Following Inman and Garrison -- Latest: Garrison a big league New York Yankee!

[bobskube]

This is an old favorite. Melvin not as big of an idiot as everyone thought at the time on this deal (except me.) I can still remember the uproar...

[And That]

Well, I'd still take those three over the 27 innings we got out of Linebrink. San Diego got the better end of the deal due to Thatcher alone. If they get anything out of Inman or Garrison, it's a bonus for them.

[homer]

Still a dumb trade.

[dadofandrew]

Nothing wrong with Doug going for it, especially at the minimal cost. Anybody who's ever seen Inman pitch knew his ceiling was limited. Garrison was/is a middling prospect, and Thatcher a loogy. I wanted Linebrink signed to be the closer instead of Cordero. You don't want to give up guys like Yo. Those 3 were exactly the type you jettison to chase a playoff spot.

[bobskube]

Still a dumb trade.

Why? Wasn't Linebrink a Type A? I know we blew the picks but not a bad deal. Linebrink also had a decent season with Sox the next year.

 

I just don't understand why people are still bitter about this for a LOOGY and two overrated soft tossers. I am on the Kenny Williams line of thought. Keep your blue chip prospects but sell high on overperforming middling guys to make you better when you are in the race. Most prospects are "suspects" after all. For every Sandberg for DeJesus, there are 10 Bones for Sheff deals.

[Mass Haas]

I just don't understand why people are still bitter about this for a LOOGY and two overrated soft tossers.

Other than a recent message about Thatcher in the Alumni thread, I hadn't noticed any bitterness spouted about this trade that would warrant bumping a 19-month-old thread basically to say "I told you so".

 

 

[homer]

I don't understand why you feel the need to pat yourself on the back about something that happened two years ago.

 

But per the trade....The Brewers needed a lot more than a middle reliever at the time. Not to mention a middle reliever that was more than likely only going to be here for two months. I'm not as upset about what was given up as what was returned. I hate relying on sandwich picks to determine if a trade is good or not since more often than not they don't pan out. At the very least, Melvin should have hung onto those guys and used them in a different trade to net something of real value. Maybe in an of themselves they couldn't have gotten more, but they certainly could have been used in combination with other players to net something decent.

[HiAndTight]

I don't understand why you feel the need to pat yourself on the back about something that happened two years ago.

 

But per the trade....The Brewers needed a lot more than a middle reliever at the time. Not to mention a middle reliever that was more than likely only going to be here for two months. I'm not as upset about what was given up as what was returned. I hate relying on sandwich picks to determine if a trade is good or not since more often than not they don't pan out. At the very least, Melvin should have hung onto those guys and used them in a different trade to net something of real value. Maybe in an of themselves they couldn't have gotten more, but they certainly could have been used in combination with other players to net something decent.

Didn't the previous poster Mass JUST say essentially the same thing? I've noticed there's a lot of "piling" on here. If one person makes jumps on a guy, then others have the green light to do the same.

 

Anyway, I don't see why it was a bad trade at all.

 

Linebrink shoring up a big weakness as the Brewers were trying to go for it, and at the time it did-not look like we needed "a lot more" than a Middle Reliever about 1'-2 games out at the time IIRC about 100 games in and in first in the WC race, plus a 2 top 45 draft picks for a Loogy, and two guys who've had next to no impact on the Pads roster despite being in the ideal place for soft tossers to have success AND despite the fact that the Padres have completely over-hauled their rotation in the past year or two.

 

The fact of the matter is these guys have very limited value and again, since they've done next to nothing in the meantime save for Thatcher, a loogy, I don't think we'd have gotten a whole lot more for Linebrink.

 

I remember wanting to see Inman moved at the time(along with a lot of others) as he was an ideal "sell high" candidate. And as it turns out, that was the height of his value.

[Mass Haas]

Didn't the previous poster Mass JUST say essentially the same thing? I've noticed there's a lot of "piling" on here. If one person makes jumps on a guy, then others have the green light to do the same.

The two posts were four minutes apart. homer would not have even seen my post, no piling on involved.

[homer]

Yeah, I didn't intend to pile on. I was typing mine while Mass was posting his. Never saw Mass's post until just now.

