Retraction: Blue Jays possible Scutaro trade value

by Trenchtown on Jul 14, 2009 1:14 AM PDT

I am posting this because I believe that the argument I made during this fanpost (scroll down) was incorrect and I believe accountability is something sorely lacking on the internet and journalism in general. To the point, I was wrong about what I thought it would take to get Marco Scutaro from the Blue Jays. I believed that because of his journeyman status and career long journeyman production he could be had for Mark Lowe because of Lowe's pedigree and the Jay's relative lack of relief pitching depth.

What I incorrectly took into account was his free agent compensation level. For those of you who don't know a Tiger's blog reversed engineered the Elias Bureau free agent classification formula last year. USS Mariner recently posted the updated information here and low and behold Marco Scutaro was sitting at 7th overall in the 2B/SS/3B group (page 5) making him a Type A free agent.

This new information means that Scutaro's trade value is higher then I had it at because I believe that Riccardi also has this information as well as most GM's in baseball. However, I also believe a player like Scutaro holds a Juan Cruz or Orlando Cabrera situation where he would be a difficult sell on the free agent market because of that risk. It is possible a team does the whole Frank Catalanotto stupid signing with him but I don't think that is likely either. Regardless, I now believe an additional player would be necessary to acquire Scutaro. Depending on what Riccardi values that player would be anything from Rob Johnson to Noregia to Tyson Gilies or something beyond the Mariner's price range.

Either way my apologies to seattlebruin and olesalty who might have had a better read on the situation then I did whether or not they took this information into account

Salud

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Darren Oliver is still a Type A?

Is that the light at the end of the tunnel, or the headlights of an oncoming train?

by Benne on Jul 14, 2009 2:54 PM PDT reply actions

Actually...

Scutaro’s value shouldn’t change at all because of type-A status, since no team will want to give up a first-round draft pick to sign him. Teams are really starting to value those lost picks that they used to give up easily, as we saw last year when Orlando Cabrera and Juan Cruz couldn’t get jobs until the very end of the offseason. With teams waking up to the fact that draft picks are valuable, nobody’s going to give up their first rounder (and few teams would be willing to give up their high-second rounder) to sign Marc Scutaro in 2010, which means you’re either A) trading for a half season of Scutaro, which has minimal value, or B) offering him arbitration and taking a substantial risk that he accepts and you’ll be on the hook for Scutaro in 2010 at likely a hefty pay raise from his current $1.55million salary.

Now, depending on what kind of SS production you’re looking for in 2010, that might not be a bad idea. This also depends on whether or not you think Scutaro can maintain his age-33 breakout season at the plate. I’m more than a little bit skeptical of that, though even the .690OPS version of Scutaro’s far superior to what we’ve gotten from the position this year. I’m not totally sold on Scutaro’s UZR at shortstop, but I think we can all agree he’s a better defender than Yuni.

What I don’t think, though, is that JP Ricciardi will be able to drive up the asking price in trade, since it’s very unrealistic that those extra draft picks will ever materialize. I have to think Jack Z would realize this and decline to up his offer.

by slamcactus on Jul 17, 2009 5:42 AM PDT reply actions