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Did Wade get enough in return for Lidge?

Brad Lidge has chased away the demons of 07 and 06.   He saved the first game of the World Series, and is on the top of the world...or at least the top of his game, right now.  (As soon as I write something like that, naturally he will blow his first save of the year...I guess we will see.)  When we talk about Lidge's high performance level this year, people on this blog tend to dance around the question which probably is in the back of our mind:

Did Ed Wade get enough in return for Lidge?

Before we exhibit too much hindsight, I did look up the Crawfish Boxes article on the Lidge trade in November, 2007.  And, in fairness, most of the fans here seemed to view this as a trade which would be good for both sides.  If Bourn had hit .280 and posted a .350 OBP, we probably wouldn't ponder the question above.

The Chronicle's Richard Justice began the second guessing game after Lidge's World Series appearance in Game 1.  Here is an interesting quote from his column:

A better argument might be if Ed Wade could have gotten more for him than Michael Bourn. Some GMs have complained privately that they didn't know Lidge was available, that Wade didn't do a good enough job considering all his options.

But Wade drafted Bourn and believed in him. He was comfortable he got enough. That trade ultimately will be decided on if Bourn becomes a productive big league player.

 

Even considering that Lidge still had some risk , given his blown saves, in late 2007, he was widely recognized as tremendously talented.  So it is a fair question whether another team might have offered more than the Astros got for him.

One team that may have had an interest in Lidge (as a set up man) was the Mets.  Billy Wagner had told Mets' management they should go after Lidge.  At the time, the Chronicle's Ortiz mentioned that the Astros asked, but couldn't get the CFer they wanted from the Mets.  My guess is that the Astros may have asked about Carlos Gomez, later traded to the Twins in the Santana deal, or Fernando Martinez, who is still a top Mets' prospect.  The question I asked myself at the time is whether the Astros could have gotten Lastings Milledge, a center fielder with more slugging ability.

Milledge was later traded to the Nationals, and he didn't have as big a year as I expected.  But his offense would have been significantly better than Bourn's last year:

Milledge  .268 BA, .338 OBP, .402 SLG, 14 HR, 96 K, 24 SB, 65 R, 61 RBI.

Bourn  .229 BA, .288 OBP,  .300 SLG, 5 HR, 111 K, 41 SB, 57 R, 29 RBI.

Without a doubt, Bourn is a better defensive player than Milledge.  Milledge and Bourn have similar out of zone plays (81 and 82), but Bourn's revised zone rating in CF is somewhat higher, .913 vs. .870. 

Were there other teams which would have given more in return for Lidge?  Who knows, and it's too late to find out.

 

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Obviously hindsight being 20-20

we didn’t get enough…

With Lidge being the Lidge he has been this year… if he keeps that up, then basically no matter what Bourn does(short of becoming an all-star), we will not have gotten enough for him. Bourn wasn’t even really a good prospect… I think we could have gotten a blue-chip prospect for Lidge. We didn’t… now it’s just down to Bourn to become a decent MLB Player to make the hurt of Lidge being so damn good now go away..

If it’s true that teams didn’t know Lidge was available… then shame on Wade.

Go 'Stros!

by Stros Bro on Oct 23, 2008 10:23 PM CDT   0 recs

At the time

I was excited for this trade. Lidge was never going to be lights out again in Houston and Bourn was someone I had been eyeing since the trade deadline last year when there were rumors of a Lidge for Bourn and Ruiz package floating around. While Bourn was a huge disappointment this year, the move also allowed us to trade for Tejada using one of the pieces we got for Lidge. All things considered so far, we got robbed in this trade, but it’s only been one year. If Bourn just can figure out away to OPS .700, get on base at a better clip than Berkman’s BA, and Tejada returns to Tejada levels we will feel the same way in a year? Bourn could make a good number nine hitter if the Astros were willing to experiment and offers the some insurance against Carlos Lee’s 40 inch thighs in LF too.

