| Derek Bodner. 18th July, 2008 - 6:41 pm
 In a move surely to send shivers down the spines of the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs, the Philadelphia Phillies acquired starting pitcher Joe Blanton from the Oakland Athletics for second baseman Adrian Cardenas, outfielder Matt Spencer and pitcher Josh Outman on Thursday.
With the acquisition, the Phillies now have two pitchers in their system who were opening day starters earlier this year.
Of course, that may not be something to hang your hat on, as Brett Myers and Blanton have an ERA of over 8.00 in their last eight combined starts since mid-June.
Looking at the trade optimistically, Blanton had a phenomenal rookie year, and at only 27 years of age he can regain that form, hopefully. He did appear to have a bounce-back year in 2007, and was solid for the first two months this year before getting knocked around in June and July. He's a ground ball pitcher, ever so important in Citizens Bank Park, who doesn't give up a lot of home runs and doesn't walk a lot of batters.
Maybe, just maybe, you can overlook his terrible second half last year. Maybe you can overlook the fact that he's 11-18 in his last 35 starts, with a 4.94 ERA and an opponent's batting average of nearly .300. Maybe he was on the cusp of turning it around.
But it's not likely.
The Oakland Coliseum (now dubbed McAfee Coliseum) has been a haven for pitchers for quite some time. From Barry Zito to Mark Mulder, the number of pitchers who have declined significantly after leaving the Athletics is numerous. The Coliseum has historically been beneficial to pitchers, and Joe Blanton is no exception.
Because not all baseball parks are created equal, looking at a pitcher's road statistics is a decent indicator of their chances of success when being acquired in a trade.
The ineffectiveness of Blanton when away from the Coliseum is startling. During the last three seasons, Blanton has not had a road ERA of less than 5.11, and opponents are batting over .300 against him during that span. During his "bounce-back" year in 2007, Blanton had a 5.11 ERA with opponents hitting .304 against him, and that was the year Phillies' fans were clinging to him as hope.
And this is a guy you traded one of your top three minor league prospects for?
He simply adds another question mark on a pitching staff filled with question marks. The Phillies' chance of success this season still rests largely on the offense's ability to outscore the opposition, with little impact coming from this acquisition.
Make no mistake about it, Adrian Cardenas is one of the Phillies' top prospects. At only 20 years old, and at a position where offensive production is increasingly valuable, Cardenas is batting .309 with a .818 OPS.
By comparison, at the same level of minor league baseball and at 22 years of age, Chase Utley batted .257 with a .734 OPS, and was a defensive liability.
That's not to say that Cardenas is a better prospect than Utley or that he is a sure thing to improve the way Utley has since that time. The odds of both are slim. And sure, there was the question mark of where Cardenas fit in the organization long-term, should he develop.
But he was a legitimate prospect, with high upside. Outside of Lou Marson and Carlos Carrasco, Cardenas had more worth than any prospect in the Phillies' farm system.
Earlier this season, the Phillies remarked about how they didn't have the prospects to pursue the top of the rotation starters. That may very well be true, but when you take a step back and look at it, it's trades like this that are one of the primary reasons why the Phillies don't have the trading chips down in the minors to make such deals. They deal away their top prospects for middling (at best) pitching because of the pressure felt to make a move.
This trade has the rare distinction of having a low probability of working out now with the potential to blow up in their faces should Cardenas continue to improve, all the while hurting the team's future maneuverability by depleting an already shallow farm system.
"The second you say you have to do something, you're screwed. Because you are going to make a bad deal. You can always recover from the player you didn't sign. You may never recover from the player you signed at the wrong price."
Unfortunately, that's a quote from the other general manager involved in the Blanton trade Mr. Billy Beane. It fits this trade to a T.
Derek Bodner can be reached at dbodner22@gmail.com. |
