Astros thread

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:23 pm

I defended Gendell last week to some of you guys. But here we are, with another highly questionable trade:

Astros get:
Dillon 11-Howard
Christian 11-Lopes

Yankees get:
Ivan Nova

It's still at TRC. Lopes was picked by JB in the bonus rounds, so Gendell could easily have picked him. So he's trading a 25 year old pitcher who was 2.7 WAR for the #30 overall pick. I'm about out of patience with him here.

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:51 pm

Yeah, that is the part that really annoys me here. He's also taking two for one (as usual, a pretty obvious sign of a bad trader in this form of league), so it wasn't a roster size issue. He was just too lazy to bother picking Lopes, apparently.

Again, I hate to be a jerk about a GM, but we should have let him go last year. I'm not ready to boot him this moment because of this trade, because of the timing, but unless something changes I absolutely don't trust Dan to be in the league after the ASB when he gets another batch of extremely high draft picks to trade.

Astros · Post by **Astros** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:44 am

Boot him, Nate wants in, we can do a minidraft. Tell the TRC to hold off on voting for this. It was obvious after 2 days that he wasn't cut out for this league. He's a nice guy but he needs to go

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 8:04 am

No minidrafts!

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 1:05 am

Yeah, no minidrafts. Pat is already in the league and making trades. If Nate gets back in, he gets a roster as is and just has to deal with it. Unfortunate? yes, but I'm really tired of minidrafts.

Anyway, Shawn, Ken, Jim? What do you guys think? If you guys think nothing of it and want to keep him around, then that's fine, just chime in. But I agree with Brett, I don't think he can be trusted with high draft picks again. What really irks me as I said before is that he could have selected Lopes if he wanted to... didn't have to give up Nova to do that.

Dodgers · Post by **Dodgers** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 8:42 am

I'm a little confused how the Nova trade passed given the lower valuation of low level prospects? Obviously it's a terrible trade and I agree on not being able to trust him with more high draft picks, but a lame duck GM is a rough proposition, especially if we allow him to continue to make terrible trades.

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 10:57 am

Dodgers wrote:I'm a little confused how the Nova trade passed given the lower valuation of low level prospects? Obviously it's a terrible trade and I agree on not being able to trust him with more high draft picks, but a lame duck GM is a rough proposition, especially if we allow him to continue to make terrible trades.

Perhaps JB had the voodoo working again ... like Shawn, I am very surprised that trade was allowed and I expect few if any trades will be not approved by the current TRC if that is the standard.

Astros · Post by **Astros** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 11:48 am

He put Goldschmidt on the block, if we're going to move we need to move now before he gives away his only other good player. It's time guys, we've gave this guy the benefit of the doubt numerous times. Why? He don't know what he's doing

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 2:20 pm

I know I say this a lot, but I'm convinced of it. Blaming the TRC for allowing bad GMs to make bad trades is completely missing the point. Our job is to sort out rules issues, enforce them, etc., but more important than any of that is do our best to have 30 competent, engaged GMs. If we do a good job of finding 30 GMs, a reasonable TRC can do its job. If we don't, no three humans can fairly assess trades.

I understand Jim's perspective that he's seen Dan do well in a different league. My stance had been that, since Aaron, JP and I were not a majority back when I felt that it was the right time to make a move last year, it would be best to see if he settles down early this year. He already hasn't done that, and it sounds like he's looking to continue exactly the same process he's been following - trade any valuable asset that pops up, including, no almost featuring young players who should be his core for higher quantities of lower level, similar or lower ceiling players (that last part is the biggest problem).

I'm disappointed that Jim's and Shawn's responses basically blame anyone but Dan for Dan's continued mistakes, and I really think it's time. As I said, I understand Jim's perspective. Shawn, Ken, do you think that Dan needs to stay in the league?

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 2:34 pm

Dodgers wrote:I'm a little confused how the Nova trade passed given the lower valuation of low level prospects? Obviously it's a terrible trade and I agree on not being able to trust him with more high draft picks, but a lame duck GM is a rough proposition, especially if we allow him to continue to make terrible trades.

