[Allure]

The White Sox, Blue Jays and Cardinals completed what amounted to a three-team trade on Wednesday that sent right-hander Edwin Jackson to St. Louis and outfielder Colby Rasmus to Toronto, and nine other players changing teams, with as many as three more to be named later.

The White Sox got reliever Jason Frasor and pitching prospect Zach Stewart from Toronto in exchange for Jackson and third baseman Mark Teahen. About two hours later, the Blue Jays sent Jackson to the Cardinals, along with relievers Octavio Dotel and Marc Rzepczynski and outfielder Corey Patterson and three players to be named later or cash, and received Rasmus, left-handers Brian Tallet and Trever Miller and right-hander P.J. Walters.

Jackson, 7-7 with a 3.92 ERA in 19 starts, was widely known to be a trade chip for the White Sox because of Chicago's six-man rotation and Jackson being eligible for free agency after the season. The White Sox were Jackson's fifth team in nine seasons. The Cardinals became his third team on Wednesday.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...s_mlb&c_id=mlb

[chantrain]

apparently, noone cares.

[Allure]

Well, to me it's a solid deal for all sides. Jays add another bat while Cards get a solid pitcher.

[chantrain]

I'm reading fans on a White Sox forum and they aren't too happy about it

[broadway6]

my cards are effin retarded. I don't care that they traded there best young position player, but they got C grade pitching for him. I miss Walt Jockety

[BigDan]

you way off base Broadway. this makes Cards substantially better.

[BigDan]

I certainly care but i saw this thread 1st and posted a ton in here so didnt want to go back over it again....

jays get colby rasmus

tons of comments in here on this trade

[broadway6]

you way off base Broadway. this makes Cards substantially better.

i'm not sure how gas can Jackson, 37 year old Dotel, ex cub Patterson and a decent reliever (Rzpec..) make us that much better. Maybe Jackson will pitch better in the NL. Honestly, I haven't looked @ his NL stats even though i knew he threw a no-no. If that's the best trade we could get, then ok. But we needed pitching and we traded with a team that has one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball. Jays are ranked 24th in the league.

[gamble]

jackson is no gascan, move him to the nl and he will be fine. the 2 relievers will help the bullpen as we cant get lefties out (Rzpec is a lefty specialist). rasmus wasn't going to stay in st louis period, tlr's comments last night ensured that when he said rasmus doesn't listen to coaches, and at some point rasmus needed to start producing, talent has to become production at some point (which i'm not saying never will for him, just saying)

[broadway6]

jackson is no gascan, move him to the nl and he will be fine. the 2 relievers will help the bullpen as we cant get lefties out (Rzpec is a lefty specialist). rasmus wasn't going to stay in st louis period, tlr's comments last night ensured that when he said rasmus doesn't listen to coaches, and at some point rasmus needed to start producing, talent has to become production at some point (which i'm not saying never will for him, just saying)

i hear ya. i hope i'm wrong. (i normally am). I'm just not thrilled with Jackson, but maybe i should research his NL career before i complain. I think the young reliever the long name can help (rzp..) I"m not sure how much Dotel has left. The Astros got rid of him. I just feel like there other teams out there with better pitchers to offer, but maybe this was the best deal on the table.

[BigDan]

i'm not sure how gas can Jackson, 37 year old Dotel, ex cub Patterson and a decent reliever (Rzpec..) make us that much better. Maybe Jackson will pitch better in the NL. Honestly, I haven't looked @ his NL stats even though i knew he threw a no-no. If that's the best trade we could get, then ok. But we needed pitching and we traded with a team that has one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball. Jays are ranked 24th in the league.

1st Jackson's ground ball rate has improved and now he is getting under the tutelage of the best pitching coach in baseball and it his contract year so it should serve him well to pay attention and get himself a nice deal somewhere. 2nd even if jackson is just serviceable he has always been a innings eater which we desperately need which i think is worst case. 3rd this puts McClellan back in the pen where he belongs, his velocity should go back up a little and while he was in the pen he had incredible splits against lefties. ok that what Jackson does...

