AA's 10 best & 10 worst moves

[Komodo]

What are AA's 10 best and worst moves? I've been more of a casual onlooker so help fill me in.

Best
-Wells for Napoli
-re-signing Jose to a discount

Worst
-Napoli for Francisco
-D'Arnaud + for Dickey
-passing on Sale in the draft

How has he been? Is this his make or break year? Or do you think Beeston likes him too much that AA will stick around?

[Hoopstarr]

Not quite sure you can pin Sale (heh, which one?) on him? The GM does usually make the call on first round picks, but it's also a team effort.

In addition to what you list getting Escobar for peanuts was great. Rasmus for Stewart and Rzep was a steal. League for Morrow was too, no matter how it worked out. Johnson for Hill was also a good one as even if Johnson left for FA he would've yielded a type A pick instead of Hill's type B. The Halladay trade was also the best he could've done in a pinch. Drabek wasn't even available in earlier talks. We should've at least gotten Dom Brown back too for the best pitcher in baseball, but it was still a good haul at the time.

Worst would easily be the two big ones last year. The first is one of the worst in the team's history. And even if we didn't give up that much in the Marlins one, it still was nowhere near the level of culture-changing trade it was hyped up to be by everyone, and Reyes' contract is going to be a killer very soon.

[Raps in 4]

He also revamped our farm system after it was left in shambles.

The only move of his I disagreed with from the start was the Dickey trade. Despite that, I still view him as one of the top GMs in baseball. If we decide to rebuild after next season, I'd want him at the helm.

[Schad]

Best:

Dumping Wells
The Bautista contract
The Encarnacion contract
Rasmus for a pile of not much
The initial value of the Halladay trade
Escobar for a rental


And a couple that aren't individual moves, but contributed significantly:

Rebuilding the bullpen as a whole, for not a hell of a lot of money
Reaming the comp system to such an extent that they changed it


Worst:

The Dickey trade
The Marlins trade
The Happ trade
Miscalculating with the bonuses of first round picks
Arencibia being trusted in the whole, leading us to move d'Arnaud and Gomes
Deck/Jenkins; the draft is the draft, but ultimately when you get two guys who may not ever contribute, and selected shortly after are an ace in one year and the greatest age 20/21 hitter in history in the other, it has to be considered coming up short

Those are the ones I can think of straightaway...sure that there are several more which could fit into each category.

[MikeM]

I don't really hate the Marlins trade. Buehrle and Reyes are good players. I guess we have to at least see that one out to see if the prospects amount to anything before label it as the worst.

[Raps in 4]

I don't really hate the Marlins trade. Buehrle and Reyes are good players. I guess we have to at least see that one out to see if the prospects amount to anything before label it as the worst.

We didn't give up any top prospects in that trade. The length of Reyes' contract might be a bit worrisome, but that's really the only drawback I see with the trade.

[Lateral Quicks]

Schad's list is good, though I also think the Marlins trade was OK. That Johnson would spontaneously combust and Reyes would only play half the season could not have been reasonably expected.

To the good I would add the worse glue for whatshisname. Though Santos has been mostly injured, when he's healthy he's pretty damn good.

To the bad I would add Jo-Jo "I throw fast (down the middle of the plate)" Reyes, and his insistence to constantly have veteran scrubs on the team (e.g. Vizquel, Coco).

[C Court]

Aaron Hill and John McDonald for Kelly Johnson probably belongs on the worst list.

Brett Lawrie for Shaun Marcum was a good move.

[Schad]

Dammit, knew there was one other major one...yeah, the Lawrie trade goes on the good list.

With the Marlins trade, I'd include it there simply because it backfired in the worst possible way, leaving us with the payroll bomb of Reyes/Buehrle and without the ace production of Johnson. It was always going to be a risk given his injury history, and while I don't blame him for taking it, it's still one that'll likely haunt us.

[BigLeagueChew]

Farrell to the Red Sox, we would have won the World Series.

[Ado05]

Thames for Delabar was pretty great too.

