Why would you trade a losing season for 5 more? (my question to Ed Wade)

Miguel Tejada  - high profile shortstop  - a leader - will add a degree of credibility to the team. His threat at the plate makes the batters in front  of him better since pitchers know Tejada will not be an easy out.  If the team can coalesce around him as the Oakland team did a few years back, the trade is worth it two-fold.

Downside - Tomorrow is Mitchell Report day - It could feature Miguel Tejada as its cover boy (or it may not mention him at all).  That could be a publicity nightmare especially for the Astros who pride themselves as an organization on having players above reproach. We hear he's lost a step. We'll see. If all fails, he can play third.  I think he'll probably play shortstop all year.

In return, the Orioles will receive outfielder Luke Scott, right-hander Matt Albers and three prospects -- pitchers Troy Patton and Dennis Sarfate and third baseman Michael Costanzo.

Costanzo is a long shot anyway - so be it.

Luke Scott - Almost everyone outside the Astros inner circle wanted him to play right field regularly. Unless Bourn is a Burke-like disaster in center and at the plate, he was not going to play as much as he needed. No doubt he'll benefit Baltimore more than he would the Astros. But you have to look at what the Astros lost in production ( not potential production). The bad part of the Luke Scott part is not the trade but the Astros failure and unwillingness to utilize him properly.

Matt Albers - Astros have several pitchers in his career position so he was reasonable trade material

Troy Patton  - ditto - except Troy Patton had that Hunter Pence-Brandon Backe-JR Towles-Astros-forever aura. Something tells me he would have had a more successful career at Houston than he will at Baltimore. This is a bad move for him.

Albers and Patton both in the trade seems too heavy. Astros should have kept one. Astros should have realized the price of Tejada is not just players but 23 Million dollars. They are paying a lot for two years in players and cash.  Tejada better be a good teammate and leader.

Sarfate - an instant favorite of mine - but three months ago I did not know he even existed. Okay to trade.

So really the only real bummer is Troy Patton (or Matt Albers) -- losing Patton tips the scale into the negative category.

It wasn't as bad a trade as the Brad Lidge trade.  

The trade leaves the Astros with very little trade material left (Burke, Everett, Loretta, Blum (how many second basemen do you need,Mr. GM?) - maybe one more pitcher).

 The FoxSports article I read said Astros probably will not tender Everett a contract. I think they should. Still need a back-up at short just in case.

Behind Roy, they don't have any "proven" SPs.  Woody at 40, 41 is out.  Wandy has shown flashes and is probably going to be the #2 guy right now.  Backe's coming off Tommy John, and even though he looked good at the end of last year, you never know.  Albers, Patton leaving means Sampson is the odds on favorite for the SP job.

Roy O
Wandy
Woody
Backe
Sampson

That's not a bad rotation... just not a good one.

So the pressure falls on the lineup.  If the season started today, I would suspect the lineup would look something like the following:

1 CF Bourne
2 SS Tejada
3 RF Pence
4 1B Berkman
5 LF Lee
6 3B Wiggingsworth
7 2B Kaz
8 C Towles

I guess you could put Kaz at 2, Tejada at 6 and adjust accordingly.

Bench

Loretta
Burke
Ausmus
??? (Who am I forgetting?)

I agree with Joe... Everett has some value, at least more value than letting him walk.

Well, what can you say?  At least this team won't look like last year's.

Oh, and who's left of the-minor-league-genius-that-is-Purp's guys?  Burke?  Is Towles one of his guys?  Pence was before him, right?

Anyway, I think the 5 guys are too much for Tejada.  I again agree with Joe that Albers AND Patton is too much.  One of those two should have stayed in Houston.  I would prefer Patton, but I'm sure that BAL really wanted him as part of the deal.

Anyone think the Astros would go back and do the Everett, Lidge and __ for Tejada trade now?

i agree that i hate to see Scott go, but his value to somebody else is greater than his value to us (assuming Bourn will earn his spot in center).  of course, now we drop off huge with our 4th OF and we have no more power lefty on the bench.

as everybody's stated, it's a lot of little losses for two years of hopefully a huge gain.  i think TexSkins lineup is probably the most likely.

Albers, I'm fine with losing though. He was about as bad as Woody overall, if memory serves.

"Tejada is scheduled to earn $13 million in 2008 and $13 more in 2009, although he can opt out of his deal after 2008."

