Let's call the Marlins!

by pbpsean on Oct 7, 2008 1:08 PM CDT Comment 28 comments

Bill Shaikin of the LA Times says the Angels have considered acquiring Dan Uggla as a way to compensate if Teixeira leaves. Uggla would probably play third base.

HELLO! There could be our answer for third base in 2009. The Rangers and Marlins could come together and make a blockbuster deal that helps BOTH teams get stronger!

The Palm Beach Post says that Uggla ($417k in 08) and 1B Mike Jacobs ($395k in 08) could be among those dealt this offseason along with LHP Scott Olson ($405k in 08). The Post thinks that Uggla and Jacobs would make a combined $6 million in arbitration next season and that Olson should make $6 million himself.

So for $12 million you could have a long-term 3B, a nice DH/1B and a left handed starter. Consider their average stats over the past three years:

Uggla, 28yo righty bat: 153gp, 105r, 155h, 37dbl, 4trip, 30hr, 90rbi, 64bb, 153k, 13 errors at 2B.

Jacobs, 28yo lefty bat: 130gp, 59r, 118h, 30dbl, 2trip, 23hr, 71rbi, 37bb, 108k, 8 errors at 1B.

Olson, 25yo LHP: 32starts, 186ip, 10w, 12l, 194h, 111r, 96er, 27hr, 76bb, 137k.

I believe you give Uggla and Jacobs to Rudy as a project to try and cut down the strikeouts and increase the walks. That is all they need to be above average hitters. And then you let Nolan and Hawkins work with Olson to cut down the hits, home runs and walks while increasing the strikeouts and you have a solid lefty for a long time.

If you could make a deal for these three with Florida (or even just Uggla and Olson), then get either Jackson or Sonnanstine from the Rays or Snell from the Pirates... you would be finished dealing this winter.

Then you would have an infield of Davis, Kinsler, Young and Uggla. An outfield of Hamilton, Byrd and Cruz with Boggs/Murphy as 4th outfielder, and Jacobs as 1b/DH.

I would send Laird, Murphy/Boggs, Arias and two pitching prospects to Florida for Uggla, Jacobs, Olson and a pitching prospect.

Do we want Uggla... Jacobs... Olson? And at what price? Could we sign Uggla long-term and trade Young and cash to the Dodgers for low level prospects?

One other question... if we are just looking for a stopgap at 3B until we move Young there, would you consider trading a prospect or two to Seattle for Beltre? Hate to trade with Seattle but it could be a nice 3B bridge to Young.

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First

there is no way the Marlins trade Uggla, Jacobs, and Olson for Laird, Murphy, Arias and two pitching prospects; unless one of their names is Feliz or Holland and the other is named Main, Kiker, or Beavan.

Second, I disagree with this statement

I believe you give Uggla and Jacobs to Rudy as a project to try and cut down the strikeouts and increase the walks.

When has Rudy ever taken a guy and cut down the strikeouts and increased the walks?

by JBImaknee on Oct 7, 2008 1:17 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

3B

I don’t know how many times it has to be said but Micheal Young is not going to be traded by the Rangers. They simply aren’t going to do it. They will have enough young (cheap) players over the next several years that Youngs contract is not going to hinder them. In fact his contract, alongside a bunch of young, cheap players will make our payroll look bigger and Hicks can float that number out when people bitch about his spending habits.

Also if the rangers plan is to move Young to 3B why would we go out and sign a long term option at that very position?

Im all for looking into Olsen. But we have no need or use for Uggla, as good as he is. And we damn sure don’t need another 1B/DH when by the end of next year those two spots will most likely be locked down by the Davis/Smoak duo for the next decade hopefully.

Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.

by bigsteve on Oct 7, 2008 1:20 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

You're assuming that Rangers management...

…is astute enough and ballsy enough to move MY to 3B. I’m not sold on that yet. I still can see scenarios where MY is at SS for 2-3 more years.

Also, the biggest reason that they are not going to trade Young is that his contract is unmoveable without eating a significant amount of it.

Physician: Primum non nocere

Batter: First, make no out

by Chad Crudup on Oct 7, 2008 1:41 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

murphy

you dont get rid of murphy get rid of cruz if anybody will take him he will never do anything at the big league level.

"Hey, I think it's easy for guys to hit .300 and stay in the big leagues. Hit .200 and try to stick around as long as I did; I think it's a much greater accomplishment. That's hard."-- Bob Uecker

by dmurphnextrusygreer on Oct 7, 2008 1:20 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I wouldnt even think of

trying to acquire Jackson or Sonnastine. Jackson’s not as god as his stats say and and Sonnastine would get destroyed in this ballpark. Snell? maybe. But a definite no on the two Tampa pitchers.

