Quote:
Originally Posted by MathBandit
The rest of your post is reasonable, but I do want to quibble with this as being a rather unfair characterization. I don't think it's accurate or helpful to portray people who prefer hard mode as only liking it since they're unable or unwilling to police themselves.
To me, I look at it like the trade of Moreno and Gurriel for Varsho. Would there have probably been a trade where the throw-in is a low-probability prospect rather than Gurriel? Absolutely. Would that have made the Jays a better team for 2023 and beyond? Yes. But Atkins didn't have the luxury of asking the DBacks GM to provide a comprehensive list of every single player in the Jays org that he would accept as the throw-in on the deal and so to make sure the deal got across the line, accepted the deal with Gurriel.
I don't think any amount of 'policing yourself' can capture that, since a deal of Moreno + a AA 40-value guy would also have been *fair* (heck, many would argue that Moreno alone is an overpay, though I disagree). But for some trades you might have to decide if you want to try and nickel-and-dime it to give up slightly less, or want to give up a bit more to get the deal done today- and I find that both really enjoyable, and much more in line with my experience playing against other people.
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I like your example, but I don't agree that the Jays had to throw-in Gurriel, unless the DBacks said Gurriel is a dealbreaker and I highly doubt that happened. Probably next to no one in Jays fandom was bothered that Gurriel was a part of the deal. I think most of us were worried than Moreno would turn out like he has. But the fact that Gurriel was a part of it, on top of it, was very much a huh? moment. At least for me it was. I just figured, okay, maybe the Jays are convinced Varsho is a heck of a lot better than his stats indicate. It's not like I watched a lot of DBacks games, I could only see his stats.
But it comes back to Gurriel being a "throw-in". I guess we can agree to disagree, but if the Jays felt they had to throw-in Gurriel to get it done, then I think they were putting up their own "barrier". They could have thrown-in an even better player too if they wanted to play it like that. Or, they could have tried something else. It's not like they had to get rid of Moreno (I wouldn't have, I would have wanted to see him for at least 1 year in the bigs, I think it's absolutely foolish to trade a young phenom, especially at a key position) and other than his defense has Varsho ever really shown any great promise? Maybe the DBacks were itching to unload Varsho to make room for Carroll, but if that was the case the Jays shouldn't have been in such a rush to get him. If they couldn't get Varsho, they could have acquired someone else. I love Varsho, I do, and I hope the world for him, but he never was the next Mike Trout.