Quote:
Originally Posted by Terpripken
...and yet the Angels wouldn't pony up for Crawford. Hmmm...not sure what is going on in Anaheim.
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Texas and Oakland beefing up = Desperado GM in LAA.
If you look at most of the trades AA makes, he's a master at capitalizing on the desperation of his fellow GMs. By all rights he should've been the one sweating on the Halladay deal, as it's been mentioned that the only team Halladay wanted to go to was the Phillies. Fortunately for him Ruben Amaro Jr. desperately wanted Halladay and AA was able to pick up three pretty decent prospects for him, one of whom will probably be in the 2011 rotation.
The Mariners felt they were contenders last year, but didn't want any part of figuring out what role Brandon Morrow would excel most at...enter the Jedi Ninja GM...off go Brandon League and Johermyn Chavez to the Mariners and the Jays get a SP with #1 upside.
Not that he's great shakes or anything, but AA found out that Fred Lewis was in San Fran's doghouse, picked him up for the infamous PTBNL or cash and plugged a hole in the lineup.
Yunel Escobar was on the outs with Bobby Cox and most of his teammates, and Alex Gonzalez had had a career first half. Poof! Off he goes with minor league SS Tyler Pastornicky and minor league RP Tim Collins (would love to have seen him pitch here, but he's a RP for a reason) for Escobar and LHP Jo-Jo Reyes, whose career has completely stalled out...but as Joaquin Andujar said: "Youneverknow"
The Astros had just traded Lance Berkman to the Yankees and desperately needed a 1B. Off goes Brett Wallace for a player AA has coveted for a long time: CF Anthony Gose.
Oakland has a cast of thousands in the OF, boom! off go two more minor league RP for Rajai Davis, who's no world beater by any means, but his acquisition just became a whole lot more important.
The Brewers really want to contend this coming year, so off goes Shaun Marcum for their #1 prospect Brett Lawrie and a few days earlier another PTBNL for Carlos Villanueva.
The Angels struck out on all their free agent targets this offseason, but have had a four year crush on Vernon Wells that led them to make the disastrous Gary Matthews Jr. signing out of desperation when VW signed his behemoth extension after the 2006 season. This one was the mother of all of the Jedi Ninja master GM's trades. It came out of nowhere. Keith Law said yesterday that the Jays would've taken a bag of turnips and a can of tinned meat in return for Vernon Wells. Nice turnips and some decent quality tinned meat, I must say.
Add in all the decent, cheap free agent signings, what was widely thought to be one of the better drafts in MLB in the 2010 amateur draft, and the farm system going from bottom five or ten to top five or ten in the sixteen months AA's been on the job. Nice.
I'm not saying he's the perfect GM or that everything he does will turn to gold, because it won't. I am saying that so far I'm mighty impressed and very happy he's running my favourite team.