Lidge was good this year, but he’ll be hard pressed to repeat the performance again — 2 HR’s all year is mind boggling. I’ll be interested to see the two year comparison of Lidge v. Valverde and I think in the end the 2007-2008 off-season will have to be viewed at the macro-level vs. the micro-level.

The thing I think is more important from the article beside the endless pissing contest that could come from debating how the trade will be thought of long-term vs. short-term is this quote from Justice:

Some GMs have complained privately that they didn’t know Lidge was available

If Wade truly didn’t disseminate the word on Lidge’s availability, then he failed big time.

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by DyingQuail on Oct 23, 2008 11:06 PM CDT   0 recs

It was sell-low

on Lidge. The numbers he had didn’t look too good (despite a better ERA than 06) so I guess that was as good value we were going to get from him at that stage. Plus, he needed a change of scenery (I had a gut feeling that he could be the closer this year and return to 40-save form, but that seemed unlikely with all that history on Pujols and Podsednik here in Houston). I don’t blame Wade for making the deal (though I didn’t like it) since we were getting an outfielder with potential plus a solid reliever (something we lacked in 07 past Qualls).

by jonthefon on Oct 23, 2008 11:59 PM CDT   0 recs

HAHAHA

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by DyingQuail on Oct 24, 2008 8:39 AM CDT to parent up   0 recs

Not a Fan of Wade

but put me down for what jonthefon said about Lidge being at the bottom of his value-arc when the trade is made.

If Lidge was sold too cheaply (and in a way, even asking the question is sort of cowardly in its cheap hindsight), then the question has to be asked why didn’t Purpura trade Lidge when he was closer to his peak? That was a question that was definitely asked around here, I remember Lidge to the Red Sox rumors that involved the cream of their crop. . . .

Even the trading-him-too-late thing was old by the time the deal was finally made, so there was not much anger anywhere. Most people felt (and I hope still are honest enough with themselves to remember) that the conensus opinion was that Lidge might very well be outstanding again, but that it wouldn’t happen in Houston.

I felt that way then, and feel that way now. He would NOT have saved 41 consecutive games if he would have been an Astro in ’08. And of course we were fine in his absence, Valverde was great after a shaky start.

Lidge had to go, he couldn’t stay, and it was definitely a buyer’s market.

However, there is one bone I have to pick with Wade here, and that’s Michael Bourn. Either Ed knew what Michael Bourn truly was (so why did he trade for him?) or he didn’t know what Bourn was (in which case why hadn’t he been paying attention back when he was GMing the Phils?)

Bourn was, is and always will be a disaster. Having acquired him, Wade would have been just as well trading Bourn to Atlanta for Oscar Villareal, and keeping Josh Anderson, who, like Bourn, steals bases, plays great outfield, and doesn’t walk.

Anderson, however, can hit.

Alright, time to deport Bourn.

by rastronomicals on Oct 24, 2008 8:02 PM CDT   0 recs

My opinion isn't that much different than yours.

I felt then that Lidge might require the proverbial “change of scenery” to become great again. I don’t think his value was rock bottom, but it surely wasn’t as great as the beginning of 2007 when Pupura arrogantly laughed at suggestions he would trade Lidge under any circumstances.

Although I accepted the idea of trading Lidge, I did have reservations about Bourn. The only thing I could do as a fan, was put my faith in Wade’s ability to judge talent. So far, I’m not so confident in his evaluation of Bourn. At the time, I assumed that the Mets’ asking price for Milledge was too high. But it turns out that the Mets had already soured on Milledge and gave him up relatively cheaply to the Nats later that off-season. I think Wade had his mind set on getting a Willy Taveras type slap hitter/speedster in CF, and therefore narrowed his choices to guys like Gomez (who had a somewhat better year than Bourn) and Bourn.

by clack on Oct 25, 2008 9:46 AM CDT to parent up   0 recs

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