After some doubt, Angels acquire Kazmir from Rays
The Tampa Bay Rays, 3 1/2 games out of the American League Wild Card, have given up with a little over a month remaining in the season. Why do I say this? Well, they traded 25-year old lefthanded starting pitcher Scott Kazmir, who, in spite of a uncharacteristically poor 5.29 ERA, has pitched well of late, to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for two prospects, pitcher Alexander Torres and third baseman Matt Sweeney.
They wanted to be rid of the remaining $20 million on his contract that ends after the 2011 season, and use the money elsewhere. I understand that, but, given his recent success, why not showcase him in September, hope he can lead Tampa Bay into the playoffs, then field offers during the Winter. So, why did they trade Kazmir now? I haven’t the slightest idea.
Lyle Spencer, who writes for the Angels on MLB.com, reported at one o’ clock Pacific Time that Anaheim was close to acquiring Kazmir, saying the Rays were “on the verge” of completing the trade for the two prospects previously mentioned.
Then, a half an hour later, ESPN’s Buster Olney and Sports Illustrated’s Jon Heyman both confirmed Spencer’s report.
So-called sources–Spencer, Olney, and Heyman–knew about the proposed deal, but interestingly enough, Kazmir did not. According to Marc Topkin, a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times, at approximately 1:45, Kazmir was approached by a pair of writers in Tampa Bay’s clubhouse and was asked about the reported trade to Anaheim. He hadn’t been informed about a possible trade, and apparently thought the writers were kidding. He thought it was some sort of joke, and had reason to.
His velocity is down a bit, and his strikeout rate hasn’t been what it was in season’s past, but both of these can be attributed to a variety of injuries he has suffered this season, most notably a quadriceps strain that likely weakened his drive to home-plate. So, the Rays brass would have to be out of their minds to trade him solely based on his underwhelming statistics this season.
Spencer then reported that the deal fell through. As far as he was concerned, Kazmir would remain a member of the Rays. Upon reading this, I jumped to the conclusion that Tampa Bay pulled the plug and realized how important Kazmir, the healthy version who struck out ten in his last outing, was to their teams success. I figured their 32-year old General Manager, Andrew Friedman, had come to his senses.
Then, ten minutes after Spencer changed his report, Joel Sherman of the New York Post heard that a deal was in place and that Kazmir is “definitely going to the Angels.” What made this so interesting is that neither team had confirmed anything. So, given this and Spencer’s initial report, I thought little of Sherman’s.
At 3:00 Pacific Time, a half an hour after Sherman’s report, Topkin said the deal would be completed within the hour. Yet, there was still no word from either the Rays or Angels. At 4:00, by when Topkin said Kazmir would be an Angel, Topkin said that the move wouldn’t be made official until the conclusion of the Rays-Detroit Tigers game.
No one affiliated with the discussions has gone on the record confirming even talks between the Rays and Angels, yet, growing tiresome of all the speculation, I give in. I now consider Kazmir a member of the Angels.
So with this said, I feel comfortable analyzing the trade. This is a fantastic move for Anaheim, as they acquire a talented pitcher to add to their staff full of them. Jered Weaver leads the team with 13 wins, a 4.06 ERA, and 145 strikeouts, while a pair of 30-year old’s, Matt Palmer and John Lackey have a combined 17-8 record and a 4.21 ERA. Kazmir gives the Angels a fourth quality starter, something many other contending teams lack.
Though I believe the Rays could have received a better haul for Kazmir on the open market, they still did okay. They acquired a possible replacement in Torres, a 21-year old lefty who has the fifth most strikeouts among lefthanders, 145, in the minor leagues this season. Sweeney also leaves the Angels system for Tampa Bay’s. The 21-year old played with Anaheim’s Single-A affiliate and possessed some power as well as terrific plate discipline, with a strikeout/walk ratio of 37:26 in 211 at-bats. Whereas Torres could find his way onto Tampa Bay’s roster in 2010, Sweeney is farther off. If he makes the majors, he won’t be their third baseman, as Evan Longoria will hold down that position, but with his abilities, they’ll find a spot for him.
This move for the Rays gives them financial flexibility for the future and allows them to call up their third-ranked prospect, 23-year old pitcher Wade Davis. Yet, though there are many viable reasons for trading Kazmir, I am stunned they would give him up so willingly when they are right in the middle of the Wild Card hunt. Sure they can bring up Davis, but they just gave up one of their better pitchers and one of their few reliable pieces that could have led them into the postseason.
Finally, at 7:43 Pacific Time, the LA Times’ Bill Shaikin reported that the Angels officially announced the acquisition of Kazmir. Officially, I can say they improve greatly, while the Rays puzzingly throw away their chance to compete the rest of the way.
As surprising as this is, it really isn’t.
This isn’t a baseball move, this move is about economics, and not the economics of baseball.
This is about the financial collapse.
The owner of the Rays was a Wall St. guy, Goldman Sachs I think, if not one of the other major investment banks, and these guys are strapped. For them, their balance sheets are just like the housing and banking collapses, they have no liquidity, they are just manipulating accounting rules to take a finger in the dike method of staving off the inevitable, which cannot be avoided.
The Rangers are already insolvent, there have been recent credible reports that the Wilpons got taken for $700 million by Bernie Maddoff and will as soon as next year be forced to sell, and part of this group includes Jon Henry, as we discussed before.
Jon Henry is a trader, he doesn’t put together deals, he doesn’t even break up and liquidate companies, basically what he is, is a house flipper, albeit on a much higher level, and instead of focusing on real estate, he just flips anything that will move and turn a profit.
Don’t get me wrong, guys like him are geniuses, he can use algorithmic formulas to basically make money out of thin air, but the problem is once the market changes his formulas do not work.
The whole country is going in the tank, and fast, and there is no algorithmic formula that can avoid that, and guys like this are going over the edge first.
I am not saying that Henry is broke, that is never going to happen, and if it did happen, he still wouldn’t be broke. Donald Trump has been in bankruptcy several times. However, what I have been saying all along about the Manny situation was correct, it was no different than this Kazmir deal, both were done out of a basic need to shrink the payroll.
Now both situations are not absolutely identical, I think the Rays overextended themselves financially to put the franchise at the next level, as they needed to do for credibility, and the fact that they traded him to a contender within their own league shows that they tried to ride out the year with their current payroll and they couldn’t make it work and they found themselves boxed in. Henry on the other hand was probably trying to stay ahead of the curve in terms of payroll and financial flexibility so he didn’t down the road find himself boxed in like the Rays did, and he rationalized it as, hey, Manny is a jerk anyway, so why am I going to let him keep me awake at night worrying about it, especially when I can get rid of him now, and spin my way out of it in the press, and put it all on Manny, which is what the Red Sox did.
However, the Manny Ramirez and Scott Kazmir deals are much more similar than they are different, and that only goes to show you the power of the media in creating and shaping public opinion.
The key to using the media to manipulate, is to do it in such a way that those being manipulated never know that they have been manipulated.
When Manny got traded Red Sox fans passionately believed that it was a baseball move and not an economic move, at the time they also passionately believed that Jason Bay was a better baseball player than Manny Ramirez, and they also believed that it was Manny and not the Red Sox who instigated the separation.
If you ask Red Sox fans now they will acknowledge that while Jason Bay is a good player, he is a border line All Star where Manny is one of the best hitters in a generation, and the comparison isn’t close. Red Sox fans will also have to acknowledge the fact that the Red Sox payroll has been decreased by approximately $20 million per year, which is what they were paying Manny.
If you want to look at the situation objectively, Manny wanted to stay, he wanted to stay very badly, whether it was picking up one option or two, or a new deal, and if there was a new deal Manny wasn’t looking to set the market. He made that clear in an ESPN interview with Peter Gammons last spring in Ft. Myers. The Red Sox made the conscious decision that they were going to cut payroll and scapegoat Manny to give themselves cover.
I understand that you are going to argue all of this, but don’t bother, because my point on this is beyond the Red Sox and beyond baseball.
Those who have been manipulated, NEVER wish to acknowledge it. That is why Red Sox fans, despite the outcome, basically say that they would rather loose without Manny than win with him.
That is the wrong outlook to take, but most people go that way because it is an emotionally based decision they make, because it is just too overwhelming for them to confront the fact that much of their values and beliefs are based upon lies that have been fed to them.
In your short lifetime this country has changed greatly, and not for the better, and it is going to continue to change, and not for the better.
No longer do we have independent media who are in competition to deliver truthful information to citizens, we have multi national corporations competing to shape public opinion and propagandize the public so to best serve various competing financial interests.
Those who believe everything they are being spoon fed are finding themselves more and more disillusioned because they can no longer find a way to conform with the current grim reality their belief systems that have been carefully constructed through media manipulation.
Most people in this country have spent their entire lives being told that things are good and they are only going to get better, and they can no longer reconcile that with the reality that things are bad, they are really bad, and they are only going to get worse.
It is impossible for a person to truly be happy if they live their lives emotionally displaced from reality, which is why you see more and more people out there completely losing it.
The key to being able to achieve happiness is such turbulent times, is to be able to identify what actual reality is and to disassociate from the emotionally based alternate reality that our leaders are trying to foster upon us so to paper over their failures. After all, while it may or may not get that bad, you hear old people talk about growing up in the great depression, and most of them say, we had nothing, but we were happy and we were grateful.
The only way to get there is through critical thinking, which for the most part means that you evaluate information from all possible sources and operate under the presumption that in totality it all emanates from a broad range of interests and agendas, and collectively most of it is lies, and some it are truths, and you have to weed out the lies, and reconcile the truths that come from all directions, and through enough time and critical thinking, you will actually be able to figure out what is going on, and most importantly WHAT IS PROBABLY GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT.
In this kind of political and economic climate, where things may very well at some point, perhaps even sometime soon, deteriorate rapidly, being able to forecast, being able to think ahead of the curve and plan 3 moves ahead, instead of being just reactionary could not only be the difference between success and failure, it could prove to be a matter of survival.
The key to all of it is independent analysis through critical thinking.
If you are incapable of that in developing on your own your belief system when it comes to something as simple as sports, then you are condemning yourself to a insignificant existence because you will never master the matters which are more important. Certainly, you will never be a reporter. How can you possibly master the manipulation of the opinions of others when you are confined by such manipulation yourself?
You need to totally immerse yourself in the tactics used by both the left and the right in order to first identify them and then later harness them. Watch both MSNBC and FOX, read the Washington Post and NY Post.
Most importantly, read your local newspaper, and become familiar with individual bylines of the stringers who cover local political affairs. First you have to recognize what your local issues are, then you will be able to identify the political alliances on both sides of them, and then identifying that, you will over time be able to identify how individual reporters are trying to push opinion in one way or another, and often you will have on the same staff reporters who are in competition with each other trying to push opinion in opposite directions.
This is the only way you can master your craft, because journalism is all about politics.
Do you really think people like Jeremy Shapp, Lisa Salters, Mike Greenberg, and Scott Van Pelt, are ignorant on the subjects of political and economic affairs?
You could put any one of these reporters in the White House Press Corps, or down on the floor of the NYSE, or at the next Fed Meeting and all of these people would be able to immediately identify what their lead is and cover any and all of these matters clearly, concisely, and proficiently.
You want to be able to get a job as a sports reporter?
Proving you are a stat head, and a fan with encyclopedic knowledge isn’t going to impress any editor anywhere. All that qualifies you to be a caller on talk radio, nothing more.
If you want to impress and editor, show them you are at least interested in mastering your craft, which is the art of manipulation through communication.
The only way to do that is to have a deep interest and understanding in political affairs, from the perspective of both sides of the aisle, because journalism is the business of selling ideas, and politics, and political journalism, is the marketplace of ideas.
All you need to do is form a plan and actually pursue it.
Always have a contingency, you cannot just presume this guy will get Fanhuddle off the ground in time for the NBA season.
I will be checking your writings and will check in on you after the playoffs start.
Good luck
I agree with your opinion on the Kazmir situation and the Manny situation. It makes complete sense. For Tampa Bay, it was all financial, and for Boston, trading Manny was not just because of his antics, it was financial as well.
I will be writing for Fan Huddle starting September 10th. At that time, I will write a post on this site directing those who want to read my take on the Portland Trail Blazers to my site on Fan Huddle.
Thanks for your advice, and, just to let you know, I will keep this site going and continue to write about baseball and other odds and ends. I just can’t write about the Blazers here anymore, obviously.
I appreciate your kind words, and look forward to hearing from you in the future.
Wow…still looking forward to the end of the 09 season tho.