Its time to strap on your time machine. Given Michael Pineda’s spring velocity issues and shoulder tendonitis, would you still go back and trade Jesus Montero for Michael Pineda trade? I’d like to keep the focus only on those two, since I see the inclusion of Jose Campos and Hector Noesi as a side issue.
Given the chance, I would take the trade back, and wouldn’t think too hard about it. While Michael Pineda proved this spring that he pitching skills weren’t all about velocity, by flashing a fantastic slider and quickly taking to the change-up, the shoulder injury should scare you off. Pineda’s missing velocity was very real (not just an early spring training abberation, as a lot of people suspected), and the underlying problem has the potential to sideline him for some time. Even if he manages to keep pitching, but not at full velocity, his effectiveness could be significantly reduced.
The problem is that we gave up a lot to get Michael Pineda. Jesus Montero wasn’t without his uncertainties, but still brought with him a pretty high floor to match his upside. In the reasonable worst case scenario, Montero would have been an effective designated hitter on the Billy Butler level. We thought that Michael Pineda was a similar kind of young player, but a suspect shoulder makes him quite a bit riskier.
Now, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. It is very possible that the Yankees put Pineda on the disabled list because of some combination of the following reasons: they didn’t want to send him to the minors, they were being extremely cautious with a golden arm, or they already had a full rotation, so why the hell not. I didn’t think we were at the proper time for panicking when his velocity stayed down in spring training, and I don’t think we’re there yet, although we are inching closer. I do think we need to introduce the possibility of another outcome here: the Yankees may have bought a lemon.
I’ve blogged about the problem of lemons in the trade market before. Teams know more about their own players than any other teams know, just like you know more about your used car than the rest of the world. Finding out this information without first buying the car and experiencing it can be very difficult. You can take a test drive, roughly equivalent to checking a player’s medical records and going through and MRI, but you can’t really get all of your information until after the sale is finalized. Economics tells us that parties will try to sell their lemons and hold on to their keepers.
Pineda’s velocity has been declining since the middle of last season. The book on the decline was that Pineda was holding back – pitching rather than throwing – and still maintained the ability to juice up the radar gun. It is possible that this was less than 100% true. If Seattle knew that there were potential shoulder problems down the road for Pineda, it would explain their strong desire to trade a potential ace under team control for 5 years.
I’m not ready to say that Pineda is a lemon yet. But given the increased risk of that being the case, I’d take Jesus Montero back without too much thought. But that’s just me. I know that several of our TYA writers feel strongly the other way. How do you all feel?
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“If Seattle knew that there were potential shoulder problems down the road for Pineda, it would explain their strong desire to trade a potential ace under team control for 5 years.”
What evidence is there that Seattle had a strong desire to trade Pineda?
None.
They wanted an elite cost controlled bat. They had much more pitching depth than hitting depth. They traded from a strength to address a major organizational weakness. The only possible way for Seattle to obtain Montero would be with Pineda or Hernandez.
If Seattle was actively shopping Pineda, then your conspiracy theory might be plausible, but there is no evidence of that.
The Mariners didn’t trade Pineda because some magical awesome Eric Lindros-but-baseball once-in-lifetime deal came along. They traded him for a roughly equally valued cost control bat. That’s strong desire to me.
Well, then using the same logic the Yankees must have had strong desire to trade Montero. I’m not buying that in either case.
Strong desire to move him would be shopping him to everyone and taking the best available offer. There is no indication they were shopping Pineda at all. Trading him for fair value doesn’t indicate strong desire to move Pineda, it indicates slightly more desire to have Montero.
They likely didn’t trade Pineda because they wanted to (or had a desire to). They traded Pineda because Pineda was the required price to acquire Montero.
To me, that indicates strong desire to get Montero, not strong desire to get rid of Pineda.
Interesting argument, though I disagree. The “lemon” idea can go both ways. Perhaps the Yankees don’t see Montero as a future superstar (which is why they have been willing to trade him in the past), and have basically given up on him as a catcher. I don’t really know what they thought of him, but it seems just as reasonable to speculate about what the Yankees know about Montero. Yankee fans who were against the trade tend to think of the Yankees trading a sure star hitter for a question mark of a pitcher, but Montero certainly has questions of his own.
My opinion of the trade remains the same as before (in favor strategically, but with some opposition emotionally), and it would seem premature to revise my opinion so drastically based on tendinitis in spring training. Pineda’s value is primarily as a long-term asset who could also help the team this season. Even if the latter is somewhat in jeopardy (which I’m not ready to buy yet), he’s still an important component of the Yankee rotation over the next 5+ years.
