ross ohlendorf
phil coke
jose tabata
george kontos

according to espn.com

DK will be flabbergasted. No soup for him!

First, the Pirates got too many pitchers and not enough hitters. Second, the pitching they got isn’t that good. It looks to me like a waste of trade assets, a waste because the Yankees got the two best players.

I’ve been a regular reader of this blog for a long time now, but have never really been motivated to post comments, until now. Looking at everyone’s reaction in the game thread has been ridiculous. First of all, everyone’s expectations were WAY too high for both Nady and Marte. Marte, who is very good, is only one of many left-handed relievers out on the trade market (including Sherrill, Fuentes, and Mahay), meaning the Pirates were not going to receive any mind-blowing offers for him, with so much comparable talent. Nady has been fantastic this year, there is no doubt, but he was playing above his head:

‘08 Avg: .330 ‘08 OBP: .383 ‘08 SLG: .535
Career: .281 Career: .337 Career: .456

It’s also worth mentioning that he is frequently injured (130 games in ‘06 are his career-high), and that his defense is shaky, at best. Yes, he has a good arm, but he misplays balls in right regularly, and if the Yankees really use him as their everyday left-fielder, with Yankee stadium’s cavernous left-field, his defensive shortcomings will come to a national light. All of which is to say that he is a good but not great player (so expectations on what he brings the pirates in a trade should be appropriately tempered), who the pirates have done well to sell while his value is at its highest.

Given all that, I think NH and co. did pretty well in this trade. Tabata is a legitimate, elite prospect who has the potential to far exceed anything Nady could hope to do at the big league level. Kontos is another legit prospect, which is exactly what this pitching-starved organization needs. And the other two players, Ohlendorf and Coke, should not be dismissed so quickly. Like Charlie said, they both have the potential to step in and contribute quickly, both have good K rates, and both should be an improvement on the pitching we have been subjected to over the past few months. It seems like people were expecting Jackson, Hughes and Kennedy for Nady/Marte if it was a Yankees deal. And that’s just ridiculous, and was never going to happen.

Except that I still think Coke is organizational filler.

One more thing…right now it seems like Yankee fans are REALLY excited about this deal and Pirates fans are REALLY underwhelmed/frustrated. It’ll be interesting to see how that changes over the next few months (if at all). I just have a bad feeling about Nady going over to the Yanks. He’s a very streaky hitter who has been hot for awhile now, and we all know what he looks like when he’s in a funk. And like I mentioned in the above post, I could easily see his defense in left getting roundly booed in Yankee stadium….Marte will probably be excellent, but you never know. And if Ohlendorf comes up and pitches decently, Kontos continues his good year, and Tabata returns from the DL and flashes his potential to Pittsburgh writers/fans…we all might have a very different perspective soon enough. We shall see.

There is a spot open now on the 40 man. Ohlendorf is the only guy on the 40 man coming over here. That would mean that we would need an outfielder to come to Pittsburgh. Could McCutchen be getting on a plane tomorrow?

who I am going to root for this post season. I hate the Yankees but I’d really really like to see X and Marte do well.

has been passed as far as I am concerned. Nady is being traded at his peak value, which is far above his regular career value. Marte’s career isn’t spiking as dramatically, but his value is still high. I think they perhaps could have gotten more for Marte. That said, without studying the trade yet or being particularly familiar with the Yankees system, our return includes 2 prospects that I have heard good things about.

Past management was unwilling to take risks (read drafting a No. 3 ceiling SP number 1 overall). Tabata has huge upside as I understand it. Olendorff was a top prospect with Arizona not too long ago and pitchers sometimes take a while to come of age. Kontos seems to have upside. This seems like a nice move, but I’ll reserve final judgment.

By the way, I’m a regular reader but infrequent poster. I last posted before the season to chime in with minority that was in favor of not giving away Nady just to promote Pearce. For the record, although the theory proved correct in this instance, I never imagined that Nady would turn in this kind of year at this point.

Good day.

but he’s had 4 double digit strikeout games at Trenton, and has only had one really bad start since April.

The Bucs got exactly what they were expecting, although I wish they could have improved more.

This is from Pending Pinstripes. Note the dates.

Doug says:

January 17th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I have followed Coke throughout. The thing you failed to mention is that A. the more innings he throws in a game the better he gets. and B. as he has aged his pitching is getting better and better. I’ll bet he shows up to spring training looking better and throwing better than ever. Dont let his laid back persona fool you he is worth watching