[HiAndTight]

Yeah, I didn't intend to pile on. I was typing mine while Mass was posting his. Never saw Mass's post until just now.

Well, if that's the case, then my apologies.

[bobskube]

Yeah, I didn't intend to pile on. I was typing mine while Mass was posting his. Never saw Mass's post until just now.

Well, if that's the case, then my apologies.

No offense taken here. I just think we tend to overreact to some of these kids that are overachievers. I mean no disrespect but for these kids you have to reflect 2-3 years later to see the "true" results of deal.

And, yes, I was right on this one but have been wrong before many times. (I demanded Corey Hart be let go for a bag of balls earlier this season.)

[HiAndTight]

  I just think we tend to overreact to some of these kids that are overachievers.  I mean no disrespect but for these kids you have to reflect 2-3 years later to see the "true" results of deal. 

And, yes, I was right on this one but have been wrong before many times.  (I demanded Corey Hart be let go for a bag of balls earlier this season.)

Yeah, I actually like the bumping of these old threads to kinda get an idea of what the feelings were at the time and how the trade looks now.

 

As for being wrong, I remember saying at the time of this trades, "we just won the division".  I thought this was a great move, not because I thought Linebrink was going to be the pitcher he was the year prior, but because I thought he was still a very good SU man, and that was by far our biggest problem that year, and yet we were still about 10 games over .500 and 1' games back at the time I believe?  

 

But even looking back on it, I agree, those guys were relatively mundane prospects.  The proof is in the way the Padres have handled them.  They went to a 40 million dollar payroll last year and were terrible and yet only Thatcher really made an impact on last years team.  Thatcher's been fantastic, but at the time he was the 3rd biggest prospect in the trade.

 

Garrison's looking at an 8.00+ ERA in AAA this year, 6.50 overall, and a 5.56 ERA last year.  So he's nothing special.

And Inman's putting up a solid season, and would be nice to have, but....meh.

 

 

I certainly don't see it as a "terrible trade''.  Linebrink+Supp 1st+2nd round pick and a chance to go to the playoffs?  I'd make that trade every day.

[homer]

I really think you're overvaluing how many extra wins a setup guy can give you over the course of three months. To me, that was not the definition of a "going for it" type of move.

[HiAndTight]

I really think you're overvaluing how many extra wins a setup guy can give you over the course of three months. To me, that was not the definition of a "going for it" type of move.

Yeah, if you want to speak in general terms, then I would agree with you about a SU guy.

 

However looking at THAT team where we were prior to making that move, that was a guy who I thought could potentially come in and help you win several games down the stretch.

 

We were desperate to try to get from the Starter to the closer that year, and enter the best SU man in the game from the year before? I absolutely think it was a "go for it" type move as that was without a doubt our biggest weakness at the time.

 

So obviously it didn't work out, and generally speaking a SU man isn't going to make a huge difference, but at the time where that team was, I think it was absolutely a "go for it" type move.

[Oldcity]

It should be noted that Dykstra has had a very good season and may now be the best prospect of anyone involved in this trade.

[LouisEly]

I really think you're overvaluing how many extra wins a setup guy can give you over the course of three months. To me, that was not the definition of a "going for it" type of move.

I look at it the opposite way - not how many extra wins he will give you, but how many wins would it have cost the team to keep going with the current players they had. Setup men don't win games so much as they keep you from losing them. Turnbow, Spurling, Dessens, Wise, Aquino, Capellan, Villanueva, and Balfour (before he learned how to throw strikes) were their other options. And Balfour was 29 at the time, so despite hindsight being 20/20 I don't think many people would have advocated keeping a 29-year-old who couldn't throw strikes at the time, especially in a playoff chase.

[gregmag]

Steveo makes a very good point about Dykstra. I hated the trade at the time, and I still hate it if we don't take Dykstra into account. Basically, Thatcher for Linebrink was a wash at best, and I think it was worse than a wash. That seemed apparent at the time, and hindsight doesn't change my view of it. Then to add Inman and Garrison . . . I certainly agree those guys were tradeable, and I was way too high on Inman at the time. But healthy young pitchers with strong performance records are useful commodities, and I think trading those two commodities for the perceived value of Linebrink minus Thatcher was a serious waste of commodities. The Brewers needed a lot at the time, and Inman looked like our best trading chip. I can't see the percentage in getting essentially nothing for him.