Now i dont know much bout this lefty from jays except he has real good numbers against lefties and he pitches in a div where he sees some really good ones which fills a huge hole for us. Dotels numbers are not bad and his k-rate still very good at his advanced age but mainly he just adds more depth...

We have just taken the weakest part of our team and turned it into a strength!! Lynn (my fav, kid is nasty), McClellan, Boggs, Motte, however you spell the lefty from Jays, Dotel, Salas....no one is gonna be trashing our pen anymore and with the team we have that is huge.

Last but not least i really cant see how anyone who follows stl isnt glad Rasmus is gone? did we get the young talent that maybe he should have brought? no but we got important pieces for now and lets be real here, Colby is never gonna be anything special, stop getting suckered in by potential and see him for what he is, a lazy, complacent, spoiled little bitch that will never figure out what it takes to be a man. in other words he is a JD Drew clone, there a very good chance he will touch down in tor and tear it up (coincidentally a arbitration yr) but trust me moving forward he will never be what the sabergeeks project him as, kid is not a winner and will never do the work required to become one because shit always came easy to him so he knows no other way, could he change? i guess but ppl dont fundamentally change very often.

[broadway6]

nice post BigDan. Maybe I was just expecting more glamour for a guy that was labeled a "can't miss" prospect. I'm perfectly fine with trading the guy. Maybe a new city will help him get his head out of his a$$.

Duncan can make a half ass pitcher into an all star. I have faith

[BigDan]

you know we dont do "glamor" here in da lou !!!! Honestly ive always liked jackson but really dont know what kind of kid he is, the fact this is his 5th team doesnt exactly speak well but who knows. like i said at worst he eats innings that we need as no way we could trust McClellan not to drop off being his 1st year in rotation. Have a feeling jackson will be better than he ever has been but who knows that just gut instinct.


you live in the stl area Broadway?

[HoulihansTX]

CWS were shedding salary. Having a 6-man rotation, and given Jackson will be a free-agent made him expendable. I do not see any potential of there being character issues.

[BigDan]

CWS were shedding salary. Having a 6-man rotation, and given Jackson will be a free-agent made him expendable. I do not see any potential of there being character issues.

i wouldnt think so just because i dont see Cards taking on a problem child, hell we were dumping one in this deal.

wtf were sox thinking taking trevor miller? maybe cause he cheap and on a one year deal? i hope for sox fans sake that they never have to see this asshole in a game.

[BigDan]

Houli you have always spoke well of jackson's stuff as well havnt you?

[HoulihansTX]

He is good. His strengths are his fastball, and heart. No fear will get you far.

[BigDan]

He is good. His strengths are his fastball, and heart. No fear will get you far.

Damn right....and Duncan will take him the rest of the way...

[BRAVES1985]

wow jays got rid of a bunch of scrubs (stewart is a solid prospect tho) and they got rasmus Anthopolaus is a fukin genius with every trade he does

[broadway6]

you know we dont do "glamor" here in da lou !!!! Honestly ive always liked jackson but really dont know what kind of kid he is, the fact this is his 5th team doesnt exactly speak well but who knows. like i said at worst he eats innings that we need as no way we could trust McClellan not to drop off being his 1st year in rotation. Have a feeling jackson will be better than he ever has been but who knows that just gut instinct.


you live in the stl area Broadway?

no not from stl, but I was raised a Cardinals fan. Been there many times for games. I live outside of Washington DC. I've quit going to Nats/Cards games b/c the Cards can't win in Washington.

[broadway6]

post from bowden on e s p n

win this deal acquiring a talent like Rasmus, who has all five tools and the ability to become a complete player with .900 OPS potential. His makeup has been questioned and his listening and learning skills need to improve. But he’s just 24 and veteran Jose Bautista will help him. For the Blue Jays to have acquired Brett Lawrie and Rasmus in the past 12 months has been an amazing job of trading by general manager Alex Anthopoulos, who continues his long-term planning in Toronto.

