Good selection, and I'm happy for Tim. It's too bad Johan didn't get more support, but I'm actually surprised that he was as close to Webb as he was (137 pts for Lincecum, 73 for Webb, 55 for Santana).

I like Lincecum as a winner. He was utterly fantastic this year. I would have voted Lincecum, Santana, Webb. I just hope the AL voters can at the least put Halladay second.

As for the Mike McCormick question, the only thing I know about him is that if he won a Cy Young once, he's probably on the Hall of Name's M&M squad.

 

Sorry for the double post, this thought popped back into my head a moment too late.

I've been wondering for the past couple weeks (heck maybe even months) - what would it have taken to get Lincecum? I know Riccardi was playing this aggressive "1-for-1, take it or leave it" approach that was admirable at the time but now might not that approach have been a bit shortsighted? At the time, Thigpen was still marginally a prospect... I mean think about if all the Jays had to do to push that trade over the top in Sabean's mind was throw in Thigpen and Tallet, or Thigpen and a decent lower pitching prsopect, or hell, Thigpen, Tallet, Frasor and Rios for Lincecum, would that  have done it? I think maybe so and the Jays would be no worse off.  Here's how that trade would have looked in Sabean's mind - we are getting a catching prospect (albeit a marginal prospect), a young outfield stud and two good relievers. You could swap out the relievers for a Ricky Romero or a Mills guy if you want. 

The fact remains and this is soooo much easier to do in hindsight, but now, especially in hindsight, instead of applauding Riccardi to have the sense to try and lowball a team into giving away its pitching hope for the future (which is essentially what he was doing), we should be critcizing him for having a golden opportunity to nab such a talent fall through his fingers.

Because it's so fun to speculate, let's forget how 2008 would have gone, 2009 could have looked something like this. Let AJ walk - take money you're saving on Rios and Burnett and you could then more realistically go after Manny Rameriz this off season. Then you could trot out an opening day lineup with Wells, Manny, and Lind in the OF, and a rotation led by Doc, Lincecum and Litsch trying to hold down the 3 spot.  And if you want you could trade Overbay and eat a little salary, move Lind to 1B, put Snider in LF and then pick up another mid level starter to finish out the rotation.

Not that I ever posted it on here, but I always thought if Rios for Lincecum was so close as a straight up deal, if Riccardi really felt Lincecum was the superior talent and more valuable asset, why didn't he go for it? If Lincecum doesn't pan out, the piece you're losing that will really hurt you is Rios, not the loss of the other guys, and he's gone anyways in this trade.

or hell, Thigpen, Tallet, Frasor and Rios for Lincecum,

With all due respect, this is a common trap fans fall into: the notion that our quantity can buy their quality. Starting with Rios and merely adding a handful of fungible players wouldn't have made any difference, even to Brian Sabean.

It is a good question, what else did SF want in addition to Rios.  If it was Snider or Marcum or McGowan or even Litsch then the trade would've (most likely) been a mistake.  Also, at the time we didn't know they'd be able to sign Rios to a very reasonable (for the Jays) deal through 2014. 

I suspect SF wanted Snider tossed in and JP was going 'no (@&! way'.  High stakes poker and SF didn't blink (although they came close).  I doubt Thigpen or any other minor prospect/reliever would've done the job though.

I did a run at finding comps for Lincecum, using BBRef's PI primarily.  I end up with this group: Roy Corbett, Juan Guzman, Herb Score, Brandon Webb, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt and Barry Zito.   Score is the best comp, with Guzman second.  I looked at age, K rate and ERA+.  But, if you loosen the criteria a bit, you get names like Roger Clemens, Tom Seaver and Walter Johnson.  Johnson isn't really a good comp because he dominated the league at age 22.  Seaver is dubious because by age 24, he already had three 250+ inning campaigns behind him.

I'd say that Lincecum has a 30% chance at a Hall of Fame quality career.

I agree that a cast of fungible players wouldn't have done it, I agree that if Snider (or one of the young ML pitchers) was asked for JP did the right thing... but what if it took Cecil or JPA to put the deal over the top (or insert whomever you thought the Jays #2 prospect was at this time last year)?

I think if the deal needed any other prospect except Snider, it probably was a mistake not to pull the trigger. Heck if the deal was really Rios for Cain, it may have been a mistake not to do that deal. I like Rios but with Wells in CF for the foreseeable future Rios' value to this team is less than it otherwise would be if he were able to man CF.

