Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Comparing Ryan and Smith

Let pick a few comparable player decisions made by Ryan and Smith over the past decade:

Smith: JJ Hardy and Brendan Harris for Joey Hoey and Brett Jacobsen;
Ryan: David Ortiz for ...

Smith: Delmon Young for Oliveros, Cole Nelson
Ryan: Aj Pierzynski for Nathan, Liriano and Bonser

Ryan: Hawkins, Guaradado for ...
Smith: Guerrier, Crain for ...

Smith: Matt Garza for Delmon Young
Ryan: Kyle Lohse for Zach Ward

Smith: Santana for Gomez, Mulvey, Humber and Guerra
Ryan: Milton for Punto and Silva

Ryan: Luis Castillo for Drew Butera and Dustin Martin
Ryan: Matt Lawton for Rick Reed
Ryan: Todd Walker for Todd Sears
Ryan: Doug Mientkiewicz for Justin Jones
Ryan: Bobby Kielty for Shannon Stewart

Smith: Carlos Gomez for JJ Hardy
Smith: Kevin Mulvey for Jon Rauch
Smith: Orlando Cabrera for Tyler Ladendorf
Smith: Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps

As I remember the reaction to Bill Smith, everyone loved him to start. His trade of Matt Garza for Delmon Young was a "breath of fresh air" in the eyes of one local blogger. That lasted until the Santana trade when he didn't deliver the value people perceived in Santana. I think Terry Ryan will have a pretty short honeymoon period. It won't take long for people to remember some of his clunkers when he starts making moves they don't agree with. The idiots who thought Bobby Kielty was a better baseball player than Shannon Stewart are still out there waiting to remind us.

3 comments:

Ben said...

It seemed like people mostly complained about veteran's TR brought in on the cheap. Bill Smith had a lot more money to deal with. Where TR had to settle for players like Tony Batista, Smith could spend a little extra on a guy like Orlando Hudson.

I see where you were going with a few of those comparisons, but for the most part they're apples to oranges comps.

TT said...

Ben -

I agree that most of these are apples to oranges in the sense that you can't make really direct comparisons.

While the Twins budget under Smith was clearly higher, I don't know that meant he could spend more on free agents. A lot of that extra money went to Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, Baker, Blackburn etc.

Hudson was not any more expensive than Luis Castillo. Guys like Rick Reed and Kevin Rogers got paid more than Pavano.

Ben said...

I thought of the Hudson/Castillo comparison, but Castillo was a trade for a minor leaguer or two (Tyler and Boyer? Ballfour?)

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