The Blue Jays also get left-handed relievers Miller, 38, and Tallet, who was 0-1 with an 8.31 ERA. Walters, 26, also went to the Jays. He was 7-4 with a 4.27 ERA at Triple-A Memphis of the Pacific Coast League in 17 starts.

As for the White Sox, they were not going to sign Jackson as a free agent this winter, and he would likely have only brought type-B compensation, which equates to a sandwich pick. They also sent Mark Teahen to the Jays, and his bat never lived up to the potential that Ken Williams was hoping for when he acquired him from the Royals. Teahen is due roughly $7 million through the end of next year, and Williams did a good job ridding himself of that contract. The Sox acquired right-handed reliever Jason Frasor, who improves their bullpen and they will control for a couple of more years, as well as prospect Zach Stewart, a right-hander who profiles as a back-end starter.

Rasmus was by far the best player traded in this deal and should be the long-term solution for the Blue Jays in center field. The Cardinals ran out of patience and understanding with this ultra-talented player and decided that his makeup wasn’t going to work in St. Louis. Reminds me of when the Brewers gave up on Gary Sheffield too early. This deal will come back to haunt them and sooner than they think.

The Cardinals better win this year, or they will really regret this one. Worst trade of the year, sorry Cardinals fans.

GRADE

CARDINALS: F
BLUE JAYS: A
WHITE SOX: B

[broadway6]

post by keith law on e s p n


Looking at this White Sox-Blue Jays-Cardinals deal as a single, three-team swap, I love what Toronto did, don't understand what the Chicago did and like St. Louis' short-term gain but neither the cost nor the signal about their internal priorities.

The Blue Jays give up four arms, at least three of whom are just relievers, plus a fringy big leaguer in Corey Patterson, and receive center fielder Colby Rasmus plus about $7 million of dead weight in the shape of Mark Teahen, who has hit .259/.319/.397 since the start of 2008 and probably belongs in the Atlantic League. Rasmus is a potential star, a classic buy-low opportunity on a talented player who had fallen out of favor with his current organization but still has impact-player ceiling. Rasmus has star-level tools: He's a plus runner with good range in center who needs to work on his reads, shows good bat speed and has average to above-average power and a very good approach at the plate. However, he has not played well with the Cardinals' coaching staff, and that relationship has devolved over the last year into public sniping from both the coaches and from Rasmus' father, who remains a major influence on Colby's hitting, especially on his swing.

As an outsider, I can't tell you how much blame lies on either side, but La Russa does not suffer young players gladly, and getting Rasmus out of St. Louis to see if he can succeed in a completely different environment makes plenty of sense, especially since the cost for Toronto is one good prospect and a bunch of relievers. Rasmus was worth over four wins last year per Fangraphs' wins above replacement despite being misused much of the year and showing up as a below-average defender in center, which I don't expect him to be long-term. He'll slide Travis Snider back to a corner and should no longer have to worry about where he's hitting in the lineup or whether he's in it at all. The acquisition has some risk, as it's possible Rasmus has peaked or just doesn't have the makeup to get along with any coaching staff, but I doubt either of those things is true. And over the long haul, you always want to bet on high-upside talent when you can. (The Blue Jays also acquired Brian Tallet and Trever Miller, who is apparently headed to the White Sox, as well as P.J. Walters, a nice organizational arm.)

The White Sox get salary relief while adding a useful bullpen arm in righty Jason Frasor, who has added a splitter over the past few years to make him more effective against left-handed hitters, as well as right-handed pitching prospect Zach Stewart. Stewart is a classic sinker-slider starter with great movement on a low-90s sinker that will touch the mid-90s; his control took a step forward this year but he wasn't getting as many ground balls, which is more a question of his pitching plan than a lack of life on the fastball. His slider is his best offspeed pitch, tight at 83-87 with good tilt, and he commands the pitch well, throwing it to both sides of the plate. He's got a solid, average-or-better changeup and showed no platoon split this year. With a show-me curveball and good control, he should be given every opportunity to start for Chicago, and I like pitching coach Don Cooper's chances to turn Stewart into at least a mid-rotation starter if not more.

