Rangers fan with a question.

Cain has waaay too much upside to part with, given our depleted stash of starting pitching...though that would be quite tempting

I know fans are biased toward their team's players, but this made me laugh (from another poster on the Rangers blog):

"Young for Matt Cain?!?  I wouldn't trade Young for Johan Santana.  Sorry, but this trade would rank amongst the worst in the history of the game."

I believe Young has 1 year left on his contract, and Cain is under control for five more years. This has to be a huge consideration. Additionally, starters are very expensive to acquire. Especially ace starters.

While a great hitter and good defender at 2B, I understand Young to be well below average defender at SS.

If the Giants were one big bat away the World Series, then it would me a fair trade and one the Giants should consider if they had a replacement for Cain. BUT, they aren't close and Cain is a potential ace that will contribute for the years to come. [assuming he is healthy]. It's easy to forget how young Cain really is - he was 21 for the entire season and he still has room to improve.

As a player, Cain's flyball tendecies [near worst in baseball] might not play very well in Arlington, but his high strikeout rate would help mitigate that. He does seem to get a lot of pop-ups.

Why do you think SF would want to make the trade?

I would imagine that fans of both teams would be upset with this trade, which is probably a good sign that it's a fair one. The Giants have a whole lot of holes to fill on offense, and the Rangers can always use more pitching.

Cain was dominant for a 2-3 month stretch last year and was a beacon of hope for the future on a sad, old team. He's younger and will be under a team's control for another five years or so, but you always have to worry about injuries with a young pitcher. I'm sure most Ranger fans have loved watching Young play every day, and the guy can rake (858 hits over the last four years? wow), but there would be some concern about how well he would do in a more pitcher-friendly home ballpark.

I was just making up a deal, kind of just an example of what I'd want for Young and the type of deal I'd want to make. I guess this deal wouldn't make sense for yall, I also thought Vizquel was a FA, but I checked and he isn't. Young is actually a FA after the 08 season. He is a great defensive 2B, and an average SS with one of the top arms at the posistion, but he'd definentley be a downgrade from Vizquel.

I just bet a guy, no money involved, that Cain would be one of the top ten pitchers in the game within 3 years, was this a good bet?

I think if you have the chance to trade a pitcher who only plays 33 games a year for an everyday player like Young, you make that deal..

I can see where Ranger fans would be against the deal.

I've had Young on my fantasy team for three years and love him as a player but given the absolute necessity of having an ace to go anywhere in the post season and the fact that Cain is the only Giant remotely likely to fill that role, I couldn't pull the trigger on this deal. There's also the issue of how long you control the player mentioned above. And the salary difference. I'd say Texeira is the only Ranger stud who really fills a major hole for us, although Blalock would be a significant upgrade on Feliz.

Young is a great player, beyond his stats.  He's the kind of guy you want to have around to lead a team.  I'd like to see the Giants pick him up but we only have to wait a year or two and then he can replace Vizquel at Short.  

That being said, Cain wouldn't be a good fit for the Rangers.  Y'all pitch in a homer happy park and Cain gives up a lot of deep fly balls, so you wouldn't get the same value out of him that the Giants would since last year AT&T was the hardest yard in MLB to hit dingers out of.  

Wow, people over at your site said it'd be a rip off.  Makes me wonder how GM's ever manage to make any trades if we are so partisan about our own players.  

To balance things out, I think we need a genuinely snotty answer to a Texas interloper who brings us a PREPOSTEROUS trade idea for the only untouchable on our roster.

But I'm not mean enough. Somebody wake up E and piss him off.

Young is a terrible defensive shortstop. I don't know when it happened, but an awful lot of fans seem to have stopped considering defense. These are his UZR numbers:

05 -24 (per 150)
04 -28
03 -15 (as a 2B)
02 +5 (as a 2B)

Unfortunately I don't have the 2006 numbers but I doubt they're impressive! Young is in all likelihood a worse defensive shortstop than Derek Jeter. I'm going to put him -16 this year on defense, just to be generous - that's 10 runs better than his established performance as a shortstop.

Young had 46.0 VORP this year. Include defense, and that puts him 30.0 above replacement. Vizquel had a 28.0 VORP this year, and was +12 on defense, so that makes him 40.0 runs above replacement. As 10 runs ~ 1 win, that makes Vizquel a full win better than Young as a player. And that's being generous to Young. Young, like Vizquel, is under contract for one more year (and at a similar salary).

I wouldn't even think about trading a stud like Matt Cain for a resolutely ordinary player like Michael Young. I wouldn't trade Noah Lowry for Michael Young. I wouldn't play Michael Young at shortstop, and I'd play Kevin Frandsen at second base ahead of Michael Young. Michael Young would be a below-average third baseman. And so on.

Michael fricking Young???

Mady, you've just offended all the statheads here. They don't believe in clutch, the Easter Bunny, or post-modern expressionism.

In general, Texas and San Francisco would seem to be logical trade partners; you mostly need pitching and we mostly need hitters. However, you've caught us at a time when our cupboard is pretty bare, so I don't think we match up well.

By itself, I wouldn't do the Young/Cain trade, for the reasons NearestNorwich and others mentioned: Cain's youth versus his cost.

What would you give us for a Noah Lowry and a year's supply of garlic fries?