Half-Empty: Another Stud Gets Away

Why am I not surprised?

Diamondbacks acquired RHP Dan Haren and RHP Connor Robertson from the Athletics for OF Carlos Gonzalez, LHP Brett Anderson, OF Aaron Cunningham, 1B Chris Carter, LHP Greg Smith and LHP Dana Eveland.

What Rotoworld had to say about this move:

"Gone is a big chunk of the farm system that had already been severely weakened by the promotions of the last couple of years, but the Diamondbacks manage to pick up arguably the most valuable property still available in trade without giving up a single piece of their 2008 club (unless one counts Jose Valverde, whose departure may have freed up the money that made this possible). If the Diamondbacks were co-favorites in the NL West before, they're the easy choice to win the division now, and the Dodgers will have to think long and hard about caving in to Baltimore's demands for Erik Bedard in order to counter this move."

---The key phrase here 'without giving up a single piece of their 2008 club'. This of course leads one to believe that the Tribe most certainly could have sacrificed the same.

So why didn't we push harder for Haren?

1. C.C.'s contract proposal is still not in place.

Despite reports weeks ago that the Indians were about to place their initial offer on the table to C.C., we are still waiting. Once again, I'm not sure what the holdup here is. Especially with the uncertainty that he will accept and the snowball effect such a decision will surely have on the direction the club wants to go in 2008 and beyond. The parameters have been set by Zito, Santana, and Peavy. Between those three contracts and/or proposals, the Tribe brass surely should have a good idea of what this will take. But back to the issue at hand, after reports that a push for Haren may be directly related to a C.C. response (that is, if he was to reject, the Tribe was expected to push harder for Haren), one has to wonder if Arizona saw a window of opportunity to get a deal done without such competition. Overall, the C.C. contract, or lack thereof most certainly impacted the Tribe's failure to land the best young pitcher, and perhaps player, available.

2. Richie Sexton, Brian Giles, and Sean Casey

The ghosts of John Hart's past continue to haunt the decision making of the Shapiro and Co. in my opinion. You may even add Guthrie and Brandon Phillips to this group. A certain amount of concern about giving up too much for a player is okay. However, this seemingly hard-headed, overvaluing of our young players seems to be really hamstringing us, especially of late. Again, I understand why Shapiro was so reluctant from 2003-2006 to ship our young talent elsewhere. In fact I commend him for being overly cautious in this regard. The fact is, we where not ready yet and were not "THERE", so to speak. Conversely, if we learned anything from the 2007 season, we are there and we are ready, not only to compete, but to make a push for the World Series. As our ceiling and potential has evolved, so too must the mindset of the front office. You have to give up something to get something. A chance to get a top of the rotation pitcher who would come very cheap and be under our control for several years, is not something that happens often.

3. Danny Ferry

I know, I know. Apples and oranges. I certainly do not think that Shapiro is consciously playing the Danny Ferry copycat role. However, the similarities are enough to make me sick to my stomach. Despite our competitors making every attempt to improve their teams, we continue to sit on our hands with the young players will improve approach to getting better. This may be acceptable if we were similarly hamstrung by a salary cap (of course non-existent in MLB). Or if we had few options to trade (of course, we have a lot more than Eric Snow and Ira Newble on the farm). Or maybe even if no one was interested in our players. Unfortunately, none of the above is the case.

Summary:

I do not know if it is arrogance, fear, money, or something else that is preventing us from doing something substantial this off season. Perhaps it is a combination of all of the above.

Regardless:

• We have several players running out of (or already out of) options
• We have nearly two players at every position on the field except CF and C
• We don't 'know' what Gut, Cabrera, Marte, and even Pronk are gonna do next year
• Our biggest competitor has just added two all-stars, as well as some solid role players
• We STILL don't know what the future holds for C.C.
• And of course, the Station Agent, isn't scaring anyone

I don't know about the rest of you, but even coming off our playoff collapse, I was as excited about an upcoming season as I've ever been....

...that is, until the off season began to unfold.

NOW GO GET ERIC BEDARD!!!

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooo Tribe!

Cheers!