I also wanted to comment on this concept specifically because I've always been troubled by it. Jim and I have talked about this before, as have JP and I because we've each had very good trades vetoed because this was applied to our deals incorrectly.

This rule is a perfect symptom of Bren's flawed approach - to try to rule-create our way to having good trading. It's all backwards. It further clutters the TRC's job, and it misses the point, which is that if we have good GMs, we won't have to pigeon-hole them into making decent deals. Half of this exco is the previous TRC and collectively we passed numerous trades of Dan's that we probably shouldn't have, but the fact was the he was and is motivated to make moves that weren't in his (or the league's) best interest, and you just can't guideline someone into knowing what they're doing.

The TRC shouldn't have rules like this. It should be staffed with three guys who have an acute understanding of value partially based on this league's roster sizes, etc., and it should make objective, intelligent decisions. The exco should make the TRC's job possible by not having GMs in the league who either force consistent vetoes or trap the TRC into inconsistent rulings because they flood it with similar, bad trades to evaluate.

Sorry, rant over on that, but imo one of the best things this group has done post-Bren is NOT throw a new rule at every situation that arises.

Reds · Post by **Reds** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 2:37 pm

I think it's time to cut our losses and let him go. However I also believe that the main purpose of the TRC is to prevent bad deals, and in the case of a GM with a history like Dan's scrutinize them more closely than others.

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 2:41 pm

Reds wrote:However I also believe that the main purpose of the TRC is to prevent bad deals, and in the case of a GM with a history like Dan's scrutinize them more closely than others.

In light of my previous post, I just wanted to say that I agree with this. I think a clear distinction can be made that someone is struggling, so extra scrutiny should be applied to his trades. This is completely different from trying to create rigid, artificial rules about what is or isn't a good trade, and it obviously must be accompanied by the exco doing its job.

Dodgers · Post by **Dodgers** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 2:51 pm

Rangers wrote:
Reds wrote:However I also believe that the main purpose of the TRC is to prevent bad deals, and in the case of a GM with a history like Dan's scrutinize them more closely than others.
In light of my previous post, I just wanted to say that I agree with this. I think a clear distinction can be made that someone is struggling, so extra scrutiny should be applied to his trades. This is completely different from trying to create rigid, artificial rules about what is or isn't a good trade.

Sorry, I failed to get my point across with comment. My frustration was more that Dan was allowed to make that trade, than that the trade itself was passed. I guess I'm having a hard time seeing the value in having the TRC at all if we're saying that trades by bad GMs will be passed and we'll kick them out afterwards rather than vetoing the trades and kicking them out on that basis?

It's time to move on from Dan, he doesn't know what he's doing and he's repeatedly proved it now. Obviously our decision not to boot him previously hurt the team that Nate (or whoever) will take over, but hindsight's 20/20.

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 3:14 pm

It is agreed across the board that Dan is not cutting in the IBC ... I truly believed based on what he has accomplished in another league that he would and I am disappointed that he isn't here - but I do not disagree with the fact that he isn't.

In regard to the TRC discussion above, I concur with most of what has been written and strongly personally believe that the TRC should consider each and every trade on it's face and not within some autocratic arcane rule. Had I still been on the TRC I would have not voted to approve this rule ... I more then likely would have made sure that there was communications between the TRC members on any potentially "borderline" trade involving a GM with a questionable trade history (and perhaps they had one in this case).

On a non-related personal note, after today I will likely be absent a bit more in the next few days or maybe even for a week and I do want it to be perceived as any dissatisfaction with this EXCO decision and implementation. Patti's mother suffered a severe stroke last night and while we have managed to get Patti to her bedside in near-recod time I am a solo Dad who may be driving cross country with the 4 girls soon.

I was always a supporter of Nate's often making calls to him during drafts and welcome him back ... I expect Dan and I may exchange a few e-mails in the other league but trust I will be supportive of the EXCO decision ...