Veteran righty Jason Marquis just signed a $15 million, two-year deal with the Nationals to eat 200 innings with below-average results for an up-and-coming staff. Another veteran rightly, Javier Vazquez, just fetched Melky Cabrera for the Braves in a trade with the Yankees.
What do these two statements have in common? Evidentally, nothing.
In a time when arms are worth their weight in highly-enriched uranium, the Braves parlayed an above-average starter with a below-market contract -- he's due $9 million/year -- for... Melky Cabrera? Is there any commodity more abundant in baseball than fourth outfielders? Didn't they just cut Ryan Church and trade Jeff Francoeur? What, Ryan Spillborghs wasn't available? The Royals wouldn't part with Willie Bloomquist? Gabe Kapler's demanding his own conditioning coach?
This is a miserable waste of a valuable commodity by Atlanta. Frank Wren must have had a plane to catch when he made this deal, because a #3 starter should fetch real value, not the third trombone in the nobody parade.
There were some prospects in this deal, so maybe one of them is the second coming of Joe Dimaggio. Even then, the Braves' plan was supposed to be to flip one of their surplus quality starters for a big banging outfielder who could solidify a gelatin lineup and challenge the Phillies for the division title NOW. What they got was Melky Cabrera, all .274/.336/.416 of him. (That would be the numbers from his best year -- last -- which marked year five of the "Melky the Future Star" show.) The Braves needed a hitter, not another edition of Garret Anderson.
Here's another data point in the argument against us Yankee haters. Credit Brian Cashman yet again for conning a perfectly respectable GM into giving him a good starter -- Vazquez has been worth 13 wins over the last three years relative to a replacement level pitcher -- in exchange for a replaceable part. This deal had little to do with New York's advantages, monetary or otherwise, and everything to do with Atlanta misjudging the value of a precious commodity.
Melky Cabrera!
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