Baseball Toaster: Catfish Stew : Adios, Dan Haren

Adios, Dan Haren

2007-12-14 15:00

by Philip Michaels

I hear Phoenix is lovely in the summertime.

I'm assuming this means the Joe Blanton Trade countdown clock kicks into overdrive. And that the A's are planning on contending again sometime after they're safely ensconced in Fremont.

Guess Rich Harden arrived at this week's organizational meetings, saw his shadow, and immediately splintered into a thousand pieces, prompting Billy Beane to hit the reset button.

Update, Now That I've Put Out a Fire with the Day Job: Someone poked his head into my office a little while back and asked what the A's got in return. I responded with something extremely unprintable and probably very unfair given the haul of top-ranked prospects detailed by Ken in the comments.

Also, I think back to my reaction to the Mark Mulder trade. The wife and I were recreating in Las Vegas, and she needed to check her Web-based e-mail account for some issue or another. So, having left our laptops at home, she put a couple of bucks into one of those pay-as-you-go Internet terminals that happened to be in the Tropicana -- she went about her business quickly and still had a little time left on the browser, so she asked me if I wanted to check anything. Hey, why not look at the sports news, I thought. So I went over to ESPN.com only to find Mark Mulder staring back at me in a Cardinals uniform.

My piercing scream startled many Tropicana patrons, apparently.

Anyhow, I reacted poorly to that trade at the time and things turned out pretty well there. I guess that's the point to this.

Also, Mark Mulder and Dan Haren both started the All-Star Game and got traded away six months later. Just as the prophecy foretold!

Update from Ken: 2007 stats of the arriving players:

Pitchers:
Greg Smith, Age 23, AA;AAA, 9-5, 3.54 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 96 K, 32 BB, 122 IP
Brett Anderson, Age 19, A;A+, 11-7, 3.07 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 125 K, 21 BB, 120.1 IP
Dana Eveland, Age 23, A+;AAA;NL, 2-0, 3.38 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 27 K, 17 BB, 37.2 IP

Hitters:
Aaron Cunningham, Age 21, A+;AA, .308/.375/.509, 493 AB
Carlos Gonzalez, Age 21, AA;AAA, .288/.336/.478, 500 AB
Chris Carter, Age 20, A, .291/.383/.522, 467 AB

Comments

2007-12-14 15:13:32

1. Ken Arneson

No Scherzer, dammit. I'm ticked.

The six players the A's get in return are:

Brett Anderson
Greg Smith
Dana Eveland
Carlos Gonzalez
Aaron Cunningham
Chris Carter

2007-12-14 15:14:31

2. trainwreck

I thought the A's had enough outfielders?

I hope Dan stays in Walnut Creek. Like to see him around town from time to time.

2007-12-14 15:17:48

3. Ken Arneson

Baseball America Diamondback prospect rankings:

Gonzalez #1, Anderson #3, Cunningham #7, Carter #8.

2007-12-14 15:20:34

4. Eric Stephen

That's a pretty strong return, no? Even without Scherzer.

2007-12-14 15:25:34

5. Ken Arneson

4 I suppose it is, especially if Anderson turns out to be a solid starter. I don't know much about Smith and Eveland. Smith's stats suggest a #4-#5 type starter. Eveland looks like a brain-dead heaver: lots of strikeouts, lots of walks.

2007-12-14 15:35:24

6. Ken Arneson

Only Eveland and Gonzalez were on the DBacks' 40-man roster. Robertson had already been optioned down. The A's had 39 players on the roster before the trade; they'll have the full 40 players afterwards.

I guess that's why Jay Marshall was outrighted to Sacramento the other day--to make room on the roster for this trade.

I had a feeling something was going down earlier in the day, when the DBacks sent Alberto Callaspo to the Royals.

2007-12-14 15:43:31

7. trainwreck

Do the A's stick Swisher in center then have Gonzlez in left and Buck in right?

2007-12-14 15:48:12

8. Ken Arneson

I'm not entirely sure Gonzalez is ready yet. I think he'll need another half-year to a year in AAA. His stats (.286/.330/.476) in AA this year don't look like someone who is quite ready for the majors yet. If he was 26 and put up numbers in AA like that, he wouldn't even be on the radar, really. The good news is that he put up those numbers in AA, and he was only 21.

2007-12-14 15:51:51

9. Ken Arneson

Interestingly, Cunningham put up better numbers this year in AA (,288/.364/.534) than Gonzalez at the same age, but he arrived later in the year, and got only about half the at-bats.

2007-12-14 16:08:30

10. gswitter

Sigh... I was really looking forward to a full season of the Sept '07 A's with a little better luck on the injuries front.

I don't mind seeing a team selling mid-season when they don't see a realistic shot at the playoffs. Seeing it during the off-season is tough. Even if this deal does re-stock an otherwise weak farm system, who replaces Haren's innings - quality and dependable quantity?

I felt fine with the Mulder deal because it address both the near-term and the far. The Hudson deal always felt questionable, because it focused to much on the latter. This feels like the Hudson deal.

2007-12-14 16:19:56

11. underdog

Thanks, Billy Beane, thanks a lot! Trading him to the NL West... {{mutter}}

2007-12-14 16:23:38

12. Ken Arneson

10 I agree that this trade focuses on the far (look at how young the players are!), but I didn't think the Hudson deal did. Meyer was supposedly ready or near-ready for the majors until he got that bone chip in his shoulder that it took them almost two years to find. Cruz and Thomas had already established themselves in the majors.

2007-12-14 16:34:32

13. Ken Arneson

Eveland missed a big chunk of the 2007 season with a torn tendon in his middle finger.

2007-12-14 18:21:38

14. Ken Arneson

The A's now have the following top positional prospects in minor league baseball, according to BP's Kevin Goldstein's minor league positional rankings, as of August 2007:

Corner outfielders:
Carlos Gonzales #3
Aaron Cunningham #8

First basemen:
Daric Barton: #1
Chris Carter: #5

Second basemen:
Kevin Melillo: #8

Catcher:
Anthony Recker: #9
(Landon Powell was top 5 before he tore ACL)

Center field: none
Shortstop: none
Third base: none

2007-12-14 18:48:25

15. Ken Arneson

From Susan Slusser at the SF Chronicle: "According to Beane, one conclusion from the meeting was that pitcher Chad Gaudin might need surgery for an injury to his hip labrum."

I guess that scores another point for the choice to rebuild.

2007-12-15 21:54:20

16. Jason Wojciechowski

15 I didn't even know there was a hip labrum. The A's, if they can't be creative in player acquisitions anymore, may as well continue to be creative in injuries, I guess.

7 Gonzalez supposedly has a great arm, so the conventional wisdom probably says he'll play right?