Unless there is reason to believe that Pineda’s future is in jeopardy, and the injury might prevent him from reaching his ceiling, I can’t really justify changing my opinion on the deal. Although not the topic of discussion currently, all the rave reviews Campos is getting could certainly help tip the balance of the deal in the Yankees’ favor.
100% agree on the “Montero could be a lemon” in theory. However, two responses:
1) Pitching injuries in waiting are more difficult to hide. Montero’s lemon status has to do with the Yankees’ opinion of his ability to catch adequately, which is easier to observe before the trade.
2) Montero hasn’t done anything to suggest lemon status since the trade was completed.
“Montero hasn’t done anything to suggest lemon status since the trade was completed.”
He’s batting .143 this season, looks like a lemon to me (sarcasm!). But that is a fair point on pitcher injuries being potentially easier to hide (though Pineda did need to pass a physical/MRI before the deal was official).
It would take awhile for Montero’s lemon status to show up as he is just a prospect. He needs time to develop in MLB baseball as he has no MLB experience other than a cup of coffee last year. Other than projections, no one really knows what Montero will do. If he is only average this year, I dont think it would rule him out of become a Monster in the future.
There was a base to work off of with Pineda. He had a full year of MLB baseball, so assuming he would be as good or better than last year was what we started with. ITs still possible this will be the case, just not for a month or two. Like Montero if things dont end up great this year, there is no reason to rule out better things in the future.
I was not a big fan of the trade at first, but later warmed up a bit about it. Would I undue the trade right now if I could, sure. However, this type of trade needs at least two or three years to evaluate. That is assuming Pineda pitches for the Yanks at the major league level again.
This biggest question I have at this point is why did NYY management not recognize that a real problem existed before Pineda’s last start? I remember reading somewhere that Cashman was concerned that Pineda did no off season training. If that was the case, they rushed him too much. Please don’t take that to mean a total criticism of Cashman and the entire Yankee operations team, it’s just something I wish there was more real information about.
I was willing to undo the trade the moment they did it. Pineda certainly has Monteros star potential but our system is pretty deep on pitching and low on impact bats I thought we would be a better overall team with montero in the lineup and a Sabathia, Kuroda, Nova, Hughes, Garcia rotation with Banuelos waiting in the wings. With Andy coming back now too- I’ve done nothing but feel worse and worse about this trade w each passing day, especially since the reports about monteros spring training defense at catcher have been pretty optimistic
LOL, the reports will always be optomistic from the M’s for him as a catcher. Did he catch one game in Japan? Nope. By just about all scouting reports, he isnt a catcher. If the Yankees really thought he was a catcher I really doubt they would have traded him. While a young ace is rare, a catcher who can hit like Montero is even moreso. If, and that is a huge gigantic if, Montero was to become a servicable catcher this would probably become a bad trade for the Yankees. Lets see if the M’s allow him to catch 60-70 games instead of 15-20 before getting to excited about Montero as a catcher.
If he catches 50 games and DH’s 90-100 that’s still ridiculously valuable for a bat with his upside.
and the reports weren’t coming from the mariners, they were coming from independent scouts and reporters.
Even if he doesn’t stick at catcher, it wouldn’t be too hard to hide him at 1B and if he hits to his potential then he’s the kind of player that gets one of those $200mil contracts. Too much is made of the “he has no position” thing. He was blocked at 1B in NY and blocked now in seattle, plenty of orgs would love to stick him at first if he can’t stick at C, it’s really premature to say he’s a DH.
There’s no reason to believe that this is a serious injury. Why would you question the merits of a trade based on a 15 day DL stint?
I don’t know about you, but shoulder injuries scare the crap out of me. But if you actually read the post, you’ll find that we don’t disagree about the severity of the injury, just the implications.
If it were structural damage, I’d be concerned. If he needed surgery, I’d be really scared. Inflammation without structural damage just isn’t a big deal. If you change your opinion on the deal based on something like that, you could change your opinion ten times this summer about the trade. Maybe there’s more than meets the eye here but it’s all pointless speculation. We don’t know anything that should make us feel differently about this trade than we did a week ago.
Why would you undo this trade? The same issues still exist. Montero is a DH or possible 1B and with A-Rod and Tex on the team, those spots are or soon to be filled. With Montero being a DH he pretty much has to become Miguel Cabrera to be missed as greatly as Yankee fans imagine. While its possible he becomes Cabrera, the odds of any player reaching those lofty heights are pretty slim. The odds are more in line with him becoming Billy Butler more than with him becoming Cabrera.
As far as teams looking to trade damaged goods, wouldnt that be Montero as he had been offered up in several trades before the Pineda deal. It seems to me the Yankees were actively shopping Montero while we never heard anything about the M’s shopping Pineda. We have heard about motivational/attitude issues with Montero.
