Yes. Yes it was. Trading a lefty who has average a mid-3's era over the last 5 years for a bunch of non-impact prospects was a bad deal. None are even high upside guys. Keep in mind Luhnow probably chipped in $10m plus.
Yup. Worst part is he spent a lot of money just getting rid of those players. Hope that doesn't hinder possible international investments.
I would say that Joe Musgrove might have the highest upside. However, he's in Greeneville right now, and is realistically at least 3-4 years away.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/search/%2523pirates">#pirates</a> $ obligation is $1.7M in '12, $8.5M in '13, $7.5M in '14 (assuming wandy exercises option). stros pay about $12M</p>— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHeymanCBS/status/227950314475622400" data-datetime="2012-07-25T02:16:04+00:00">July 25, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
What a waste of money on our part and nothing to show for it. Maybe we should have just held on to him until winter jeeesh.
Not a big fan of this deal or the Myers deal given the amount of cash the Astros sent to the Pirates and White Sox. Lunhow seems to target guys with good minor league stats rather than high upside players with room to grow.
Astros fans these are your new Free agents! Jeff just buys them for millions of dollars from teams because he sure as hell doesn't trade for them. Glad Daddy Crane has the deep pockets to do it though.
Some of you are ridiculous. Blue chip prospects are almost impossible to extract these days in trades, and some of you were expecting them for the likes of Lee, Happ, Lyon, Wandy and Myers? None are better than mediocre at what they do, and several are overpaid and/or aging. We've spent the last year hearing report after report that Wandy was almost unmovable due to his contract. His K rate is massively declining, his league-average ERA is at its lowest point in six years... and I'm supposed to be upset that he fetched three top 20 prospects (including a top 10) from a loaded system? As with the Lee and Myers deals, my immediate reaction is to be incredibly thankful that we have an ownership group in place that's willing to pay money to get legitimate prospects in exchange for these guys.
Or maybe, just maybe, the fact that Myers and Rodriguez are 31 and 33 years old with mediocre ERAs in the terrible NL Central meant that these teams wouldn't trade "high upside" prospects for them? You can give all the cash in the world to compensate for their bloated contracts, but it doesn't make Myers and Wandy something they aren't. They're mediocre, stop-gap veterans to plug a short-term hole. Those aren't the types of players that typically fetch blue chippers, no matter what the salary situation is or isn't.
can't believe people are bashing this so much. "zero impact prospects"... so if any of the guys coming back in this deal (and in the other recent ones) make it to the majors and have good seasons, that's ridiculous and out of nowhere? Wandy has been tanking for the past month. There are a lot of arms on the market (Dempster...Liriano has been discussed as a lefty available.. Greinke...among others). And everyone knows Wandy has been available. And he's owed a lot of money. Picking up (basically) the final year of the deal was pretty much a necessity to move him at all (in my opinion) given all of the above. Yeah it'd be great to get a guy like Hansen. I don't think that was being realistic. It's just that someone reported it and it made it seem more feasible suddenly
People need to calm down a little. Its too hard to know what kind of player any given prospect may end up becoming. Nobody knows for sure if someones going to be an Altuve or Jason Hirsh. I'll admit the money part bothers me the most but lets not forget how terribly short on talent this farm system was. Luhnow had a good track record with the cardinals and I'm pretty sure he knows what hes doing.
lol, The Cat, I was writing my post...got distracted, and you beat me to it. Same general thoughts. And I can't believe people are upset about this. I think we'd have the same b****ing if Wandy and Myers WEREN't moved...and we'd hear that ownership should have swallowed some salary to move these guys and tried to at least get SOMEthing in return for our vets
Thank You! totally agree. Luhnow is getting rid of players who had no future with the Astros and aren't game changers (Wandy, Myers, Lyons) but servicable above average role players. We are getting 3 prospects in the top 20 of a strong farm system. Wandy had some bad starts lately, over-priced contract and people here want the PIrates #1 prospect..aint gonna happen!