Yikes.  He can opt out of his deal after 08?  Is this a literal opt out clause?  Or is it a reference to the MLB rule allowing a veteran to demand a trade after the first year of a trade?

In either case, that drastically reduces the value that the Astros received.  If it is a contractual opt out clause, that means the Astros only get 1 year of Tejeda.  If it is the "demand a trade" provision, that means Tejeda will have the Astros over a barrel in demanding a contract extension or the like.

Tejeda projected to have a .300 average and .810 OPS with 19 homers for the Astros. There is a big range between the "optimistic" and "pessimistic" scenarios for him.  Oddly, Luke Scott is projected to have virtually an identical offensive profile as Tejeda.  One of the more interesting things has to do with the comparables for Patton and Albers. Slick Castleman is a comparable for Patton and Losing Pitcher Mulcahy is a comparable for Albers.  The colorful names are discussed in the comments.

It's tough for Everett, a good team player and a person of apparently outstanding character.  The eye opener for the Astros had to be that during all of the current trade talks, and before last year as well, Everett never generated the slightest interest from any team.

Go Stros!

SeoulStro

i like Scott and think in the right situation he can be a productive corner outfielder.  he wouldn't have been this year for the Astros though, unless Bourn would have been on a really short leash.  even then, they may have preferred to turn to a situation where they're putting a more traditional centerfielder in instead of sliding Pence over.  no matter what, Scott's role on this team would be diminished from what it's been over the past year and a half.  for that reason, his loss to us is not as great as the potential gain for somebody else.

Patton is probably the biggest loss in this trade, but we won't really know for sure for a few years.  he most likely would have started at AAA and it appears that not only on some prospect ranking lists, but also in the eyes of the front office folks, that Paulino has surpassed Patton as the brighter star in the future of our rotation.  he may be a big loss, but he's not our only and maybe not even our best pitching prospect.

i'm not going to say Albers is garbage, but he certainly didn't make big strides last year.  i'm okay with moving on to other pitching prospects and letting him go.

losing Sarfate stings a little, cause he looked so promising as a late innings bullpen guy, but think about the fact that we got him for peanuts in a cash deal from Milwaulkee, who seemed all to eager to let him go.  he was found money, and if throwing him in to sweeten the deal was enough to get it done, it's really not much of a loss.

lastly, Costanzo is a big question mark.  who knows how he's going to turn out.  the problem is, you can't just throw away prospects cause you have no idea how they'll turn out.

that's the only thing that bothers me about this trade is that it's so many for just one.  no single piece we lost is particularly painful, but as a whole, it just thins out our already thin system.  we all wanted Wade's move to strengthen our system as a whole and this one certainly did exactly the opposite.  well, the other thing that bothers me is the whole, he can opt out after one year thing.  pretty much one of two things is going to happen towards the end of the year: we're going to sign him to a fat extension, or we're going to trade him for probably less than we traded for him.  unless we're looking like a lock for the playoffs next year, you'd have to hope for the former, otherwise this was a bad trade.

in the end, we didn't give up anything that's entirely irreplaceable and we just massively upgraded our offense.  i'm going to choose to look forward to Tejada peppering the Crawford Boxes next year.  hopefully another move of four will help make this team a little better and we might have a post-season worthy club.  we'll see.

5 for 1 (and 27 for 1 as Shamus suggests) is indeed a lot, especially considering Tejada is on the downside.

Shouldn't the Orioles be paying some salary considering they get a haul like this?  I know it's not my money, but still. . . .

I'm not that worried about losing Patton, to be honest.  He only throws 90 with that easy motion, and he still got hurt?  If you're gonna be the next Jamie Moyer, you gotta stay healthy.

But I really think Matt Albers has a good future in front of him.  His combination of stuff is pretty special, the great sinker, a good slider, and a 95 mph fastball.  

Sarfate was like found money . . . but does that mean you want to piss it away just like that?  Who knows if that 15:1 strikeout to walk ratio was for real, but now we never find out.

Prediction:  Tejada is in the Mitchell report.

Prediction:  Luke Scott has the same OPS as Tejada in '08--but in half the plate appearances.

Prediction:  The Astros finish 12th in the league in ERA in '08

Here's praying he suffered no permanent decline due to his broken leg; and that he succeeds in Minnesota.

Thanks for the memories, Adam.