Tim Kawakami is not an idiot, (or so I am told), but his opinion of the potential trade of Lincecum for Rios could only be considered the rantings of one.
Brian Sabean knows that this is a test, and he knows what a daring general manager would do to shake up the Giants’ frightful status quo. He really does know.
Once upon a time, Sabean was that daring G.M., and he passed the test.
Eleven years ago, Sabean traded Matt Williams for a package featuring Jeff Kent, which caused the Giants universe of fandom to implode, and forced Sabean to inform us that he was not, after all, an idiot.
Sabean is back at that place again: Should he trade Tim Lincecum to Toronto for outfielder Alex Rios? Is Rios the new Kent for the new Giants?
No, he is not. Jesus Christ, only a press corps absolutely committed to whitewashing anything this team does could see the two situations as similar. Williams for Kent was trading a washed up and soon to be out of baseball, albatross for a bunch of young talent. Lincecum is at the very start of his career, a player bursting with promise and expectations, while Rios is an already established player, a very good player, for sure, but certainly not a superstar, or anything really like one. There is no comparison here to be made, other than to compare Kawakami’s writing to a 10th grader’s “What I did this summer” essay.
Editor’s Note: OK, Uncle Joe, he wasn’t a washed up, soon to be out of baseball, albatross. He was an injured three years in a row, expensive player that Sabean traded to acquire a bunch of young talent. I stand corrected.
Alex Rios is perhaps one of the ten best outfielders in baseball, Lincecum is the 2nd or 3rd best young pitching prospect in baseball, and, at 9.23 K/9IP, arguably the best pitcher the team has. You cannot make this trade, it doesn’t matter if the Blue Jays throw in a pitcher; Lincecum has to be considered untouchable barring a move for a young superstar like Miguel Cabrera. In fact, if you felt like you had no choice other than to move Lincecum for a bat, why in the hell didn’t Sabean just dangle Lincecum and Brad Hennessey for Cabrera and Willis? Cabrera’s only three fucking years younger than Rios!! That’s a move that would have been, at the least, defensible.
Lincecum for Rios is not. Simple as that.
Kawakami’s piece also mentions being ripped by guys like me:
Again and again, I’m the bad guy for suggesting major structural changes. Result: The past few years, we’ve seen no major changes, leading to 87, 85 and 91 defeats for the Giants.
But there are no shortcuts left for the Giants. Shortcuts are usually bad, anyway. Trading Joe Nathan and Jeremy Accardo for A.J. Pierzynski and Shea Hillenbrand, respectively, were awful Sabean shortcut attempts.
Straw man again, Tim. The Nathan deal is nothing like this.
YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT TRADING ONE OF THE VERY BEST YOUNG PITCHERS IN ALL OF BASEBALL!!!
well, shore, John, but my point was that there was no absolutely no guarantee that the Giants would get “younger, faster and healthier” – on the face of it, they got a crowd of losers. The fact that Kent ended up so good was not so predictable at all, nor in the free agent marketplace, if he ended up being good,would he be cheap. By your logic, then the Giants should trade Caincecum for about 12 players of age 16 and that would be better.
However, even though this is in the wrong thread, I do fear Sabean trading Cain, Lincecum or Lowry to anyone for anything. “Younger, faster and healthier” (and cheaper) should be the mantra now. A trade for Rios doesn’t make a lot of sense, maybe it’s a fair deal, but why do it?
While I agree with the general principle of trading a pitcher for a bat, trading a YOUNGER pitcher with even more potential for a proven bat is NOT a good idea. I’m okay with a Lowry / Sanchez and whoever package, but Cain and Lincecum need to stay untouchable like they were supposed to be. I could have dealt with getting Cabrera and Willis, but while Rios is a solid young player, this would be a considerable mistake. The Jays MUST include a prospect pitcher at the very least.
Actually there are some similarities to the Matt Williams deal. If you reverse the teams. The Blue Jays are in a similar position to benefit from this deal the way the Giants did back then.
I remember the Williams deal vividly because it was announced on my birthday (13 Nov). Got lots of calls from friends saying “Oh, man, sorry Mark, they just gave you a crappy present.” My response was “NO, this is a GOOD trade, you have to give up quality to get quality.” I was a minority voice at the time, Williams was a fine player and very popular, but he was clearly the most trade-able of the guys not named Barry on the team. Trading Lincecum has no correlation to the Williams deal. Lincecum is all about an investment in the future. Put it this way–if we had Miguel Cabrera, would we trade him? No, we’d build a team with him. Same for Matt and Tim. Sure we need bats and position players, but we got lucky and now have two tremendous pitching talents. This duo has a real chance be the foundation of the team for the next decade. I’d rather take the risk with Tim (and Matt) than without. (And BZ will be the best #3 starter in the league!)
Interesting look at what happens when Timmy throws his changeup.
http://tinyurl.com/2dlqmy
Do not let this guy go.
Wow! Great URL…
“While Lincecum is mostly known for his fastball, he does have very strong off-speed pitches. If he uses these pitches a little more often, he could move quickly from a very good pitcher to one of the best pitchers in the league. ”
This kind of praise is rare from the Hardball Times – they rarely miss over there when it comes to evaluating younger players in the league.
Shit. I just know Sabean’s going to do it.
Me, I would rather the Giants say Fuk-U to us fans and then we respond Do-Me at the cost of 3 years and $45M then this brain dead trade idea.
I think it should be pointed out that with the Williams/Kent trade we have the benefit of a lot of hindsight – Williams wasn’t thought of as washed up (though he would be soon) and Kent was seen as a high-maintenance jerk who didn’t have the work ethic to make something of his potential.And Kent came with a busload of players in the deal.
That Kent went on to have the career he has, and Williams flamed out was just lucky on Sabean’s part.
Marc,
You need to re-read my post. I already acknowledged the error. Williams was, however, expensive, 33 years old, and coming off of 3 consecutive injured seasons. Dealing him for youth was nothing like dealing Lincecum for Rios, which is my point. And hindsight has nothing to do with it, by the way.
Trading old players at the beginning of their decline years has been a baseball staple for decades, Branch Rickey was famous for saying he’d rather trade someone too soon rather than too late. The Giants got younger, faster and healthier, and gained financial flexibility in the Williams deal, and again, that cannot be said for this idea/rumor.
It was 2 injured seasons, 94 was a strike year. A year in which he was on pace to break Roger Maris’ HR record. He was awesome in 95 too but then he started getting those foot injuries.
As for this rumored deal, I don’t see it happening. Rios is a good player but not nearly enough. I have no problem trading Lincecum but it has to be for 2 or 3 young positional players with talent.
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptPermalink Posted in Tim Lincecum, Brian Sabean, NL West, San Francisco Giants | 1 Backtalker » …. What? Brian Sabean has been linked to rumors that the Giants are considering trading Lincecum and/or Cain for Hideli Matsui or Alex Rios. Are you fucking kidding me?! Now do you see why I said he should be fired? He is not fit to run a baseball team, simple as that. The Giants have exactly two truly valuable players in their entire baseball system, and no matter how bad everything is righ [...]
John: You are DEAD wrong! Tim Kawakami IS an idiot. Please recall what Ted Williams said that sportswriters ( adding hot water will result in ………. ). Kawakami writes like a junior high drop-out.
a little ruff on matty arent you?
he wasnt that soon out of baseball…he did get to the ws with both the indians in 97 and then the snakes in 01
he was one of our more popular players, but yes his trade was neccessary
however, trading timmy for rios would be pure insanity