0000

One of the comments mentioned Kyle Blanks. Among Padres fans and close observers, does it sound like he’ll be getting a call up this season? Does this trade make that more likely? Hope so . . . I drafted him in the late rounds of a very deep NL-only strat-o-matic league.

By: Erin

Erin — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:18:36 +0000

I’m glad the Brewers got Gerut, but I’d like to do a little more dealing with SD, particularly a fairly expensive arm they’re shopping. The Padres are looking to deal, and the Brewers have solid young offensive talent, some of which is getting blocked because there is so much. The Brewers pitching staff, however, is lacking. Giving up Parra and Hardy in exchange for Peavy would make a lot of sense. Parra is the young, talented pitcher the Padres might be looking for, even if he does need to work through his control problems. Hardy is young and is one of the top SS in the league. The Padres would cut salary and get some good young players, and the Brewers would get Peavy and be able to call up Alcides Escobar, who is excellent defensively as well.

Are there any reasons the Padres and Brewers shouldn’t make a Peavy for Parra and Hardy trade?

By: Randy Hill

Randy Hill — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:41:00 +0000

“’ll defend the Padres here – if they really wanted Gwynn for nepotism purposes, they could have just claimed him on waivers at the beginning of the year.”

I think you are missing the major component to this deal. Jeffrey Moorad is now in control, and he loves making “fan friendly” moves like this. Even if they wanted to move Gerut, they didn’t get much for him, not even upside. You can’t expect a fringe MLB’r to break out at age 27.

Moorad clearly was panicked about the team and it’s payroll when the deal was made, not at the beginning of the season. This is the kind of smoke screen he thinks will please fans and fill seats while they figure out how to make the team not suck. It’s exactly like the Eric Byrnes deal, where after the GM publicly said he would not re-sign Eric, Moorad panicked and brought Eric into his office to work out a deal without the GM’s involvement. At the time Moorad was worried about losing fans and not making the playoffs, of course the team did make the playoffs and the EB signing crippled Arizona going forward.

Ironically, the Padres got on their win streak too late to stop this similarly bad deal.

DePo and Towers are no longer in charge. They’ll get to do what they want as long as the new uber-GM agrees. And occasionally the new uber-GM will tell them what to do, and this smells completely of that.

By: Ezra

Ezra — Fri, 29 May 2009 04:09:46 +0000

Thanks for sharing the link to DePodesta’s blog, Dave. I didn’t know any big league execs were that open with their internal analysis, I’m curious to follow his posts.

For fun, this is what Wikipedia says about Paul DePodesta and his time in Los Angeles.

“He was the ninth general manager in the club’s history since moving to Los Angeles and the most hated by Dodger fans.”

By: Kincaid

Kincaid — Fri, 29 May 2009 01:34:02 +0000

That’s still more than twice what they save this year by trading Gerut, and they can’t count on being able to trade him. The Peavy negotiations have shown how hard it can be to move a contract you don’t want.

Even if they can work out a trade with someone who wants him, there are still more obstacles. His salary jumps $2 million if he gets traded. San Diego might have to eat some of that. Giles has full no-trade rights as a 10 and 5 player. Finding a team to take on $5.5 million for a couple months of Giles could prove difficult and probably won’t return anything of value, and Giles could still veto the deal.

It’s not like there’s anything wrong with keeping a player like Giles, but every justification DePodesta gives for trading Gerut (except the small perk of the Gwynn name) would have made even more sense applied to Giles.

By: Johnnycomelately9

Johnnycomelately9 — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:59:41 +0000

Because his buy out was 3 million and if they trade him before the dead line they’ll only be on the bill for 5.5 millon.

That’s 2.5 million for him to play RF while Venable/Macias/Blanks develop, and for the prospects they’ll recieve in return, plus the flexibility.

If the keep winning and he starts hitting than they might even keep him and leave a guy like Blanks down until next year.

By: Kincaid

Kincaid — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:00:43 +0000

This just makes me more confused about one other thing: why did the Padres pick up Brian Giles’ option? It didn’t seem to fit with their cost-cutting mantra at the time, and the reasons for this trade almost all apply even moreso to Giles. He’s the oldest player on the team. He’s likely gone next year. Letting him go frees up a lot of OF at bats for the younger guys. Buying out the option for $3 million and replacing him with one of the younger players in the system saves a good $5 and a half million. If they’re dumping or trying to dump some of their best players to get cheaper and younger and more future-oriented, I would have thought he would have been on the list with Peavy and Gerut.