Given that Pineda only has tendinitis and not structural damage to his shoulder, there is no real reason to want to undo this trade. Even if its as bad as Hughes was last year, the ramifications are minimal as he would spend significant time in AAA becasue of yankee pitching depth, and they would still have 5 years of control left.
My personal feeling always was that Montero was invaluable as a catcher becasue even if he just reached his floor as a hitter, he would still have been a force from behind the plate. It is a much different profile as a DH. DH’s unless they hit like Cabrera/Ortiz in their prime just arent that valuable. So give me Pineda and his growing pains any day over Montero at DH.
I don’t think a hindsight perspective is either useful or interesting. If Montero has a horrible slump during the season or proves to be beyond redemption as a catcher would you then re-evaluate your re-evaluation?
I supported the trade at the time because it became obvious that the Yankees didn’t believe in Montero as a C and weren’t interested in him as a pure DH. In that case you have to sell high. And it’s not like they regarded him as untouchable as he had been offered for Roy Halladay and had been actually traded for Cliff Lee before the deal fell through. Now both of those guys were clearly surer bets than Pineda but young pitching with Pineda’s upside is not easy to acquire so I can’t really knock the trade on a post-hoc basis.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Most young pitchers go through some rough patches including injuries. Even established guys go through this. CC has not been impressive this spring and I just read that Tim Lincecum has had trouble topping 90 mph on the radar gun in the Giants camp.
Pineda may turn out to be a bust but it’s way too early to tell on that. Even though he appeared to be out of shape and lacked velocity this spring he did pitch reasonably well and showed quality secondary pitches until the last start. Based on his demonstrated ability and success at the MLB level last season I’m not ready to give up on him yet.
On the “teams have more information about their guys” side of the ledger, has anyone yet squared what the deal was with Montero’s bonus when he originally signed?
Originally signed for $2 million in 2006, Montero’s bonus was later reduced without publicized justification. My theory then (and it hasn’t changed much) is that he had lied about his age and been caught. Clearly, given the reduced bonus, the Yankees knew about this.
He’s still a good looking player if this is the case, by the way. But it’s an interesting uncertainty to consider in the context of your article.
Good lord, the kid has been diagnosed with tendinitis. It’s not like his arm is going to fall off fercryinoutloud.
Couldn’t agree more. He lost his velocity in August or July and it never came back.
We saw it with Hughes and Joba. Even after some time off, they could never reach back with the same juice then before.
“He lost his velocity in August or July and it never came back.”
Erroneous.
“He lost his velocity in August or July and it never came back”
He hit a max speed above 98 in September.
given that i thought the trade was fair at the time, the fact that pineda has had such an inauspicious start certainly makes me want to take back the trade. long term obviously may be a completely different story. though the yanks dont have any young impact bats and with arod and tex declining the offense may need some serious help in 2-3 yrs.
Where are you playing him in 2 or 3 years when A-rod will be Dh’ing and Tex still playing 1B. All of the Montero fans never answer this question. They always ignore it. According to virtually all of the scouting reports that we have been hit with, he is not a catcher. The Yankee clearly didnt think he was a catcher. So again, where was he going to play on the Yankees?
He could replace Jeter at SS.
He is Jesus after all.
I wasn’t a fan of the trade when it was announced – I don’t like giving up Montero, who I felt was more of a sure thing/certainty than Pineda. So, I would definitely use the TYA time machine and undo the trade.
I am hoping that Cashman’s analysis and perspective pan out on this trade.
It’s fine to have concerns about Pineda, but to say “Pineda’s velocity has been declining since the middle of last season” is just wrong. It declined in his final start, but remained pretty close to peak until then.
I would definitely take Montero back. The system is loaded with young arms. Pineda will be another Pavano/Weaver/Contreras type black mark on Cashman’s resume.
The only thing that I don’t like is the way Pineda wears his hat. There never is a sure thing in baseball. Montero had no position to play, he is no catcher. The DH position will need to be open for Jeet and A-Rod. Of the starting pitchers, even with Andy, only CC and Nova are under team control beyond 2013, Everyone else is free agent next year and Hughes the year after. Therefore, there was a need for a semi-proven major league, cost control pitcher for after 2013. Therefore you don’t need 3 rookies in your rotation in 2014 only 2! Don’t talk about free agents, to get to 189 by 2014, you can just forget about it. So, I would not undo the trade.
I would not have made the trade in the first place…and partially because of Montero fan boy bias but…to watch what he did in September and October showed me enough (I was at the game he hit 2 HRs…the 1st 2 of his career). His bat is special and it seemed like he had the support of Alex and Cano to lift him to super-stardom.
I was not a fan of limiting his position choice. Like Pablo, Doumitt, etc. Jesus could have played corner outfield,corner infield as options to keep his bat in. He is young and in good shape and capable of providing adequate defense for a very projectable All Star quality bat in Yankee Stadium.