In reference to how good the Steelers have been in their history: "No one is even close to them."- Steal Home

by hinduplaya on Oct 7, 2008 1:33 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Brilliant:

"And then you let Nolan and Hawkins work with Olson to cut down the hits, home runs and walks while increasing the strikeouts and you have a solid lefty for a long time.
"

They should just do this with the pitchers they have.

by rothe on Oct 7, 2008 2:11 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Scott Olsen sin't good. At all.

He’s pretty terrible. Look at that horrible tRA. (tRA is the like the bigger, stronger, better-looking older brother of FIP.) If he pitched here with our defense he’d have an ERA north of 5.5, easy.

As for Edwina Jackson… Are you kidding me? He’s horrible. He makes Olsen look like the golden butt-child of Tim Lincecum and CC Sabathia. I wouldn’t sign him to a minor league deal, let alone trade anything for him.

Sonnastine is interesting, but I don’t see why the Rays would be looking to deal a nice young pitcher like him.

Snell is interesting as well. He was pretty bad this year, but his carer was a nice upward trajectory heading into ‘08. If the Pie Rats want to consider dealing him, I’d listen and hope he rebounds.

Uggla, though… Sign me up. The perfect RH cleanup guy to hit behind Josh. If he can play a decent 3b as some have posited, then he’d be a great target for us. Salty + a prospect for Uggla? Something like that might make me happy.

The 40 Trumps All!!!

by thedirkatron on Oct 7, 2008 2:12 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Why would we want a 3B

when we are stuck with the 3B of the future for the next 5 years?

"Oh well, McCain is pretty communist anyway,... we can be 70% communist with McCain,"-Sharky

by DJCahill on Oct 7, 2008 3:09 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yah

That’s the downside. I guess you could move Uggla or Franchise Face to LF when the time comes, but that zaps a lot of their value.

I basically can’t deal with the thought of what to do with Face long term. I have no idea. We’re so f’d in the a with him I can’t even process it. Right now I’m operating under the assumption he’s our long terms SS.

The 40 Trumps All!!!

by thedirkatron on Oct 7, 2008 3:50 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Dirk, hear me out on this,

How about a deal involving Uggla and one of Volstad, Anibal Sanchez, or Josh Johnson as your pitcher to choose from instead of Olsen.

What would you be willing to part with then? I’d probably give them their choice of catcher and one of Holland/Feliz to start. Of course more players would have to be involved depending on which pitcher Texas would want. None the less, I’d take any three of those pitchers now. I would hate to deal our pitching to get it though just because I want this team to develop a couple studs.

A good thing though is that we do get a better long term upgrade from Young at third. Elvis could potentially be a valuable trade chip for another deal. Or, Elvis could stay and Young could be dumped or moved to second, and Ian becomes a hot trade name.

So many options to go with here.

The bloggerformelyknownasBigBaddBubbaJ

by NYTXFAN on Oct 7, 2008 7:45 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Absolutely not.

Volstad, Johnson and Sanchez are each much better than Olsen, but one of them + Uggla isn’t nearly enough to put Feliz/Holland on the table, imo. Those guys are all nice, but none of them has true ace potential, imo. You’d have to talk Nolasco + Uggla to get me interested in a Salty + Feliz/Holland type deal, and even then I’d probably have a hard time pulling the trigger. (And I can’t imagine FLA would do that deal anyways.)

Remember how protective the Yanks/Sawx were/are of Hughes, Joba and Buchholz? Feliz and Holland are at that level. Real honest to gosh premium blue chip ace quality pitching prospects must be treated like absolute gold. The only way I trade one of them is if someone presents with an offer that makes us so immediately good that I’d be stupid not to accept it. Barring that… No.

We finally have real genuine ace pitching prospects succeeding above A-ball. Let’s not deal them now for a slight upgrade in the rotation for ’09.

We have bigger fish to fry.

Like, say, our atrocious defense.

The 40 Trumps All!!!

by thedirkatron on Oct 8, 2008 4:58 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

You know

The Marlins have an asswipe-bad defense as well. Having Hanley and Uggla playing the mid-infield behind you is probably about as bad as it gets for pitchers these days. While I agree Scott Olsen is overrated, I don’t think changing defenses from the Marlins to the Rangers would really impact his numbers that much.

