Despite this team's needs, they're definitely in striking distance; therefore, if you were Beinfest & Co. would you consider trading Cameron Maybin for legitimate hitter or closer?

100% no unless it is a young, cheap, and projectable piece. There are very, very, few players that fit this description and I'm not even going to speculate who might fit this.

Marlins staff usually don't trade these kind of guys until they have established themselves in the majors. Until Maybin establishes himself in the major leagues and begins to command more cash than we can afford, he really isn't tradeable.

Its really, really hard to win in baseball without sacrificing something to get to the top. Even when our elite position prospects are all in the majors at the same time, I fear our starting pitching staff will be pretty depleted by then. Now is probably the strongest you'll see the Marlins starting rotation in quite some time, and it may be worth the gamble to get a bat or two to propel this team forward.

It's not that he's untouchable. There is just absolutely NO reason to trade him. If anything, his value has decreased already so you keep him and hope he lives up to what he's capable of.

 

I still envision Morrison, Stanton, Maybin, Coghlan, and Sanchez in the same lineup soon.

Its really, really hard to win in baseball without sacrificing something to get to the top. Even when our elite position prospects are all in the majors at the same time, I fear our starting pitching staff will be pretty depleted by then. Now is probably the strongest you'll see the Marlins starting rotation in quite some time, and it may be worth the gamble to get a bat or two to propel this team forward.

 

How do you figure the starters will be depleted? If you want to talk money, Johnson is the only one who might get over $5 million (very debateable) next year. Our current 5 starters are going to cost us maybe $12 million next season (JJ $5, RN $4, AM $2.2, CV $.4, SW $.4). Sure, we may lose one of Nolasco/Miller after the 2010 season because of money, but that's pretty much it. We have JJ and RN rights through the 2011 season, Miller through 2013, Volstad 2014, and West 2015. We also have Anibal, or whatever is left of Anibal, and a slew of spot starters in Trahern, Thompson, Winters, and Taylor. Plus Vanden Hurk could end up a starter. And then we're going to add further depth by trading Uggla for probably a very nice SP prospect. And the lower minors is looking solid with Sanabia, Hand, Kaminska, Olmos, Brewer, Johnson, and new 1st and 2nd round pick that are high school pitchers. Let alone Tucker and Ceda probably rate out as our top two minor league arms right now, and you'd imagine they will be back from injury eventually and be ready in a year or so.

 

We're fine. We don't need to trade the premium minor league bats to get an improvement. What they should be doing, is shopping Hermida and calling Maybin back up to split with Carroll. Then, you call up Gaby in place of De Aza and have him start playing a lot of 3B. Through trading Hermida, and some of the expansive single A minor league depth we have, you then fix the bullpen. That's the smart thing to do, because I bet there are GM's who'd still like to tinker with Hermida and see if he'll turn into that bat we all hoped. With the way he's playing, we're not going to get much for him after the season anyways, so might as well quasi-dump him. SD would have to seriously consider some sort of Hermida, Sanabia/Hand, and Smolinski/Galloway package for Bell. And that's not hurting us in the short or long term as a trade of Maybin would be doing.

I consider Michael Stanton and Cameron Maybin our untouchable prospects. We could have gotten Manny Ramirez last year, but when Pittsburgh wanted Stanton we pulled out. And Cameron Maybin is the most important player in that Cabrera/Willis trade, so you know he's not getting traded.

We simply can't succeed as a franchise by trading guys like Cameron Maybin. Other teams can go out and sign mediocre outfielders to slot as starters, tossing them a couple million in the process. This team simply can't afford or doesn't do that. Hermida, Ross, and Coghlan aren't going to be in the outfield forever. I'd love to see Ross stick around for the long time, but Hermida will not be here next year and Coghlan will be playing second at some point (unless Bonifacio ends up at 2B, but that would require bringing in a guy for 3b somehwere). Maybin is an important part of our outfield going forward and there is no way we can replace that.

We're fine. We don't need to trade the premium minor league bats to get an improvement. What they should be doing, is shopping Hermida and calling Maybin back up to split with Carroll. Then, you call up Gaby in place of De Aza and have him start playing a lot of 3B. Through trading Hermida, and some of the expansive single A minor league depth we have, you then fix the bullpen. That's the smart thing to do, because I bet there are GM's who'd still like to tinker with Hermida and see if he'll turn into that bat we all hoped. With the way he's playing, we're not going to get much for him after the season anyways, so might as well quasi-dump him. SD would have to seriously consider some sort of Hermida, Sanabia/Hand, and Smolinski/Galloway package for Bell. And that's not hurting us in the short or long term as a trade of Maybin would be doing.

 

 

The problem with getting anything for Hermida is when he slumps he really slumps, as evidenced right now. He is currently 2-10+ games, that's not two for his last ten at bats, that's two for his last ten+ "games". Rhetorically I would ask what is it worth to an an acquiring organization to have the chance to "tinker" with someone who so mired such a downturn? I doubt he would be the centerpiece of a trade for someone significant, especially a top reliever who can close as the two aforementioned, more a peripheral or add-in because there's always some organization that thinks their guy can work miracles.