Alex had to fine him last year for not showing up for extra batting practice!
and Alex got him going in August and worked out with him this December.
Remember Alex did a similar thing with Cano before he exploded.
It was a match changer for me when I read it.
Montero was sulking and immature but Cano had issues too. Alex knows how to lift a player up (Melky Cabrera could tell you about that last year too).
It was a hasty decision not to try to keep a super bat like that.
I suspect that if the Yanks believed he could play a corner outfield position, they would not have made the trade and plugged him into Swish’s spot in ’13.
But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t do it.
He was 22 in excellent shape…can run well enough…has a good arm.
I can’t say which way I’d come down on the question right now. But if anything, Matt Cain getting a huge payday, most likely soon to be followed by Cole Hamels cashing in, brings into relief just how valuable good young pitching is, and how difficult it is to come by. The Yanks will have need for good cheap pitching as we move forward and Pineda represents that. The trade made sense and unless his career goes Joba’s way, I think Pineda will be of value to the team for years to come. More than gnash my teeth over the trade, I’ll cross my fingers that this turns out to be little more than a blip in his career.
Pineda came into camp a out of shape, and was developing the changeup. Imagine would he’d do if he came into Spring Training in good/great shape, and his changeup is already developed into a good/great secondary pitch (to go along with his great slider). Nobody has mentioned that.
And people keep on mentioning the depth in the minors that the Yankees have. You people do realize that depth does not equal results in the future? Right? And that none of the pitchers in the minors currently have a ceiling as high as Pineda’s?
I don’t think this injury changes much. Over a long enough period of time the chances of any given pitcher getting hurt approach one in one. This is by all accounts a minor injury and Pineda’s body/delivery are still fundamentally sound. He’ll miss a month, and that sucks. But there’s a very high chance he’ll come back at 100% before summer and when he does he’s a more valuable commodity to the Yankees than was Montero.
What if Montero had gotten hurt or had a so-so spring? I don’t think we’d be hearing the same kind of discussion out of Seattle. The Yankees have a terrible track record of dealing with young pitchers and yeah it scares me when our future ace can’t hit 94 anymore. But the past month has been a textbook case of a New York sports media overreaction. I would’t take back the deal. Montero is probably going to be a great player. The Yankees still made the right move.
By the way, Jose Campos is mentioned in one above comment (out of 35) and barely touched on in the original article. I think that’s a mistake. What if he’s a top-25 prospect in six months? That doesn’t require much of an imagination. He wasn’t the main piece in this deal but he was a hell of a lot more valuable than Hector Noesi and we shouldn’t forget that.
I never would have made the trade in the first place. When Michaels and Showalter were building the late 90s powerhouses, they looked for what a player could do instead of what he supposedly couldn’t. Cashman has been trying to trade Montero for a long time now.
“And people keep on mentioning the depth in the minors that the Yankees have. You people do realize that depth does not equal results in the future? Right? And that none of the pitchers in the minors currently have a ceiling as high as Pineda’s?”
I think that judging Pineda after 1/2 season of high performance followed by 1/2 season of poor performance doesn’t equal results in the future either. Cashman has judged pitchers on small sample sizes before. This whole situation reminds me a lot of the Weaver trade. A really good 17 starts for Det convinced Cashman that he was worth trading for. He wasn’t.
1) I’m sure they judged Pineda based on more than just results in his rookie season. He was a top 20 MLB prospect before the season, and the key player they traded for him – Montero – was even less established than Pineda.
2) 1/2 season of poor performance really isn’t entirely accurate. Yes the ERA was higher. But his peripherals were still very good. Second half 9.3 K/9 ratio (better than his first half 9.0), 3.16 K/BB ratio, .236 BAA, .688 OPS against. He’s still a bit raw and certainly still needs refinement, but despite the high ERA, he still demonstrated immense potential in the second half.
Peripherals are a nice tool, but he did have a poor second half as far as doing his job: getting people out. That he was pitching in a pretty good pitcher’s park is another factor that should be added to the equation.
I don’t know if he can become as good a pitcher as Montero is likely to become at bat. I think the percentages go down a lot when comparing young pitchers chances vs the chances of hitters like Montero, and the chances of Pineda instead having a career like Liriano and a host of other guys just like that are too high to make this trade.
My main issue with this trade from the outset is that we should’ve only traded Montero for an ESTABLISHED front of the rotation starter, someone who’s shown that they could throw 200 innings. Instead we traded one lottery ticket for another, even if this one fit the team’s needs more than Montero. Now we deal with another young pitcher coming off his first full season as a starter.
A bit off topic: I sure do hope that last start of 2011 in which he had no velocity wasn’t a harbinger of a deeper issue.