I never believed that Maybin was ready and I said as much many times in the offseason. Same for Miller, but he has actually pitched pretty well. Secondly, Delmon Young was highly rated- I'll give you that. But until this year Jeremy Hermida was very highly rated as well, if not as high as Young. Only this year have teams caught on that Hermida isn't the player he was supposed to be.

 

I don't know what exactly you would have gotten in exchange for Hermida. But I guarantee it could have gotten more than a fringe-prospect middle infielder and a low minors infield prospect.

 

And seriously- lets stop this whole hypothetical if Hermida had a .900 OPS. Willingham had dramatically out OPSed Hermida in his time as a Marlin and Hermida sure didn't look like he was edging closer as he put up a .720 OPS last year. This is while Willingham put up an .830 OPS. The probability of Hermida putting up a .900 OPS this year and Willingham doing the same is just not even in the same ballpark. Even if Hermida's 2007, his OPS was only 10-20 points better than what Willingham has been doing consistently. And Hermida only did that for 123 games in one season.

 

Clearly the numbers point to Willingham being the much better player. And yes, he was the older player, but Hermida had dramatically regressed. Yet despite this regression, Hermida was still the one who was highly value around the league because those who didn't see his ineptitude every day didn't have any idea how far he was from ever reaching his ceiling. People still thought of Hermida as the highly touted prospect who was supposed to win the rookie of the year, not the guy who had fly balls bounce off his face in RF.

 

When you consider how much better a player Willingham was, compared to how much higher the perception of Hermida was, it's absolutely BAFFLING that we gave Hammer away. I'm infuriated just thinking about it.

 

 

No, Hermida wasn't rated nearly as high as Young, who some scouts considered the #1 prospect in baseball at one point. In addition, Hermida was coming off a very mediocre 2008 which further decreased his value. If you were talking about trading Hermida in the 2007 offseason, it would be a different story.

 

And Hermida's .870 OPS in 2007 was not 10-20 points better than Willingham's career .833 mark as a Marlin. Not sure where you come to the conclusion that Hammer was far more likely to .OPS .900 than Hermida. Especially considering Willingham's back injuries. If you knew that before this season started, then perhaps you wouldn't mind sharing your crystal ball with me.

 

The return we got for Willingham and the decision to trade him are two seperate issues. The decision to trade him instead of Hermida, at the time, was the right one. The players we got in return were underwhelming to say the least. Out of the three, Smolinski is the only legit piece. Willingham was one of my favorite Marlins, and trading him for Bonifacio is just as infuriating to me. Even still, its too early to fully assess the trade.

 

I understand Hermida hatred on this board is at an all-time high, but don't act like you saw this coming. And if you want to discuss what we could have gotten for Hermida, try to be realistic instead of citing names like Garza and Bartlett as being of equivalent value in a return.

Willingham was 30 years old with a bad back. He refused to take surgery on it. So, the chances of it getting better are very low. And what's the point of having a player if he's going to be on the DL half the time.

Hermida, meanwhile, is a 25 year old who put up an OPS of .870 as a 23 year old. His ceiling was very high, and he is young.

The FO, at that time, made the right move.

Hermida was the #4 prospect in baseball going into 2006. He was basically as highly rated as Delmon.

 

Delmon Young was also coming off a year when he only had a .723 OPS. Hermida had a .729 OPS, so he actually out OPS'd delmon.

 

however, you can only get what's offered to you. All offseason we heard about how nobody wanted to give up much. TB offered Jackson or Sonnanstine and we asked for me. I don't remember the exact offer but Seattle offered a bunch of sh*t and we said no adam moore no thank you and they walked away. I don't remember the other things.

 

I mean, something to also remember with Delmon was he was traded to Min, a team that is basically the polar opposite of sabr and total scouting/small ball. Maybe they'd give up something great for Hermida if they didn't have Delmon. BUt their OF is crowded now. You can only get as much is as offered.

I think everyone was disappointed in the returns we got for Willingham. I know I was. However, when you think about it, what were we really expecting to get back? He had just come off an injury prone season and his value was at an all-time low. Yet he was still an .850+ ops player who was also one of our only hitters that seemed to do the small things right at the plate.

 

I still don't think people on this thread entirely understand the concept that trading very good players when their value has hit rock bottom is NOT a good move. Because as in Willingham's case, you're giving away an .850 OPS player for nothing. If you have two players on your team who are seemingly redundant and you need to trade one, its just not always the smart thing to do to give one guy away when you could have gotten a good trade for the other.

Hermida was the #4 prospect in baseball going into 2006. He was basically as highly rated as Delmon.

 

Delmon Young was also coming off a year when he only had a .723 OPS. Hermida had a .729 OPS, so he actually out OPS'd delmon.