What I don't understand here is why the White Sox are essentially selling, unless they were just clearing payroll to add something else. They're three games out of first place in the loss column, and after bottoming out at 11-22, have gone 39-30 since then, and have a very realistic chance to win their division, especially since they can add Dayan Viciedo and perhaps Addison Reed from their own farm system for the stretch run. They had some depth in the rotation, assuming they believe The Phil Humber Show can go on all year, but they are clearly worse off at the major league level today than they were last night -- and if they can't convert Stewart's stuff into results, they're going to be left with very little return for trading Daniel Hudson last year.

The Cardinals, meanwhile, have made a terrible organizational move by allowing their aging manager to run off the best hitting prospect the team has produced since drafting Albert Pujols. Whether La Russa was mostly responsible or only shares responsibility with Rasmus and his father, it is clear that La Russa's my-way-or-the-highway mentality has hurt the organization for this year and several years to come with the Rasmus fiasco, and unfortunately the front office's decision to retain La Russa for 2011 has come back to haunt them. Rasmus has the potential to be a 5- to 6-win player at his peak, and there's no manager in baseball who can produce that kind of value.

Jackson is actually in the midst of his best season in the majors, another feather in Cooper's cap, perhaps boosted by the fact that this is Jackson's contract year. Jackson has always thrown hard, and can hold mid- to upper-90s late into the game, but the fastball is true and he tries to pitch up in the zone with it too often. This year, he's throwing fewer fastballs and more hard sliders, up to 89, some short and cutter-like but others with more downward break, and the result has been more line-drive hits but fewer big flies because he's working lower in the zone. The shift to the National League should help him, and he is going to work with another pitching coach with a long track record of success with veteran arms. The Cardinals also get a right-handed specialist in Octavio Dotel -- who has been traded for more value in the past 12 months than he has produced in his entire career -- and left-hander Mark Rzepczynski, another sinker-slider guy with terrible arm action who profiles as a reliever because he probably won't have the command or health to start.

As a stretch-run bolster for the Cardinals' rotation, Jackson is an excellent fit, and by pushing someone -- most likely Kyle McClellan, who has allowed 50 runs in his last 14 starts over 85 innings -- back to the pen, he's worth an extra two wins to this club over the rest of the year. They also get the more effective left-handed reliever they've needed all year in Rzepcynski. The price was just too high, and tells us that their internal emphasis is on their manager instead of their players.

[broadway6]

i wonder what Jockety would have done...o wait he took off b/c of LaRussa too.

[BigDan]

no not from stl, but I was raised a Cardinals fan. Been there many times for games. I live outside of Washington DC. I've quit going to Nats/Cards games b/c the Cards can't win in Washington.

right on, let me know next time you make it this way for a gm.

[BigDan]

sounds like yet another sabergeek that is in love with "tools"...the problem with metrics is they dont measure pussy and Rasmus is clearly that, while i agree i thought we could get a young prospect included in a deal for him i think word was out around the league that we needed to move him so surely that decreased value.

Guess we will see in the future who is right but i trust my evaluation of a player i see everyday a lot more than these stat geeks and their bs projections. Dude can say what he wants about TRL but the guy has been doing it his way for some time and not many can match the career success of him, certainly not some espn blogger that thinks he can project Colbys career from some numbers. Something tells me Cards will be just fine for the duration of Rasmus's career w/o him in our sacred uniform. This asshole says he projects Rasmus to be better in the field? really? because he has the tools to do it? so fukkin what when you watching airplanes fly by when the ball is getting pitched it really doesnt matter how much talent you have.

I mean if smart ppl had Rasmus projected so high why didnt they swoop in and snatch him up? because real baseball ppl dont like pussies that why.

as ive said i know TRL doesnt have the best track record with some young players but Garcia is young and a pitcher no less and Larussa seems to like him just fine. We certainly didnt mortgage our future for Tony's sake. let these clowns come talk to me when Rasmus starts performing on a high level for a team that expects to be a contender year in and year out. it wont happen tho cause the kid is a bitch, cant handle coaching/criticism, and certainly will fold up like a ho in any big situation he ever gets put in.