Jim Edmonds to SD, David Freese to STL

[gregmag]

Ray, I'm about to move to St. Louis, and all I keep hearing is that I'll never be able to get Cards tickets because the games sell out. Obviously it's a great baseball town. This leads me to think that management -- correctly or incorrectly, idealistically or cynically -- figures the fans will stay loyal through a couple of years of bottoming out. If that's the thought process, then dumping Edmonds to save those marginal dollars makes good sense, assuming the organization then turns around and uses that money to help build the next good Cardinals team.

 

Of course, if your point is that Edmonds should have brought a better prospect/s in return, you may have a different, legit beef. I don't really have a good sense for that, although in general teams now seem to be paying less for guys like him -- players with significant injury histories, in apparent decline, with one (expensive) year left on their contracts.

 

Greg.

[colbyjack]

It's an interesting deal because this is the type of trade the Cardinals would have pulled off a few years ago to acquire someone like Jim Edmonds, not to deal him away. If Freese was the best they could do, that's a little scary.

[endaround]

In the last two years Edmonds played in 117 and 110 games. Add to that a terrible 2007 with a 728 OPS and questions about his defense and you're not going to get a lot for him.

[dadofandrew]

Edmonds probably had negative value considering his salary, injury history, and numbers. The Cards were lucky they got anything.