 

however, you can only get what's offered to you. All offseason we heard about how nobody wanted to give up much. TB offered Jackson or Sonnanstine and we asked for me. I don't remember the exact offer but Seattle offered a bunch of sh*t and we said no adam moore no thank you and they walked away. I don't remember the other things.

 

I mean, something to also remember with Delmon was he was traded to Min, a team that is basically the polar opposite of sabr and total scouting/small ball. Maybe they'd give up something great for Hermida if they didn't have Delmon. BUt their OF is crowded now. You can only get as much is as offered.

 

 

The thing is Young's .723 OPS year came as a 21 year old in his first full season. It's hard to believe he's only 23 right now. 2008 was Hermida's third year in the bigs, and he was 24 (though he had actually shown something at the big league level unlike Young). Still, in limited playing time in 2006 (131 PA), Young also put up an OPS of .812.

 

Young was as highly touted as they come. Baseball America actually ranked him as the #3 prospect in baseball before he had even played an inning of pro ball. He was considered a top-three prospect in every year of his pro career. Despite his mediocre 2007 as a 21 year old, I doubt his status diminished as much as Hermida after 2008.

 

Regardless, we weren't going to pull anyone's #1 organizational prospect for Hermida last offseason (like Garza was for the twins in 2007).

I think everyone was disappointed in the returns we got for Willingham. I know I was. However, when you think about it, what were we really expecting to get back? He had just come off an injury prone season and his value was at an all-time low. Yet he was still an .850+ ops player who was also one of our only hitters that seemed to do the small things right at the plate.

 

I still don't think people on this thread entirely understand the concept that trading very good players when their value has hit rock bottom is NOT a good move. Because as in Willingham's case, you're giving away an .850 OPS player for nothing. If you have two players on your team who are seemingly redundant and you need to trade one, its just not always the smart thing to do to give one guy away when you could have gotten a good trade for the other.

 

 

I certainly agree in concept, but fact remains Beinfest had the budget he had. Not only that but Hermida had a lot more long term potential than Hammer did.

 

Also, whichever he traded would have been traded for pennies on the dollar. Again, all the reported trades for Hermida were absolutley crap. TB was only offering Sonnanstine or Edwin Jackson (Who, yeah, has had a big year, but also only was traded for Matt Joyce later). Also looked back up the Seattle thing, for both Hermida and Coghlan We aksed for Jose Lopez, Adam Moore, Ryan Rowland-Smith, and Juan Ramirez (A good haul). They counted with Jose Lopez, Cesar Jimenez, Rob Johnson and either Luis Valbuena or Matt Tuiasosopo. We said Adam Moore needed to be in a trade, they walked away. What they offered us was absolute sh*t.

 

You can't say we'd have gotten more for Hermida when basically the entire offseason was "teams aren't offering anything for Hermida." Ideally we'd keep both, hell if we did we probably start the year with Hammer at 1b and cantu at 3b. But things are they way they are budget wise.

We're 5th in runs scored (4.56 per game) but we're 12th in OPS at .723. The run scoring will go down by a good chunk if we keep OPSing .723.

 

 

But we're also one of the best base running teams http://www.beyondthe...the-baserunning

 

+10 runs

 

10 runs is worth roughly 30 OPS points So that'd put us at .753 which would be 5th but that's not all that accurate because that doesn't change other teams.

 

Doing 1 run = .003 points that'd put us 6th

 

col .823

phil .780

lad .779

mil .759

stl .755

flor .753

was .742

 

so we should be able to keep that up

 

give me a bit and I'll try doings XR per game + baserunning runs

That seems very high.

 

We're scoring around 0.30 to 0.40 more runs per game that what we should be based on the .723 OPS and the baserunning would explain maybe 0.10 of that.

We're 5th in runs scored (4.56 per game) but we're 12th in OPS at .723. The run scoring will go down by a good chunk if we keep OPSing .723.

 

 

But we're also one of the best base running teams http://www.beyondthe...the-baserunning

 

+10 runs

 

10 runs is worth roughly 30 OPS points So that'd put us at .753 which would be 5th but that's not all that accurate because that doesn't change other teams.

 

Doing 1 run = .003 points that'd put us 6th

 

col .823

phil .780

lad .779

mil .759

stl .755

flor .753

was .742

 

so we should be able to keep that up

 

give me a bit and I'll try doings XR per game + baserunning runs

That seems very high.

 

We're scoring around 0.30 to 0.40 more runs per game that what we should be based on the .723 OPS and the baserunning would explain maybe 0.10 of that.

 

which part, the 30 points or the 10 runs?

 

that's roughly what i've found converting ops to runs in the past.

That the 10 additional runs is worth 30 OPS points seems high.. the 30 OPS points.