Doug says:
July 11th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Gee, I guess I was right!! I just know ya’ll have been watching this kid. His Era is down to 2.96, with 88 K’s and its only 1/2 way through the season. Oh by the way Any one check out his breaking ball he showed up with this year??? WOW

since May 1st…

89.1 IP, 67 H, 21 R, 15 ER, 29 BB, 90 K, 5 HR. 1.51 ERA, 1.075 WHIP. .204 BAA and a 9-3 record.

For an immediate jolt like X and Marte, to a team who needs that to make a push, you’d think we’d get more than Hope. You’d wish we would, anyway. Maybe that’s all that’s out there to get - at the deadline, it seems to be. Look at it for a minute not from the perspective of what Nady and Marte mean to the Pirates, i.e., “we won 75 with them, we can win 75 without them.” Look at what it means to the Yankees. “yeah, we’d love to have two high caliber major leaguers - actually, we really NEED two high-caliber major leaguers. Tell you what; we’ll give you four guys that we don’t really need, and aren’t really sure will make the majors.” Really? Um, no, you must not want these guys that badly, then. “No, we do. But we’re not giving you guys we know will be major leaguers.” Um, well, shit, guess you don’t want two high-caliber instant-help major leaguers then.

I’m not going to trash the deal just yet, because yeah, if Kontos and Tabata live up to the hype, we’ll have them for a few years, and I’d rather have 5 years of them living up to the hype than another 1.5 years of X and Marte being great on a team that’s going nowhere. It’s just that Kontos and/or Tabata living up to the hype is far from a sure thing, and Coke and Ohlendorf don’t appear to have much hype to live up to. It seems to me that if you really want both Nady and Marte, you can come up with more than that.

I wholehearted agree with jcassara that this is a good first deal for the C & H boys.

1) The Pirates’ greatest need is pitching. They are getting three pitchers that all have decent upsides and have pitched either in the majors, AAA or AA. Ohlendorff has always been highly thought of, but he has yet to reach his potential. The other two pitchers I need to research.

2) Jose Tabata looks very poised for a then-17 year old on the YouTube clip and he was batting against Philip Hughes in the USA-World game. He handles himself at the plate like a young man who has all the tools. I just wish that he was a left-hand hitter or switchhitter.

3) The most we would have ever gotten for Marte alone would have been two near first-round picks in 2009 since he would have been gone after the season anyway. I would much rather have some well-regarded prospects with professional baseball experience than two high school or college lead bat supposed ‘phenoms’

4) I prefer to have no part of Hu from the Dodgers. He is at best a utility infielder. But I would be happy to give them Wilson, Bay and LaRoche for Hu, Kemp and Loney!

I like the deal on its face value. Let’s see what happens,

sign Alvarez with the freed-up cash.

before your kids are in graduate school.

I like the trade because we are selling high two veteran players, Marte is 33 and X-Man is 30. X-Man had a good year last year and a fantastic one this year and is definitely at his prime now. Both of these players will most likely start their downside of their career in the next year or two, so if the Pirates are trying to build a long term winner, these two would not have been part of that process. Therefore, I think this is a great start to getting the pieces to the long term puzzle, but it can not be done in one year, solely because the Bucs have no strong minor league system. Even if Bay brings 2 or 3 prospects and Grabow 1 or 2, there are still many many holes to be filled. Patience Patience. The Pirates now have at least 1 more prospect than they had before today – it is a start.

I`m not particularly impressed, but not as ticked off as a number of people here seem to be, either. I tend to think a little more of Ohlendorf`s future than some others do, and I like what I`ve read about Kontos` stuff. Have a Coke and a smile. We`ll see….

I don`t buy so much into all this Tabata hype. He`s probably not as young as they say, he`s hurt, he`s had discipline problems according to some other sites, and I dread the thought that we could be getting a few years of Jose Guillen II. I hope I`m wrong about him. I really do.

Barring further big trades, I sure hope we collect a lot more talent for our farm system with the signings of Alvarez, Scheppers, and some other later-round gambles.

In the end, though, we won`t be able to conclusively judge the trade and the draft for at least a few years. I think this simple fact is something that eludes many commenters.

By the way, where are the Trade NOW! faction members? I would`ve expected some expert commentary on the trade pieces we have received by now. They are the ones who dogged Huntington for months about his near-criminal inaction on the trade front.

Please stop trolling!

Xavier Nady ain’t that good and other general managers knew it.

Despite the Pirates’ demands - and the rumors floating out there - it’s likely they never planned on trading “can’t miss” talent for a 30-year-old corner outfielder with a .793 career OPS.

While NH could’ve held out for more (perhaps a younger pitching prospect in place of Coke), he did well to deal Nady at his peak value. Had he shipped Nady to New York last winter, what might the return have been … Ohlendorf straight up?

woobie. Some real good points.

A lot of question marks for the Yanks. X-Man has not played in the American League and Marte not since 2005 for the White Sox. What if X-Man goes cold and what if they both choke in the playoffs. Can Marte find the new strike zone in the AL quickly. IMO, Bay would have been a much better bet for the Yanks and it probably would have only taken another high prospect to get him and Marte.

Well, probably not very excited, per se, but I think most people would have at least given it a thumbs up for a LOOGY and journeyman OF.

1. It’s not like the Yankees called out of the blue and caught us by suprise with an offer and said its now or never. Huntington talked to several other teams and if there were a better offer out there he would have taken it.