 

Personally I think just about anyone except Stanton, West and Maybin would be bait for the right player coming back to the Fish.

 

BTW, Tucker's name keeps popping up but he's on the DL, thus unavailable and again too risky, not to mention how little he showed last summer when called up and gave up 34 runs in 37 innings with the Fish. He's another who can't be considered a centerpiece trade chip.

I think an excellent example of why we should absolutely keep Maybin is shown by the Brewers-Indians trade last season. In order to get the awesome arm of Sabathia, Milwaukee had to send Matt LaPorta, a highly touted prospect to Cleveland. While CC was fantastic for the Brewers and got them to the playoffs, ultimately they didnt win the WS which was obviously the primary reason that they acquired Sabathia. They then lost CC to FA and eventually the Yankees and in the process now don't have the bat of LaPorta to call up, and he would most likely of been a major part of their offense for years to come.

We're fine. We don't need to trade the premium minor league bats to get an improvement. What they should be doing, is shopping Hermida and calling Maybin back up to split with Carroll. Then, you call up Gaby in place of De Aza and have him start playing a lot of 3B. Through trading Hermida, and some of the expansive single A minor league depth we have, you then fix the bullpen. That's the smart thing to do, because I bet there are GM's who'd still like to tinker with Hermida and see if he'll turn into that bat we all hoped. With the way he's playing, we're not going to get much for him after the season anyways, so might as well quasi-dump him. SD would have to seriously consider some sort of Hermida, Sanabia/Hand, and Smolinski/Galloway package for Bell. And that's not hurting us in the short or long term as a trade of Maybin would be doing.

 

 

The problem with getting anything for Hermida is when he slumps he really slumps, as evidenced right now. He is currently 2-10+ games, that's not two for his last ten at bats, that's two for his last ten+ "games". Rhetorically I would ask what is it worth to an an acquiring organization to have the chance to "tinker" with someone who so mired such a downturn? I doubt he would be the centerpiece of a trade for someone significant, especially a top reliever who can close as the two aforementioned, more a peripheral or add-in because there's always some organization that thinks their guy can work miracles.

 

Personally I think just about anyone except Stanton, West and Maybin would be bait for the right player coming back to the Fish.

 

BTW, Tucker's name keeps popping up but he's on the DL, thus unavailable and again too risky, not to mention how little he showed last summer when called up and gave up 34 runs in 37 innings with the Fish. He's another who can't be considered a centerpiece trade chip.

I don't really disagree with any of this, but they really should not be dishing out any of the premium guys. At very minimum, I'd add Morrison, Coghlan, Volstad, Meyer, and Baker (those last three are still technically rookies) to the untouchable list from the first year/milb ranks. I also think Skipworth is untouchable, but that's a more financial reason as we gave him $2.3 million to sign and I'd love to see Beinfest tell Loria we're trading him after he shelled out that cash.

 

If I have to pick one, it's Dominguez. And we'll just cross our fingers Gaby can handle 3B until we figure out a better longterm option.

Despite this team's needs, they're definitely in striking distance; therefore, if you were Beinfest & Co. would you consider trading Cameron Maybin for legitimate hitter or closer?

 

 

 

 

 

I would rather package Herms and Bonerface in a trade for a closer or OF/3B and play Maybin in center and Cody in right. I would rather see Maybin learn in the bigs than Bonerface.

Despite this team's needs, they're definitely in striking distance; therefore, if you were Beinfest & Co. would you consider trading Cameron Maybin for legitimate hitter or closer?

 

 

 

 

 

I would rather package Herms and Bonerface in a trade for a closer or OF/3B and play Maybin in center and Cody in right. I would rather see Maybin learn in the bigs than Bonerface.

 

If we traded Helms and Bonifacio the best closer we'd be able to get is Rob Beck.

Despite this team's needs, they're definitely in striking distance; therefore, if you were Beinfest & Co. would you consider trading Cameron Maybin for legitimate hitter or closer?

 

 

 

 

 

I would rather package Herms and Bonerface in a trade for a closer or OF/3B and play Maybin in center and Cody in right. I would rather see Maybin learn in the bigs than Bonerface.

 

If we traded Helms and Bonifacio the best closer we'd be able to get is Rob Beck.

 

lol, true. But I can wish, no?

so, are we stuck with wood and that other guy until kiko and lindy come back, or are we going to acquire someone?

I think an excellent example of why we should absolutely keep Maybin is shown by the Brewers-Indians trade last season. In order to get the awesome arm of Sabathia, Milwaukee had to send Matt LaPorta, a highly touted prospect to Cleveland. While CC was fantastic for the Brewers and got them to the playoffs, ultimately they didnt win the WS which was obviously the primary reason that they acquired Sabathia. They then lost CC to FA and eventually the Yankees and in the process now don't have the bat of LaPorta to call up, and he would most likely of been a major part of their offense for years to come.

 

 

I mean, sure they didn't win the WS, but they still had an amazing run. And I would assume that they got Type A compensation for losing CC as an FA to NYY, IMHO, FWIW, FTR.

I don't think it was as bad a trade as this paragraph implies.