Flipping Melky Cabrera for Jonathan Sanchez Was a Stroke of Genius . . . and Other Horror Stories

Gather 'round the campfire boys and girls to hear the grisly fate of Uncle Braindrizzling's ghoulish 2012 definitive assertions. Actually, we're going to harken to the waning days of 2011 to examine what went right and what went terribly, terribly wrong.

For example, the goblins visited this post on November 8, 2011 in which the team of monkeys that staff Braindrizzling typewriters suggested that the Royals were more likely than the Giants to benefit from the swap of Melky Cabrera for Jonathan Sanchez. 

That would be the .346/.390/.516 Melk Man who staffed the San Francisco outfield and came within a Commissioner's decree of winning the batting title. Baseball-Reference says Cabrera was worth four wins against a replacement outfielder during his 113 games for the World Champs.

In contrast, Sanchez could not have been worth less to the Royals had he spontaneously combusted during spring training. In fact, in retrospect, that would have been a relief. Instead, he delivered 15 undead starts in which he walked 7.4 batters per nine innings, served up a homer-and-a-half per nine and accomplished 1-6, 7.76 worth of damage before KC shipped his growing hindquarters out the door, at a cost of $5.6 million.

TKO: Giants.

Of course the elephant in the room is a failed drug test. Cabrera was caught juicing 2/3rds of the way through the season and benched for the remainder and throughout the playoffs. So the monkeys can be forgiven for claiming that the trade was a nothing-for-nothing deal more likely to benefit the Royals. It just didn't turn out that way.

In any case, the monkeys redeemed themselves in this November 24 post in which they penned the opinion that whoever inked a deal with primo pitching free agent CJ Wilson would rue the day. Day rued, at least so far. The Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles forked over $75 million over five years and got below average production from the 31-year-old lefty. Fanning fewer than twice as many batters as he walked, Wilson's ERA ballooned a full point despite moving to the non-DH league and an offense-dampening ballpark.

Likewise, this December 9 post suggested the Cardinals were better off without Albert Pujols raiding the treasury. As it turned out, Pujols continued a four-year trend of decline to a lifetime low OPS of .859, a lifetime low 30 homers and a lifetime low 3.6 wins against replacement. By contrast, as the post suggested, Allen Craig picked up much of the slack, with an .876 OPS, 22 homers and three-quarters of Pujols' value for four percent of the price.

The split decisions continued with the assertion on Christmas Eve that the Oakland A's were running on an endless treadmill in the wake of trading hurlers Trevor Cahill and Gio Gonzalez for low-cost prospects. It said here that Billy Beane's methods guaranteed the A's were the team of the future . . . and always would be. 

Ninety-four wins and a division crown later, Billy got the last laugh. But it's worth noting that his pitching rotation featured four lightly-heralded rookies, a 28-year-old journeyman and half a season of a jacked-up Bartolo Colon. How this crew competed, much less rallied into the playoffs, is a mystery being guarded by Judge Crater and the crew of the Mary Celeste.

It's no mystery how the Detroit Tigers snuck into the playoffs: the Chicago White Sox nose-dived to end the season. Despite the mega-signing of Prince Fielder to a star-studded squad, disdain was hurled from here at the iron-gloved mess taking the field in Detroit. 

The Tigers played in the World Series, sure, but they needed a 15-7 finish to win just 88 games in a competence-challenged AL Central -- the worst total of any playoff-bound team. Cabrera won the Triple Crown and Fielder poured on a .940 OPS, but the infield defense was every bit the train wreck described in that January post. The team finished five wins below replacement-level defensively.

One more prognostication worth mentioning from the first quarter, before adjourning for more marshmallow-toasting in subsequent posts: Nostradamus paid a visit in late February and shocked the cognoscenti with the bold prediction that Seattle would, absent any hitting, pitching or defense, suck the hairy moose knuckles. Talk about sticking your neck out!

Now go to bed, kiddies. Next we examine what witch's potions we were drinking when we approved of Milwaukee's $11 million deal with catcher Jonathan Lucroy.