Jesus Montero Trade

but only time will tell

But excited for more data this season! And, fingers crossed, more dingers?

We traded from an area of strength to fill a weakness. I don’t ‘love it’ because Montero isn’t a sure thing positionally. I am confident about his bat, though.

One one hand I am still just really sad about losing Pineda, the pitcher and the guy. On the other hand I’m starting to get hopeful about Montero and Noesi’s potential. Right now they kind of cancel each other out to make me feel neutral. Time will tell.

Oh and dingers.

And I am so happy I get to feel things other than utter hated and disgust.

I did “grow up” in the Bavasi years. I am just so happy to see a thought process behind it all.

Team needs offense badly, we have a surplus of pitching, yadda yadda yadda. I know, but we had a group of Great pitchers/pitching prospects under the age of 26. (Felix, Pineda, hultzen, walker, paxton, and campos) Now 2 of those are gone and all we got was another 1b/DH. Now, I know he’s a great player, but I dunno, I think it’s harder to find a Pineda than it is to find a Montero. Including Campos puts this trade over the top for me, unless Noesi turns out to be great I don’t like giving up that much. Pineda for Montero straight up would have been hard enough to stomach.

But then again, I think Pineda/Campos carry considerably more risk than Montero and Noesi. Pineda has been hurt before, only has 2 pitches, and is going to a ballpark that loooooves left handed hitters. I think he’ll be fine, but you never know, lefties could eat him alive there w/o a changeup. And he has already been injured, so theres that. Also, Campos is only 19, so yeah there’s a ton of risk there.

I think I would give it a 4/10 on the lasagna scale. Like, the lasagna was really good, but now its like 2 days old and you’re reheating it.

But that’s probably because I’m down on Pineda and high on Montero, especially of the impact he could have on our offense.

With our pitching depth, I feel this is a move that we could justify.

Yeah, losing Pineda and his future definitely sucks, but if Montero’s bat can be what some believe it’ll be, and I know it’s a big if, then it’s definitely worth it to me.

I’m just concerned about him being thrown right into the middle of the lineup, especially at Dave Niehaus Field.

I get why some people like Campos, but man, I just can’t get myself to care. It’s not right because nothing is ever a sure thing, but having Hultzen, Paxton, and Walker is comforting.

Pineda is awesome. In my mind, he’s still a Mariner, and probably will be until Opening Day. I’m just weirded out by the fact that we now have Smoak and Montero. I read Dave’s piece on Noesi, but I’m going to wait and see on him.

I’m not a knee-jerk reaction kind of person, but I felt great about what we had in Pineda, and I am not entirely certain of what we have in Montero. I will say that I have certainly gotten closer to neutrality as the trade gets further away.

Still, offense!

At first, I was just irrationally upset because I became a huge fan of Pineda. After thinking about it, though, I just don’t see where we were going to get a major bat during this FA period without otherwise overpaying for it. I sure as hell don’t want anything to do with Prince Fielder. This was the least risky way to get an ostensibly major-league ready big bat considering:

a) the stockpile of starting pitching in the minors
b) the payroll flexibility the Ms still have after getting that major bat.

If Montero has the power to hit to the opposite field and his contact rate is okay, I will fully accept this as a move where Pineda just didn’t have the value to the Ms that Montero has.

I think this deal slightly favors the Yankees because they need fewer breaks to make this deal pay off.

On the other hand, while I was never a big fan of the hoopla surrounding Jesus Montero, I am intrigued at what he brings to the table now that he’s in the Mariners organizaiton. In addition, Hector Noesi is another interesting option for the rotation.

I do find myself hoping that Montero can be a passable catcher in the least going forward. Despite the apparent risk, I’m leaning towards liking this deal.

This might be a interesting year, trade wise.

I do too but usually it is hard to get everyone to agree.this much

Apart from the initial surprise, anyway.

For me, a lot hinges on where the Mariners plan to play Montero. If they intend to keep him at catcher and he ends up not being a complete disaster, then I can see this trade moving into the “strong like” category.

If Montero can catch 40 odd games at catcher while being awesome and Noesi turns into a serviceable mid-back end starter then I’ll love it.

My immediate reaction was that I really didn’t like the Noesi/Campos part of the deal, thinking it superfluous with the potential to hit big for the Yankees. I still don’t care much for that part of the deal – or for Noesi for that matter – but I realize that’s purely subjective: Noesi’s recent scouting reports are much better than his past ones and Campos was, realistically, a high-risk player that was probably this team’s fourth-best pitching prospect. I’m slowly coming around.

I actually liked the Pineda/Montero swap from the get-go but, after reading a lot of informed comments here and abroad, I’m starting to cool on that part of the deal. So I end up neutral.

We need hitting badly. Well we got hitting. I like Pineda but how good did we do with him as a team last season? How bad could this season possibly become since trading him? I don’t think it could get worse for our M’s. So with this trade, I’m not sure what the outcome is going to be, but at least we are trying. That’s better than nothing. I mean who better to be our savior than jesus himself!?

But can’t “love” the trade when we lose Mr. Pineda, so overall it’s a like.

It appears I just got in trouble.

Honestly, Dave’s piece on Noesi on USSM went a long way toward helping me see this a net positive for the organization. That, combined with the notion that Montero might catch a not-insignificant number of games for us. It’s still tough to part with Pineda, even though I believe that it’s more likely than not that Pineda’s already reached his peak value.

I’ve seen enough pitching and not enough offense from this team. We have far better pitching depth and nothing mind blowing offensively.

Is that it doesn’t look like quite the haul the Reds gave up to get Latos. If we assume the M’s will be taking 2012 to rebuild rather than contend (they’re better now than they were last week, yes, but realistically they’re still third in the division), I kind of would rather see more good-to-great pieces rather than one must-not-fail one. And especially one that might end up as just a DH.

Alonso, Grandal, Boxberger and Volquez just seems like a better return for a pitcher who, while more “proven,” isn’t really any better than Pineda (and that’s before you toss in Campos). In fact with Pineda on the block, perhaps you could sub Mesoraco for Grandal and leave Campos out of it altogether.

But maybe Jack talked to the Reds about Pineda before the Latos trade and they weren’t interested, or weren’t willing to give up so much for a guy with just one year of MLB experience (however good it might have been.)

For me, it depends a lot on how Noesi pans out.

I loved Pineda (note the past tense, which happened without me thinking about it) but also am a big Montero fan. No matter what we think of it now, we won’t really know until the games start, or even the end of the season. But I think there’s a lot of upside here. Pitchers and catchers report Feb. 12 — less than a month!

He had a stellar rookie season. His value was sky-high—we got one of the best hitting prospects in all of baseball, which in itself speaks volumes to how high his value was. We couldn’t conceivably sell any higher than we did.

The team desperately needed hitting. We got one of the best hitting prospects in the game, who could be a lineup anchor for the better part of a decade. Sky-high potential. MVP potential (I’m not talking “likely” I’m talking “potential”).

The M’s—hell, most teams—don’t have anybody in the system with a ceiling anywhere NEAR what Montero’s is. Even if he busts or Pineda wins Cy Youngs, I think a similar deal needed to happen. I like it.