 

However -- if we view the trade from the Brewers' standpoint as a do-over on a couple of draft picks, then you can make a good argument that Dykstra pulls the trade out of the fire. At that point you're talking about assessing Inman and Garrison as, essentially, blown high-round picks, and throwing them back for what's behind door #2. Now, I'm not sure what those guys could have done in their minor league careers to have looked any better than they did at the time. The issues with them weren't about performance so much as ceiling, which makes me question why the Brewers picked them to begin with. But whatever process caused the team to end up with a couple of pitchers that weren't likely to help at the MLB level, taking a do-over at that moment looks like a smart move.

 

So I like the trade now better than I did then, but only because it turns out to have helped to ameliorate an earlier mistake -- not a big win for DM in the aggregate (and I'm no DM basher). The experience has taught me to take more seriously the weaknesses of high-performance, low-upside prospects.

[HiAndTight]

I really think you're overvaluing how many extra wins a setup guy can give you over the course of three months. To me, that was not the definition of a "going for it" type of move.

I look at it the opposite way - not how many extra wins he will give you, but how many wins would it have cost the team to keep going with the current players they had. Setup men don't win games so much as they keep you from losing them. Turnbow, Spurling, Dessens, Wise, Aquino, Capellan, Villanueva, and Balfour (before he learned how to throw strikes) were their other options. And Balfour was 29 at the time, so despite hindsight being 20/20 I don't think many people would have advocated keeping a 29-year-old who couldn't throw strikes at the time, especially in a playoff chase.

I agree 100 pct. There's a difference between assigning value on a player using WAR, and actually trying to quantify how many wins getting or not getting a pitcher can cost you.

 

Nobody's going to argue that Linebrink was going to put up a 4.0 WAR the last 3 months of the season, but the way the team was going, and how important adding a viable SU man was at the time, it was easy to envision that it could have had a significant impact on 3-4, even 5 games.

You have to remember back to just how terrible that group was at getting to Cordero back then.

 

As for Balfour, had we run him out there....even once more, I think the fans would have stormed Miller Park in absolute disgust. And you can't gauge the validity of it strictly by going by the response on this board. Most fans aren't as concerned with how well a guy has performed in the minors when they look as bad as Balfour did for us and in such pivotal situations.

[HiAndTight]

It should be noted that Dykstra has had a very good season and may now be the best prospect of anyone involved in this trade.

Good point, even in arguing for the trade I'm still of the mind that we blew those two picks, but you're absolutely right, Dykstra's definitely looking more and more like he may be a legitimate big league prospect. He's actually had a remarkable turnaround and when you look at the situation he was in, I suppose it's not that unexpected that a 18 year old kid would be as effected as he was by his fathers troubles in his first full season in the minor leagues, but I certainly wasn't confident last year at this time.

[sveumrules]

So here we are, 2010. Neither Inman nor Garrison has ever gotten a single day of major league per diem. Thatcher is a LOOGY. Fire Melvin?

[Invader3K]

Garrison was just DFAed yesterday.

[homer]

I really think you're overvaluing how many extra wins a setup guy can give you over the course of three months. To me, that was not the definition of a "going for it" type of move.

I look at it the opposite way - not how many extra wins he will give you, but how many wins would it have cost the team to keep going with the current players they had.

Isn't this the same as giving you wins? But taking your side of the equation, how many wins do you really think it would have cost the team to keep going with the players they had?

[Mass Haas]

Congratulations to LHP Steve Garrison, called up to the New York Yankees. May not be long, and it's a call-up based on convenience, not the linked stats, as Garrison is on the Yankees' 40-man, but congratulations nonetheless!

 

Ironically, it was another former Brewer, Sergio Mitre, who went on the DL, necessitating the move.

 

FYI -- Will Inman's numbers at AAA Tuscon, still in the Padres' system, tough place to pitch.