They also had a gaping hole behind the plate because they just were not going to squeeze one more year out of Benito. They gave up very good talent to get a good catcher, but he fell flat on his face and F’d it all up.

I do understand what you’re saying, and agree with a lot of it, but if AJ would’ve not been such a jackass the trade wouldn’t look nearly as bad now.

He did say it not to long after the trade, before Liranio was even called up.

hearing Miller’s call on Ransom over and over again pisses me off…bothered me that
Cruz was run out of town too, but at least he was making some $$$$, has to take some
responsibility….no one’s making errors on purpose…carelessness bothers me….like Durham only getting ready in his contract years, sitting on the bench on the DL with a big ol’ smile on his face when the team is 40 games out….

I remember telling anyone who could put up with me at the time of the trade that this has got to be the stupidest move ever, for many reasons, all of which have been mentioned before and are scattered all over this thread.

But just to sum up, here is what I thought at the time: That Sabean is not astute enough to realize that the game of baseball is changing and that any serious playoff contender has to have a solid bullpen. This means (aside from a few “elite” closers) that while closers are overrated, the quality of the entire bullpen is KEY. For that reason, you have to place a great value on a guy who just gave you a season like Nathan. In hindsight, this observation has proved to be true-GMs now know to place almost as equal value on 8th inning guys like Joba, Betancourt, Broxton, Zumaya, Soriano-guys who have great stuff and the peripherals to back it up and have to ability to be closers—as they do closers. So trading away Nathan made NO sense, given that we needed a closer and there was no imminent replacement for Nathan’s 8th inning role. It wasn’t like Sabean was trading Nathan from an area of strength and abundance.

Also, everyone and their prospect-watching grandmothers knew that the the Mauer era was coming to Minnesota and that A.J. was expendable. That should have given all the trading leverage in Sabean’s favor, meaning Sabean calls the shots. And as people pointed out, I was actually looking forward to Yorvit getting a shot at starting. He was, at worst, an adequate catcher and there were about 5 other things that should have been on the “to do” list ahead of trading for a catcher.

Add to that Bonser being a pretty decent prospect, and Liriano being injured and having his value at its lowest and voila, you get the makings of one of the worst trades ever.

For me, this trade is sort of a symbolic case history of Sabean’s incompetence as a GM, his inability to gauge even the most basic things of being a GM like trade dynamics, buy low, sell high valuation, prioritizing, I could go on and on.

But I think what Sabean’s ultimate downfall as a GM is his hubris. He actually thinks he is smarter than all the other GMs and so in this trade we can see him out-thinking himself. What we really needed for 2004 was more offense. Everyone knew that. So instead of getting solid bats, Sabean though he can upgrade the offense with an offensive-minded catcher. This was his contingency plan, that if he couldn’t find a 5 hitter, he would put A.J. there. As we know, this actually came to pass. Our offense stunk and A.J. was put in the 5th hole and it turned out to be a disaster with him and all his rally-killing GIDPs. And lo and behold, we lost the West by two games. What was the main reason? A shaky bullpen.

Since then, what has changed? Not much. Sabean overvaluing closers-overpaying for Benitez-and our catcher batting cleanup. Young guys only getting serious playing time only because the veterans get injured.