Capital City Ironmen trades away
Manaea, Sean (probably $3)
Preseason Double Stuffs trades away
Mountcastle, Ryan
$20 2018 Auction
Disclaimer 1: I have not written about someone else’s trade since the deadline, so excuse me if I’m rusty.
Joe TBD Rawlings: [paraphrasing, profanity redacted] I don’t like this trade for Ferns.
Hustle’s .$02:
I choose to review this trade as Manea for $20 because I assumed this deal was going to be made after I was kicked out of a 3-way. If I come off as bitter or petty in this review, I agree with your assessment… but in reality that’s no different than any other review.
I thought $20 for Manea was fine, I actually may have liked it more for Ferns. Ferns buying low on a cost controlled pitcher with what I view as excess auction cash. Seems prudent. PSDS could be a good team next year if a lot of things break right, but I’d say most likely they are a year away. With that mind, why not spend excess cash in 2018 for a guy who will be very reasonably priced in 2019, and if his price goes up a ton, that’s probably a good thing.
Manaea was good in the first half, velocity dipped and was bad in the second half (PUT STATS HERE). If he’s better next year, Ferns has a good rotation piece that will help him next year and beyond, and relatively well priced. If Manaea sucks, then Ferns spent $20 +$3 on a bad pitcher in a rebuilding year… which becomes irrelevant because it’s no worse than busting on a player in the auction which almost all of us will do. This is slightly better because he has the upside of a controlled cheaper asset. Thus I did like it for Ferns. It’s low risk and Manaea can certainly rebound.
For Bailey, who is cash strapped, $20 to sell low on what was once a much better asset doesn’t seem too much of a sell low. Additionally, after 2 straight seasons of mismanaging his money in the auction, does $20 really matter? If his incompetence in managing auction money leads him to lucking into the 2018 Morton again, you just have to shrug and say “good job”.
I legitimately thought this was a good trade for Ferns, but then I saw Mountcastle was included in the deal and I soured just a little bit. I’m pretty sure both parties would have done the trade for $20, Bailey can correct me or pretend otherwise. I think Ferns should have probably pushed harder to keep Mountcastle, I don’t think anyone is in the position to just be giving away borderline top 100 prospects in a league where 400 will be carried next year, let alone rebuilding teams. Mountcastle is fine (PUT STATS HERE), probably a jabroni, but would have been good enough to make it on my farm team, and that’s the Hustle Media (TM) #1 ranked farm team, so he has some stand alone value. He’s on the Orioles, so that’s probably more exciting for Bailey.
Mountcastle probably pushes me to liking this trade more for Bailey just because he gets back some future potential to balance out Manaea’s loss for one year of extra cash. If Manea rebounds, this works out well for Ferns.
To quote Andrew Bailey from his own rap
“Over 79 from Bellinger and 59.5 from Votto
Seriously guys, trade with @ferns, it’s like hitting the lotto”
I admire Ferns ability to keep trading with Bailey, it shows character to keep getting up after knocked down. They have traded together at least 4 or 5 times. The Miggy for Urias trade might still work out for Ferns depending on if Urias ever pitches again, but at worst it’s probably a wash with how expensive Miggy is and his back problems, but the others seemed to go in Bailey’s favor. This one seems relatively low risk unless Mountcastle blows up in 2018.
Dusty