A Lonestar in California

"M’s fans are such weenies." - Zywica

by lonestarJon on Oct 7, 2008 8:30 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hanley was actually pretty damn good this year

one of the biggest one year defensive turnarounds I’ve seen. He always had the tools, he just made too many errors. It’s almost enough to give you hope for Kinsler.

Uggla is a stone out there at 2b, and Willingham plays the COF like you’d expect an ex-catcher to play the COF, but their stadium highly favors pitchers (especially when comped to the BPIA) and rest of their D is supposedly pretty good.

The 40 Trumps All!!!

by thedirkatron on Oct 8, 2008 3:14 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

we dont really need another DH/1b

in fact, we dont really need more hitters,maybe uggla but not uggla AND another 1b/Dh

but i do agree with you about jackson and olsen, both could get a lot better and really really stabilize this rotation until or through 2010

"Tommy Hunter will be the best pitcher on the Rangers in 2009" Me- August 14th, 2008

To: Luis Mendoza "Please die in a fire." LSJ; PLEASE

by Seth. on Oct 7, 2008 3:05 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Jackson and Olsen are not good pitchers at all

and they’d get eaten alive here.

I guess maybe there’s some hope with Olsen, but Edwina had one of the luckiest most defense-aided seasons in recent memory this year. He’s gonna come falling down like a rock next season. If he spent next year here I’d predict a 6+ ERA, and that’s me being all generous and shit cause I’m such a nice guy on the inside.

The 40 Trumps All!!!

by thedirkatron on Oct 7, 2008 3:30 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Edwin

may be lucky this year,but off of this years performance he can gain some confidence to go with a mid 90s fastball and average off-speed stuff. Olsen had an average 2008 season but he is a pretty hard throwing lefty who is only 24, his kind of pitchers usually do well in our park

"Tommy Hunter will be the best pitcher on the Rangers in 2009" Me- August 14th, 2008

To: Luis Mendoza "Please die in a fire." LSJ; PLEASE

by Seth. on Oct 7, 2008 4:20 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Edwin has never been good

and I have trouble belieiving he’s going to get some sort of confidence boost from his lucky season that’s going to propel him to stardom. He is what he is. A guy with a big fastball who can’t control it and can’t throw his off speed stuff for strikes when he needs to. His peripherals (which are a much better predictor of future performance than ERA) all say he’s been a bad major leaguer his entire career, so there’s no reason in my mind to assume he’s going to suddenly figure it out.

There’s guys like him every season… Guys who way out perform their peripherals and who a bunch of people go ga-ga over. And you know what happens to most of them? Shit evens out and they go right back to sucking.

I could be wrong about him, of course.

But either way there’s far too much risk and not nearly enough reward for us to go and actually give up something of value to bring him here.

The 40 Trumps All!!!

by thedirkatron on Oct 8, 2008 5:05 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

dude, why do you keep

answering Steal Home?

by FirebatM3 on Oct 7, 2008 6:54 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't answer him when he acts like a petulant baby

But if he’s asking real baseball questions and expressing actual opinions I have no problem offering him answers and opinions back.

Isolating and ignoring someone as punishment to try to get them to give up usually doesn’t work.

The 40 Trumps All!!!

by thedirkatron on Oct 8, 2008 5:10 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Not with that defeatist attitude it doesn't

"Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states" - Barack Obama

by DaheelzCM on Oct 8, 2008 8:05 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

When did Beltre

become a stopgap? MY could not move Beltre off 3rd, he’s a gold glove defender that is 2.5 years younger than MY and has an OPS+ of 109, 112, and 105 the past 3 seasons. He ain’t moving off 3rd for Mike, you’re outta line with that comment.

Snell confuses me, he had one great season, one mediocre season, and a bunch of seasons where he walked every other batter that came to the plate. Lots of walks + shit defense = terrible year. And I’ve read there are some concerns with his makeup.

The rest of your post has already been (correctly) shredded.

If there were no rewards to reap,
no loving embrace to see me through this tedious path I've chosen here,
I certainly would've walked away by now... Be patient

by trident on Oct 7, 2008 4:22 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Regarding Snell

Will Carroll has intimated repeatedly in the past that Jim Colborn was a detriment to the Pirates’ young pitchers due to his mechanical “tweaking,” among other things.

Glad he’s in the organization, but also glad he’s in the Pacific Rim department.

Baseball Time in Arlington

by Joey Matschulat on Oct 7, 2008 8:23 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs