Tropical Tidbits 34.05 - What Might Have Been...

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Tropical Tidbits 34.05 - What Might Have Been...

Post by udlb58 » Fri Feb 23, 2018 9:53 am

Teams use their minor leagues in different ways. Some believe on building through the draft/international signings and rarely trade away prospects, some treat prospects as currency to purchase established veterans, some are in perpetual rebuild and are seemingly always trading away major league talent for the promise of a prospect, and all things in between.

Generally, I believe in holding on to the assets you feel most valuable and not worrying too much about all the rest. Normally, when rebuilding (the way Greenville was back in November of 2025), that means keeping all minor league assets and stripping the majors of all talent possible in an effort to turn that current ability into future wins. But, I took a bit of a different approach with the Moonshiners.

Back then, there wasn't much talent on the major league roster (literally). Of the 9.7 WAR put up by the team's players that year, 6.3 WAR was already out the door with Reed, Hernandez, and Alvarado on their way to testing free agency. The most valuable returning player was 33 year old Bucky Martinez. Clearly, there was no more talent left to sell off at the major league level. The only problem....there wasn't much in the way of minor league talent either.

Rutledge hadn't yet exploded (he was 6/6/5 back in 2025), Cunningham/Saunders/Kung (the previous 3 1st round picks) all looked like solid contributors but none were future stars. The only real prospects to speak of were Felipe Baez, Vicente Chavez and maybe Dave Robertson.

I made a decision back then. I was going to keep Chavez, the bumping Rutledge, and Baez (whoops) to be the core of the rebuild, combine them with the two #1 overall picks we were set to get (whoopsie #2), and move all of the other prospects in the system for players who I felt were of more value or fit my needs better.

There have been some lows (trading two very good pitching prospects for Workman, then losing 90+ games) and some highs (acquiring two offensive cornerstones when correcting the Workman mistake), but let us take a look at all of the minor leaguers who were traded away and see what kind of team we could have had here in Jacksonville if we hadn't traded them away.

All of these players were used to acquire Billy Chapel, Jr., Tully Crow, Jesus Tonche, Martin Ssempa, Viacheslav Vasilyev, Felix Alvarado, Bartolo Cruz, Liam Pringle, Lorenzo Montalvo, Paul Scholes, Edgardo Pagan, Orlando Medrano, Lloyd Braun, Owen Stark, Bertram Hahn, Aloysius Gonzaga, Sergio Ramos, Emilio Rodriguez, Leon Sandcastle, Leon Beaucage, James Braddock, Joao Silva, and Albie Racist

Starting Pitcher
Clearly my biggest weakness in all of these areas. There is a respectable BBA rotation to be had out of these starting pitchers as a rotation of Baez/Arnold/Garcia/Georges and some combination of Negrete/Riley/Hugill/Fajardo wouldn't be the worst rotation in the league (hell, once Romano and Ramirez develop, Beaz/Arnold/Garcia/Georges/Romano/Ramirez may be better than whatever we have in Jacksonville). Beaz is the clear mistake in the Workman trade. Arnold looks like a bad move now that Howard lumped into nothing, but it should have been a good move for both teams. Garcia and Romano may turn out to look like a mistake in the Sunshine trade. Everyone else, I'd trade again. All said, we've traded away pitchers who have a combined 201 BBA wins to their name.

SP Felipe Baez (9/7/8 Talents, 82 - 56, 3.99 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 967 K)
SP Travis Arnold (8/7/8 Talents, 21 - 15, 3.66 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 222 K)
SP Jose Garcia (9/7/6 Talents, 10 - 12, 4.28 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 190 K)
SP Andre Georges (8/7/8 Talents, 23 - 42, 5.04 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 358 K)
SP Manuel Romano (9/7/7 Talents)
SP Alejandro Ramirez (8/7/7 Talents)
SP Julio Negrete (7/6/8 Talents, 19 - 45, 4.84 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 386 K)
SP Steve Riley (8/7/5 Talents, 21 - 32, 4.74 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 354 K)
SP Bert Hugill (7/7/8 Talents, 9 - 21, 5.55 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 126 K)
SP Gonzalo Fajardo (6/7/8 Talents, 13 - 23, 5.13 ERA, 1.57 WHIP, 168 K)
SP Artie Archer (7/7/8 Talents)
SP Byung-doo Yi (8/8/5 Talents)
SP Belmiro Maanico (10/6/5 Talents)
SP Justin Sproule (6/7/7 Talents)
SP Mark McCray (6/7/8 Talents, 0 - 1, 4.57 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 6 K)
SP Austin Stinson (6/7/6 Talents)
SP Hayden Green (6/7/6 Talents, 3 - 0, 4.16 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 43 K)

Relief Pitchers
Many of these relievers were minor league free agents and late round picks who had bumped enough to be useful. Outside of a few elite relievers, I don't think any relief pitcher is worth much in a trade. Would move all of these guys again, even Coyle.

RP Jerry Coyle (9/8/8 Talents, 4 - 4, 4.70 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 50 K)
RP Jose Reyes (9/7/6 Talents, 13 - 22, 4.66 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 180 K)
RP Felix Usquiano (9/6/7 Talents)
RP Cal Crowder (9/6/7 Talents, 5 - 5, 4.32 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 86 K)
RP Eduard Menosky (7/7/8 Talents)
RP Kent Ward (7/6/8 Talents, 2 - 3, 5.66 ERA, 1.62 WHIP, 52 K)
RP Vicente Ventura (8/7/7 Talents, 0 - 1, 5.74 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 10 K)
RP Fernando Castillo (6/7/7 Talents, 0 - 3, 4.41 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 29 K)
RP Antonio Torres (7/8/4 Talents)
RP Dennie Gestel (9/6/6 Talents)
RP Artie Powell (10/6/2 Talents)
RP Jorge Luna (9/7/4 Talents)
RP Tony Alomar (8/6/6 Talents)
RP Jesse Howard (6/7/6 Talents, 15 - 21, 4.66 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 194 K)
RP Jose Ramirez (8/7/5 Talents)
RP Joey Flannery (8/6/8 Talents)
RP Jorge Delgado (8/5/3 Talents)

Infield
You could probably scrape together an infield out of these guys, but outside of Gustafsen (and maybe Barron in 5 years), there isn't anything you'd be clamoring to bring back. You could create one hell of a defense out of these guys (and the outfielders) though! Just don't look at the batting line.

C Jake Blues (7/7/7/6/5 Talents, .239/.296/.400, 49 HR, 187 RBI)
C Juan Rivera (6/6/7/5/6 Talents)
C Jose Fuentes (5/6/8/4/3 Talents)
2B Arturo Barron (5/8/9/6/4 Talents)
3B Wendel Clark (7/6/6/4/5 Talents)
UTL Carlos Salazar (5/7/4/5/6 Talents, .219/.301/.311, 3 HR, 18 RBI)
UTL Tony Gustafsen (7/6/1/4/8 Talents, .292/.323/.380, 6 HR, 152 RBI)
UTL Rafael Diaz (5/6/3/4/7 Talents)
UTL Adam Johnson (5/5/2/6/6 Talents, .231/.307/.325, 10 HR, 79 RBI)
UTL Zi-jing Lou (6/8/6/5/7 Talents)

Outfield
Again, you could scrape an outfield lineup out of Silva/Dundee/Saldana/Aoki, but there are no real all-star level contributors here.

LF Joao Silva (6/5/6/4/10 Talents, .266/.289/.431, 21 HR, 91 RBI)
LF Saikaku Aoki (6/7/8/4/6 Talents)
CF John Dundee (7/9/6/3/7 Talents)
CF Luis Lopez (6/7/5/5/6 Talents)
CF Roman Reyes (5/6/7/6/6 Talents, .227/.290/.368, 34 HR, 120 RBI)
CF Anibal Salazar (5/5/2/3/7 Talents)
CF Marc-Andre Poirier (5/5/3/5/6 Talents, .244/.295/.341, 1 HR, 10 RBI)
OF Sexto Castillo (5/5/1/5/6 Talents, .224/.269/.265, 0 HR, 2 RBI)
RF Pedro Saldana (6/8/6/5/7 Talents)
RF Lester Hall (4/5/3/5/6 Talents)

Verdict
So, did we cripple our franchise in the long term in exchange for short-term gain? I don't really think so. The only trades I'd even consider taking back in order to have back the lost prospects are the Workman trade that sent out Baez and Riley, the Sunshine trade that sent out Garcia and Romano, and the Howard trade that blew up in my face (losing Arnold and Coyle). I don't see anyone else (maybe Gustafsen?) who would be competing for a starting role on the club over the next 2-4 seasons.
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Re: Tropical Tidbits 34.05 - What Might Have Been...

Post by usnspecialist » Fri Feb 23, 2018 10:02 am

udlb58 wrote:Teams use their minor leagues in different ways. Some believe on building through the draft/international signings and rarely trade away prospects, some treat prospects as currency to purchase established veterans, some are in perpetual rebuild and are seemingly always trading away major league talent for the promise of a prospect, and all things in between.

Generally, I believe in holding on to the assets you feel most valuable and not worrying too much about all the rest. Normally, when rebuilding (the way Greenville was back in November of 2025), that means keeping all minor league assets and stripping the majors of all talent possible in an effort to turn that current ability into future wins. But, I took a bit of a different approach with the Moonshiners.

Back then, there wasn't much talent on the major league roster (literally). Of the 9.7 WAR put up by the team's players that year, 6.3 WAR was already out the door with Reed, Hernandez, and Alvarado on their way to testing free agency. The most valuable returning player was 33 year old Bucky Martinez. Clearly, there was no more talent left to sell off at the major league level. The only problem....there wasn't much in the way of minor league talent either.

Rutledge hadn't yet exploded (he was 6/6/5 back in 2025), Cunningham/Saunders/Kung (the previous 3 1st round picks) all looked like solid contributors but none were future stars. The only real prospects to speak of were Felipe Baez, Vicente Chavez and maybe Dave Robertson.

I made a decision back then. I was going to keep Chavez, the bumping Rutledge, and Baez (whoops) to be the core of the rebuild, combine them with the two #1 overall picks we were set to get (whoopsie #2), and move all of the other prospects in the system for players who I felt were of more value or fit my needs better.

There have been some lows (trading two very good pitching prospects for Workman, then losing 90+ games) and some highs (acquiring two offensive cornerstones when correcting the Workman mistake), but let us take a look at all of the minor leaguers who were traded away and see what kind of team we could have had here in Jacksonville if we hadn't traded them away.

All of these players were used to acquire Billy Chapel, Jr., Tully Crow, Jesus Tonche, Martin Ssempa, Viacheslav Vasilyev, Felix Alvarado, Bartolo Cruz, Liam Pringle, Lorenzo Montalvo, Paul Scholes, Edgardo Pagan, Orlando Medrano, Lloyd Braun, Owen Stark, Bertram Hahn, Aloysius Gonzaga, Sergio Ramos, Emilio Rodriguez, Leon Sandcastle, Leon Beaucage, James Braddock, Joao Silva, and Albie Racist

Starting Pitcher
Clearly my biggest weakness in all of these areas. There is a respectable BBA rotation to be had out of these starting pitchers as a rotation of Baez/Arnold/Garcia/Georges and some combination of Negrete/Riley/Hugill/Fajardo wouldn't be the worst rotation in the league (hell, once Romano and Ramirez develop, Beaz/Arnold/Garcia/Georges/Romano/Ramirez may be better than whatever we have in Jacksonville). Beaz is the clear mistake in the Workman trade. Arnold looks like a bad move now that Howard lumped into nothing, but it should have been a good move for both teams. Garcia and Romano may turn out to look like a mistake in the Sunshine trade. Everyone else, I'd trade again. All said, we've traded away pitchers who have a combined 201 BBA wins to their name.

SP Felipe Baez (9/7/8 Talents, 82 - 56, 3.99 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 967 K)
SP Travis Arnold (8/7/8 Talents, 21 - 15, 3.66 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 222 K)
SP Jose Garcia (9/7/6 Talents, 10 - 12, 4.28 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 190 K)
SP Andre Georges (8/7/8 Talents, 23 - 42, 5.04 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 358 K)
SP Manuel Romano (9/7/7 Talents)
SP Alejandro Ramirez (8/7/7 Talents)
SP Julio Negrete (7/6/8 Talents, 19 - 45, 4.84 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 386 K)
SP Steve Riley (8/7/5 Talents, 21 - 32, 4.74 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 354 K)
SP Bert Hugill (7/7/8 Talents, 9 - 21, 5.55 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 126 K)
SP Gonzalo Fajardo (6/7/8 Talents, 13 - 23, 5.13 ERA, 1.57 WHIP, 168 K)
SP Artie Archer (7/7/8 Talents)
SP Byung-doo Yi (8/8/5 Talents)
SP Belmiro Maanico (10/6/5 Talents)
SP Justin Sproule (6/7/7 Talents)
SP Mark McCray (6/7/8 Talents, 0 - 1, 4.57 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 6 K)
SP Austin Stinson (6/7/6 Talents)
SP Hayden Green (6/7/6 Talents, 3 - 0, 4.16 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 43 K)

Relief Pitchers
Many of these relievers were minor league free agents and late round picks who had bumped enough to be useful. Outside of a few elite relievers, I don't think any relief pitcher is worth much in a trade. Would move all of these guys again, even Coyle.

RP Jerry Coyle (9/8/8 Talents, 4 - 4, 4.70 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 50 K)
RP Jose Reyes (9/7/6 Talents, 13 - 22, 4.66 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 180 K)
RP Felix Usquiano (9/6/7 Talents)
RP Cal Crowder (9/6/7 Talents, 5 - 5, 4.32 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 86 K)
RP Eduard Menosky (7/7/8 Talents)
RP Kent Ward (7/6/8 Talents, 2 - 3, 5.66 ERA, 1.62 WHIP, 52 K)
RP Vicente Ventura (8/7/7 Talents, 0 - 1, 5.74 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 10 K)
RP Fernando Castillo (6/7/7 Talents, 0 - 3, 4.41 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 29 K)
RP Antonio Torres (7/8/4 Talents)
RP Dennie Gestel (9/6/6 Talents)
RP Artie Powell (10/6/2 Talents)
RP Jorge Luna (9/7/4 Talents)
RP Tony Alomar (8/6/6 Talents)
RP Jesse Howard (6/7/6 Talents, 15 - 21, 4.66 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 194 K)
RP Jose Ramirez (8/7/5 Talents)
RP Joey Flannery (8/6/8 Talents)
RP Jorge Delgado (8/5/3 Talents)

Infield
You could probably scrape together an infield out of these guys, but outside of Gustafsen (and maybe Barron in 5 years), there isn't anything you'd be clamoring to bring back. You could create one hell of a defense out of these guys (and the outfielders) though! Just don't look at the batting line.

C Jake Blues (7/7/7/6/5 Talents, .239/.296/.400, 49 HR, 187 RBI)
C Juan Rivera (6/6/7/5/6 Talents)
C Jose Fuentes (5/6/8/4/3 Talents)
2B Arturo Barron (5/8/9/6/4 Talents)
3B Wendel Clark (7/6/6/4/5 Talents)
UTL Carlos Salazar (5/7/4/5/6 Talents, .219/.301/.311, 3 HR, 18 RBI)
UTL Tony Gustafsen (7/6/1/4/8 Talents, .292/.323/.380, 6 HR, 152 RBI)
UTL Rafael Diaz (5/6/3/4/7 Talents)
UTL Adam Johnson (5/5/2/6/6 Talents, .231/.307/.325, 10 HR, 79 RBI)
UTL Zi-jing Lou (6/8/6/5/7 Talents)

Outfield
Again, you could scrape an outfield lineup out of Silva/Dundee/Saldana/Aoki, but there are no real all-star level contributors here.

LF Joao Silva (6/5/6/4/10 Talents, .266/.289/.431, 21 HR, 91 RBI)
LF Saikaku Aoki (6/7/8/4/6 Talents)
CF John Dundee (7/9/6/3/7 Talents)
CF Luis Lopez (6/7/5/5/6 Talents)
CF Roman Reyes (5/6/7/6/6 Talents, .227/.290/.368, 34 HR, 120 RBI)
CF Anibal Salazar (5/5/2/3/7 Talents)
CF Marc-Andre Poirier (5/5/3/5/6 Talents, .244/.295/.341, 1 HR, 10 RBI)
OF Sexto Castillo (5/5/1/5/6 Talents, .224/.269/.265, 0 HR, 2 RBI)
RF Pedro Saldana (6/8/6/5/7 Talents)
RF Lester Hall (4/5/3/5/6 Talents)

Verdict
So, did we cripple our franchise in the long term in exchange for short-term gain? I don't really think so. The only trades I'd even consider taking back in order to have back the lost prospects are the Workman trade that sent out Baez and Riley, the Sunshine trade that sent out Garcia and Romano, and the Howard trade that blew up in my face (losing Arnold and Coyle). I don't see anyone else (maybe Gustafsen?) who would be competing for a starting role on the club over the next 2-4 seasons.
i will have to do something like this in a few years, because i operated under a similar philosophy.
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Re: Tropical Tidbits 34.05 - What Might Have Been...

Post by Lane » Fri Feb 23, 2018 10:05 am

really neat way to look at trades/rebuilds
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Re: Tropical Tidbits 34.05 - What Might Have Been...

Post by udlb58 » Fri Feb 23, 2018 12:08 pm

Every time I go back and look at this team when I took over, I'm reminded of how shitty the situation was. I still believe all 4 expansion clubs started out their inaugural season with more talent than this club had in the 2025-26 offseason.
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Re: Tropical Tidbits 34.05 - What Might Have Been...

Post by Ted » Sat Feb 24, 2018 10:07 am

Umm. I think three expansion clubs did. Edmonton's expansion roster was a mess. And they didn't get many high end prospects either. I've always meant to ask the other expansion GMs what they thought while that was happening. I remember thinking that Charm City had drafted fairly well to be competitive soon. Phoenix looked like thy were taking the long road, but had amassed a ton of high end, if undeveloped talent, and Twin Cities was somewhere in between the two. And then there was Edmonton, who drafted a bunch of AAAA guys that didn't even get taken in the rule five draft.
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Re: Tropical Tidbits 34.05 - What Might Have Been...

Post by udlb58 » Sat Feb 24, 2018 10:44 am

Ted wrote:Umm. I think three expansion clubs did. Edmonton's expansion roster was a mess. And they didn't get many high end prospects either. I've always meant to ask the other expansion GMs what they thought while that was happening. I remember thinking that Charm City had drafted fairly well to be competitive soon. Phoenix looked like thy were taking the long road, but had amassed a ton of high end, if undeveloped talent, and Twin Cities was somewhere in between the two. And then there was Edmonton, who drafted a bunch of AAAA guys that didn't even get taken in the rule five draft.
I look at what Suzuki, Duarte, Fawcett, Kenny, Ayala, and Pinchon were back then and they aren't much different than what Baez, Rutledge, Cunningham, Cantu, EVS, and Saunders were when I took over. That makes the only difference between us Chavez, and it doesn't take into account them getting Gonzalez and Lynch as minor league free agents that offseason. Unless you're saying Martinez, Guerra, Aquino, Barron, Jimenez, Meilaart, and Cuthbertson were something more than AAAA players (Martinez was, but he was also 33 with 0 trade value)
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Re: Tropical Tidbits 34.05 - What Might Have Been...

Post by Ted » Sat Feb 24, 2018 11:12 am

I was thinking more about how bad Edmonton's expansion was compared to the others than how bad your team was. You have a solid point. Greenville was BAD.
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Re: Tropical Tidbits 34.05 - What Might Have Been...

Post by udlb58 » Sat Feb 24, 2018 1:20 pm

Ted wrote:I was thinking more about how bad Edmonton's expansion was compared to the others than how bad your team was. You have a solid point. Greenville was BAD.
And, yes, Edmonton's strategy at expansion was lacking
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