2. This is a classic case of buying low and selling high. If this trade had been done in spring training every “expert” would have said that they could not believe that the Yankees would trade Tabata for this trash. Even if this is the real Xavier Nady we still did fine.

3. Keep in mind that Tabata is only 19. If he had been in the draft this year he would have easily been a top ten pick. Its like getting that #1 prospect without having to pay the steep signing bonus.

It will be years until we will be able to accurately judge who won and lost on this deal but on the surface i like it very much. I have no problem with selling off a few pieces of a team that is nowhere close to contention.

I think the negative reaction stems from the fact that a lot of people think this team IS somewhere close to contention.

Hey, I’m a Cardinals fan (well, A’s and ChiSox too) but what about your outfield dynamo—his improvement seems to have come incrementally-so this year seems like it’s not a fluke. So tell me-did anyone see this coming? Everything I’ve read projected him to be a 4th outfielder-a good one, but a fourth outfielder. A late bloomer-or just a fellow that needed someone to stick him in the line up and just keep him there? It’s probably a good thing that Littlefield is gone-wouldn’t he have kept him in the minors in favor of Morgan?

Thanks for any insight. I think he’s a terrific player-pretty solid in all areas of the game.

I thought Huntington was supposed to be different than Littlefield. This is just the same actions with a different name. The Yankees are laughing all the way to the bank on this one. Now we can be sure that the Pirates will have no respect of any other GM. Every team that the Pirates deal with will know that Neil Huntington will ask for a lot, but will have no problem taking other team’s wastes and cast offs for top proven players. This is nothing but a huge dissapointment and an embarassment! All you need to do is look at the Yankees news posts. THEY ARE LAUGHING!!!! Way to go Neil Little…I mean Huntington. What’s next? Are you going to trade Bay for a couple of kindergardeners? I hear the Yankees may be interested. Though I’m sure you’ll settle for preschoolers!

I’ll say it: anybody who thinks this trade was even remotely Littlefield-esque is just an idiot.

First, Littlefield would never have traded Nady in the first place. DL was probably already planning the ceremony for retiring Nady’s number.

Second, Littlefield would not have settled for high-impact talent like Tabata and possibly Kontos. Littlefield would have got Ensberg, Molina, and Billy Traber in return.

http://blogs.nypost.com/sports/st/archives/2008/07/mccutchen_karst.html

Instead of Kontos and Coke

I just looked up McCutchen … nice addition. Can’t say the same for Karstens, though,

Per Yankees writer Peter Abraham:

Once the teams decided on Tabata and Ohlendorf, the Pirates had a list of players to choose from. Coke and Kontos were on that list.

I don’t know enough about Coke to have an opinion on him. But I have watched McCutchen enough to know I think he had a chance to be pretty good. But it’s still a deal they have to make, both for this season and next.

http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2008/07/26/breaking-news-trade-reconfigued/

I’m not sure why NH opted Karstens instead of Kontos, but despite his age Yankee people seem to like McCutchen.

during the physical exam reviews?

Do you feel Karstens has a chance to do much for us? I`ve never been particularly impressed with him-seems more like another guy destined for long relief.

What kind of stuff does McCutchen have?

keeps getting weirder and weirder.

the more I like the re-worked deal.

I`m not crazy about Ohlendorf, Karstens and McCutchen individually, but taken together something seems better than the inclusion of Kontos and Coke.

At the least, we have some “live” arms to work with this year and beyond-which is something we desperately needed.

I must admit, the deal does look a little better. Perhaps a reprieve for NH…for now.

I know the Bucs starting pitching is terrible and I suppose this change in Yankee players will help the Bucs now. The only problem with that is, is this management team trying to make the major league team better or put the pieces together in the minors for a run in 3-5 years. A 23 year old pitcher would most likely have been a part of that 3-5 year span, but 26 year old pitchers, probably not. I realize jobs are always on the line to win now, but the minor league is the key and prospects, other teams have good ones that we need, so why not focus on one or the other. This season and next mean nothing, unless your job depends on winning now. We can not have our cake and eat it too.

Any one know if LaRoche is the real deal. Having a dismal year to date, but is only 25 years old. Maybe it would help brother get going in the Spring….

From truebluela blog:

“Casey Blake gives the Dodgers quite possibly the worst defensive infield in baseball, and that doesn’t seem wise when your four best pitchers are all ground ball pitchers.”

Blake seems to be having a Xavier Nady year at age 34. Colleti would make a deal for Jack, I am sure now. I think Jack and Grabow for Laroche and a couple prospects. LaRoche can be bought at a low price and then sell at a high price later, if he gets back to what he did in the minors. What do you think?

that Wilson is staying unless another team offers up something overwhelming for him.

“LaRoche and a couple prospects” for Wilson and Grabow ain`t it.

Wilson`s contract with the option exercised would keep him in Pittsburgh through 2010 at what is a very affordable price by MLB standards.