Bleacher Bums Forum

Personally, I think Baez for Ross would be awful, and can't imagine Baez plus anything else.

Blue, speaking of Baez/trade:
1.  Would you trade Baez straight-up for Ross?

No.  Baez still has the potential of a HOF career, the kind of player who could win multiple MVP's.  I am not saying it is likely, but he still has a realistic prospect of that kind of career.  It doesn't seem a good idea to trade him for a pitcher who is simply a good third starter, particularly one who has a career away performance which is not even that of a good 3rd starter -- he has career hoe/away splits of 2.92/4.28.

I don't know much about Ross, other than the stats, which do not impress me in what is one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in the MLB.  But like some of the others, I wouldn't want to see Baez traded unless we get something with similar potential, even with similar flaws.

Think Nats spit on that ask.

I think I like Ross better than you guys.  He's got a 132/3 K/HR ratio this year.  Probably some luck there with the HRs, but he's a low HR guy.  (0.5 HR/9 over this career.)  Some of that is San Diego, but as we know that has done nothing to help Mr. Shields, who has allowed 20 HR despite the same park benefit as Ross. 

High K/low HR guys have a lot of value. 

I don't like Baez as well as you guys, either, since I think that guys who have so consistently swung-and-missed in the minors will continue to swing-and-miss a lot in the majors.  I'm optimistic he'll be good, but there is high risk of that.  And I think pretty limited likelihood of being great or super-star or any of that without the gift of hitting.  Having power is super, but you don't hit lots of HR's in the majors without hitting the ball solidly on a semi-regular basis.  Against big-league pitching, that's very hard to do with frequency, as Soler and Bryant and Russell have experienced this summer.   

The six-years-of-control is nice.  But as reb has articulated, you have to figure the first several years will likely be development years rather than production years.  So, unlikely to be more than 3-4 strong-production years even if he does end up being good sometime before free agency. 

So I think if they trade Baez for Ross tomorrow, I think I'd probably accept that as a reasonable risk. 

All that said, I think Blue's point makes it so clear as to why I'm not too keen on these July trades.  Guys who are actually worthwhile come at a very, very, very, very, very high price.  I'm not sure it makes sense to overpay to the market price that it takes.  If it takes Baez plus another top-10 guy and another top-20 guy to get Ross, and that's simply the way the market charges, that's why I'm not too enthused about buying. 

Craig, do you think that if Ross were traded his away performance for the Cubs would be any better than his career away performance to date, and if so why?  And if he were playing in Wrigley Field would his home performance in Wrigley more closely resemble his career home performance in SD or his career away performance to date?  One last question, do you think it would be worth trading Baez if you were to anticipate Ross's performance to be an ERA of roughly 4.28, which is his career away performance?

Baez just homered again.

jes, yes I do think he'd do lots better than his career away performance, for several reasons.
1.  I think it's normal/common that guys pitch better at home than on the road, just for familiarity reasons.  Even if the home park isn't necessarily pitcher-friendly.  So, I don't think that home-away is all San Diego stadium.  I think he'd bring a lot of pitch-well-when-home-and-comfortable-on-home-mound wherever home is. 
2.  I think he's a better pitcher now than he used to be. 
3.  I think he's got a chance to be a significantly better pitcher future than he's been past or is present.  He's got a very good arm with very, very good stuff. 
4.  While the Cubs defense isn't good, I think he's been effective with San Diego in spite of some very poor defense.  So I think he'll benefit from some improved defense. 
5.  Bosio has done an excellent job with several pitchers who had variably good stuff but had inconsistency issues prior.  I'd be very optimistic to see what Bosio might be able to do with Ross. 
6.  As Blue has mentioned, Ross has been tinkering/adding to his former repertoire.  I think he may be poised to emerge as a higher-level guy future than he's been.  That's some projection stuff; so just as with Baez it's all projection, which is justifiable, I read Ross as a guy who, even this many years into his career, still has some untapped potential to become better.  But with very little non-injury risk to be less than good, which risk I think is very real for Baez. 

I don't think it's relevant.  Padres aren't going to trade Ross at a price the Cubs are willing to pay, I don't think.  May be that two years from now, he'll be hurt, or as high-walk as ever, and Baez will be emerging as a force, and we'll look back and say "Man, are we glad we didn't trade Baez for Ross, can you remember when Craig actually thought that might be a fair deal, and Blue thought that while he wouldn't do it, that Baez wouldn't even be enough to get Ross straight-up?"  But it may also be that two years from now, Baez will be an AAAA guy, or a .240-batting average guy with a .275 OBP in the majors who just doesn't hit the ball often enough to hit all that many HR's, and Ross is improved to one of the top ten starters in baseball, and we'll wish we'd done it.  Will be fun to track.  heh, heh, maybe I'll keep an eye on Ross kind of like with DeGrom!