Jackson & Teahan to TOR; Frasor to CWS; Jackson flipped to STL for Rasmus

[Funketown]

I haven't read through the actual methodology, but JC Bradbury found this a few years ago:

 

"I looked at how pitchers performed with and without Duncan, controlling for factors such as age, parks, and pitcher quality. I found that Dave Duncan’s pitchers improved their ERAs by about 0.35 runs—yeah, he’s pretty darn good. "

 

I'm not sure what he did to account for defense though, and you've obviously got to take these things with a grain of salt if you haven't read the actual studies. I do think there might actually be something to this "Dave Duncan Effect".

[logan82]

I love that the Cards traded Rasmus out of the division. Fantastic.

[PKBadger]

Yes...everything is completely random...we're all just spinning through the world aimlessly...

Strawman.

 

Demonstrate the correlation between Duncan and pitching performance. You know, addressing the argument, and using evidence.

 

Well, maybe if you'd said the magic word...

[Ennder]

Chris Carpenter, Jeff Suppan, Braden Looper, Joel Pineiro, Kyle Lohse... Meanwhile I'm hard pressed to think of any Cardinal pitcher who performed poorer as a Cardinal than as a member of different team.

 

Pineiro is the perfect example, he had one of the worst seasons of his career and one of the best for the Cardinals. Lohse is the same way with a wild mix of good and bad. Suppan improved about as much as you would expect going from a hitters park in the AL to a pitchers park in the NL and then went to another terrible defensive team in a hitters park after leaving. Dave Duncan is a good pitching coach but he hasn't magically fixed every pitcher he sees like people tend to suggest. Jackson is the type of guy who is all over the place by nature so he is certainly the type that could suddenly find success for a year though.

[Kelbysdaddy]

what the hell is kenny williams thinking. hopefully ozzie doesnt kill him before he gets a new coaching job. even if he is getting ready for a fire sale, he should have gotten rasmus for jackson. he's making melvin look like a genius(well, melvin before last off season)

[gregmag]

My logic is that I don't declare a trade of potential as automatically stupid because I don't assume potential is always achieved.

The problem with your logic is that you are simply assuming that a younger player has only "potential" while an older player carries some kind of guarantee. We can't know how Rasmus is going to do tomorrow and next year; we also can't know how Jackson and Dotel are going to do tomorrow and next year. All we have is predictive evidence, and one big piece of predictive evidence -- along with stats, tools, and indications of attitude (which are harder than the others to pin down) -- is age. As a group, players under age 27 tend to improve, and players over age 27 tend to decline. Rasmus is in his age 24 season; to have performed as he has at the MLB level by age 24 is unusual, even with the caveats about consistency that you note (and he has been above average even this year). Jackson is in his age 27 season (and has alternated very good seasons with average ones for four years); Dotel is in his age 37 season.

 

I'm certainly not going to call the trade stupid, especially because it helps the Cards in the short term. But over the long term, looking at all the predictive evidence, I see this as a huge risk for the Cards and a great investment for the Jays. In other words, I think the Cards mortgaged a decent piece of their future, and I'm sure they know it.

 

[MJLiverock]

You aren't saying anything I don't agree with. I just don't think the declaration that many have made that the Cardinals are making a he mistake or that Rasmus is a future superstar is set in stone. The Cardinals risk that he achieves his potential and they may have given up too early, and I got a post back insinuating there is no risk to Rasmus achieving the upside. I am pointing out that this deal only seems lopsided or dumb if one assumes Rasmus fulfills his potential which is not a given with his attitude and results this year which are as significant as his good year last year.

 

I think potential gets counted as a sure thing too often when analyzing trades of young players or the max upside of their ability is assumed as destined.

[DHonks]

I really am nervous about the pitching upgrades to the Cards. This was a huge short-term move for them, although Rasmus was a huge player to part with.

[gregmag]

I guess one positive thing you can say from the Brewers' standpoint is this: for Brett Lawrie's future, which involves more team control but less certainty, we got two years of Shaun Marcum. For Colby Rasmus' future, the Cardinals got two-plus months of Edwin Jackson and Octavio Dotel. It makes me glad DM got down to business in the offseason.

[endaround]

I think people are underestimating what losing Rasmus means for this year. Jay already had 293 PAs in 102 games (yeah he's their leader in game appearances). He's been the #1 fill in everywhere in the OF and pinch hitting and so someone has to fill his spot. Craig is still out which means more Descalso? Punto?

[MJLiverock]

Saw this article pop up on Fangraphs

http://www.fangraphs.com/...nals-did-not-get-jobbed/

It made me think of my Cardinal fan friends talk of needing LH guy in the pen making Rzepczynski more of the target than Dotel.

Reading some of the comments in the article also brought up the Cards getting 2 picks if Jackson and Dotel are both Type B and walk.