The First Idiotic Move of the MLB Season is in the Books
Apr 1st 2007eBaseball & MLB & Minor League Baseball
Well that was fast. The baseball season hasn’t even begun, but it seems the Marlins simply could not wait any longer to make the first stupid trade of the season. Earlier this week in the team sent 22 year-old Yusmeiro Petit to the Diamondbacks for reliever Jorge Julio, with the intention of making Julio their closer. As far as I can tell, there are only four major problems that make this an idiotic trade. The first is that Julio has proven he is not a good closer. After an outstanding 2002 season with the Orioles, Julio lost the closers job after his ERA ballooned over the next three years from 1.98 to 4.38 to 4.57 to 5.90. He was traded to the Mets before last season, and after posting a 5.06 ERA with the Mets, they shipped him to Arizona. Julio pitched a little bit better with the Diamondbacks, but he still blew 4 out of 19 saves as the team’s closer.
The second problem with this deal is that it’s been proven over the last few years than anybody can close. Salomon Torres, Eddie Guardado, B.J. Ryan, Adam Wainwright, Takashi Saito, and Akinori Otsuka have all come out of nowhere to become solid closers. In this day and age there is no reason to give up something good to acquire a closer and there’s especially no reason to give up something good to acquire a bad closer.
This brings us to reason #3 the trade is stupid. Petit is an excellent prospect. He was key guy in the trade that sent Carlos Delgado to the Mets and he has loads of potential. Although he struggled when he was called up last last season, there is not a general manager in baseball who would rather have Jorge Julio then Petit. Last season Julio was so lightly regarded that he was traded for Orlando Hernandez, and he has done nothing since then to prove he has more value than that.
Obviously the Marlins panicked a little bit because they are expecting to be competitive this year and feel they have no closer. This brings us to the forth reason the trade was stupid. The team has plenty of pitchers capable of closing, including Taylor Tankersley, who had a 2.86 ERA last yea while closing occasionally. Tankersley is a former first round pick and so there’s no question he has to the stuff to be a solid closer.
It may seem like I’m making a big deal out of a relatively small trade–and I am–but deals like this boggle the mind because there is absolutely no upside for one of the teams involved. The simple fact in that the Marlins are trading a decent pitching prospect for a pitcher they don’t need who also happens to suck.
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