Herb Score

And that mention in passing reminds me ... yesterday, RIP Herb, here's to the saddest of sports terms, "what might have been."

For fun, I checked Pedro Martinez.  He had an additional 1+ seasons under his belt, as of age 24, but hadn't quite dominated to the same extent at Lincecum.  But, considering stuff, size, K rate, durability questions (Pedro's first 200+ inning season was at age 24), it is quite a good comp. 

but what if it took Cecil or JPA to put the deal over the top (or insert whomever you thought the Jays #2 prospect was at this time last year)

It's a moot point, but Cecil and Arencibia couldn't have been traded last offseason since they had been with the Jays less than one year.  The best non-Snider prospects that the Jays had at the time (who were tradable) were Diaz, Romero and Purcey.

I seem to remember at the end that the Giants wanted a starter back to replace Lincecum (presumably Marcum or Litsch), but I couldn't find anything in my searches on that so maybe I was imagining that.

Jordan Bastian talked with Aaron Hill and it looks like Aaron is good to go for next season.  He has started light workouts with hitting and harder workouts to come.

True enough, although I don't believe there's anything stopping a team from announcing "plus a PTNL" and then trading draftees that have been with the team less than year is there?

That sound familiar to me too - I have half a memory of seeing it in Blair or Wilner's blog sometime at/after the winter meetings. If Litsch is what was holding up the deal, then that really is interesting... as at that time I think there were very few that he could duplicate his 2007, let alone improve upon it as he did. As for Marcum, I have no doubt that many a trade conversation JP had last off-season started and ended with Marcum and McGowan.

Yes, Herb Score might have been a truly great pitcher.  Here's a NYT story on him, if the link works.  (Just go to the Sports section and scroll down, if it doesn't.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/sports/baseball/12score.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin

Another storied pitcher who died recently is Preacher Roe.  Those of us who can remember the great Dodger teams of the '50's haven't forgotten Preacher, a real old pro.

I called Rios the poor man's Vladdy heading into the 08 season and the same can be said heading into 09. Last season was his age 27 season and he took a step backwards. Rios's BA, SLG, and OPS have gone down 3 straight season now. A big reason why the Jays stopped playing meaningful games in June was because Rios was terrible in the 1st half where he put up a .285/.337/.401 line. He also started the season with a ton of walks but that dropped off after the first month. I know the various metrics rate Rios as a first class defender but from watching almost every inning, I would disagree. His arm is strong but it's not accurate and he has way too many "Manny" moments in the OF for my liking. He also sometimes takes weird routes to the ball (not as bad as Dunn or Gomes though) but he can cover for these mistakes because of his speed. I remember during the Rios for Lincecum talks, a lot of people on this site said they wouldn't make that deal. It was laughable then and it's laughable now.

 

True enough, although I don't believe there's anything stopping a team from announcing "plus a PTNL" and then trading draftees that have been with the team less than year is there?

You are correct. If, as an example, the Jays had a deal to send BJ Ryan and David Cooper for Prince Fielder, they could not name Cooper publicly until after the next draft. He would be a "player to be named later" until that point. but the two teams COULD have agreed on him as part of the deal.

The obvious risk her would be that the PTBNL gets injured during that couple of months he's playing for his "old" team.

With all due respect, this is a common trap fans fall into: the notion that our quantity can buy their quality

In defence of Zep, there was a report going around last winter that the deal failed because JP didn't feel he had to add anything and that Sabean did want Thigpen and maybe a reliever.  Zep was not just arbitrarily adding quantity.

I believe the one wrinkle in adding a recent draftee as a PTBNL is that the player must be named within six months.  Thus, a 2008 draftee could only be added as a PTBNL after December rolls around.

Is there anything stopping a team from doing something like this (for example):

Rios + PTNL (in November 2007) for Lincecum. Name Romero the PTNL later in January, immediately announce Romero is traded back to the Jays for a PTNL. Then the PTNL is named as Cecil/JPA when the time comes that they can be moved. Shift the dates however you want and you can deal recent draftee arbitrarily early.

Are there any rules about how much time a player must spend with a team before he can be returned to his previous team (I vaguely remember as a kid in the 80s a few players being traded for themselves with only mere months in between).

I'm assuming the rule about not trading recent draftees is to prevent draft pick trading by proxy and to allow new draftees to feel comfortable with their organization. I've never understood the rationale for not trading draft picks, but I understand the second part, although it seems to me that most high draft picks won't have much stability their first few years as if they sign quickly in June and play out the string, they're sure to be with a new team come the April.