[Hoopstarr]

Best:

Dumping Wells
The Bautista contract
The Encarnacion contract
Rasmus for a pile of not much
The initial value of the Halladay trade
Escobar for a rental


And a couple that aren't individual moves, but contributed significantly:

Rebuilding the bullpen as a whole, for not a hell of a lot of money
Reaming the comp system to such an extent that they changed it


Worst:

The Dickey trade
The Marlins trade
The Happ trade
Miscalculating with the bonuses of first round picks
Arencibia being trusted in the whole, leading us to move d'Arnaud and Gomes
Deck/Jenkins; the draft is the draft, but ultimately when you get two guys who may not ever contribute, and selected shortly after are an ace in one year and the greatest age 20/21 hitter in history in the other, it has to be considered coming up short

Those are the ones I can think of straightaway...sure that there are several more which could fit into each category.

Does AA get blame for Jenkins over Trout? I don't think I'd blame anyone or any team for that one. The freakin Angels took him and they're the organization that traded for Vernon Wells a few months later. Deck for sure, though. I don't know what lead him to do that.

[Schad]

I don't blame him -- it would never be something that I'd cite in a 'fire AA' thread, if it ever got to that point -- but if we're talking the moves that had the greatest negative consequences, those picks probably have to be in there. The draft being what it is, everyone misses players (indeed, both Sale/Trout were passed over by a good many teams), but given the degree to which we've focused on starting pitching and toolsy outfielders in the draft, missing the best of each during that time frame does hurt.

[akakalakin]

if it ever got to that point?

who are you kidding, AA blew his wad by the 2nd week of last season when we knew what we had ....crap

[Michael Bradley]

It really depends on whether you are looking at moves in hindsight or at the time. For example, I thought the Hill/KJ deal was great at the time because Hill did not look like he would ever correct himself in Toronto and Johnson is a solid player, but in hindsight, it took the D-Backs all of 3 seconds to fix Hill's issues and KJ did not yield the 1st round pick AA was going for nor did he produce much with the Jays. It definitely has to fall under the "worst" category in that sense, but it made sense at the time.

Factoring both at the time and hindsight, I'll go with....

Best:
- Wells trade
- Bautista extension
- Encarnacion extension
- Morrow trade
- Escobar trade
- Rasmus trade
- Lawrie trade
- Buck and Molina signings (both did reasonably well and yielded picks)
- Marlins trade (this one looks worse because of JJ's implosion and not getting at least a pick for him, but I think the Jays could trade Reyes tomorrow and get better players than Nicolino, Hech, Alvarez, etc).

Worst:
- Halladay trade (AA shouldn't be blamed entirely for this as he inherited the mess, but a HOF for three non-elite lottery tickets, the most advanced one being in Double-A, is atrocious value)
- Napoli trade
- Cordero signing (damn you, Koji!)
- Hill/KJ
- Dickey trade (I was fine with it at the time and still am if the Jays make the playoffs with Dickey in the rotation, but this is one of those moves where only a playoff appearance or two will justify it)
- The 2011 and 2012 rotations (inexcusable)
- Izturis signing

I'm probably missing a few here or there.

[TheMainEvent]

The Marlins deal is average. I was all for it when it happened, so I can't exactly hate it. But even with Johnson (and the team) sucking, it's still okay.

Like quite a lot of other fans, I hated the Dickey deal when it happened. I still hate it. That's the biggest and worst loss.

Happ's deal is the second worst. We technically didn't lose much, but I never liked Happ... those prospects could have been traded as part of something better.

Third worst is probably the Halladay trade. D'Arnaud developed into a good prospect, but both Drabek and Gose (Taylor -> Wallace -> Gose) are questionable impact players. Hell, maybe D'Arnaud ends up being nothing better than questionable too.

I didn't blame AA about the Napoli trade when Napoli said he wanted to be a full-time fielder at catcher/1B and AA wouldn't give that. But trading him for Frank Francisco ended up being crappy. In turn, that resulted in full-time duties to Encarnacion, who blew up into one of the best hitters in the game. So... maybe trading Napoli = Encarnacion's career? If so, not too bad... but Napoli for Francisco itself seems bad.

The other questionable one is Hill for Johnson. Johnson didn't do anything while Hill rejuvenated his career. It's only a questionable trade looking back on it... at the time, though, it was very probable that Hill was going to continue to suck if he stayed in Toronto.

The good deals are generally well-known and have been said already. Trading Wells' contract is probably best, even with the little return.

[T-d0t]

I dont think that a GM can be held responsible for their draft picks for better or worse since the MLB draft is probably the biggest crap shoot in all of sports. All to often you hear about players who were drafted in the late rounds of the draft having better overall careers than some of the players who were drafted in the first round.

Secondly every Blue jays fan and their mother believed that the Marlin trade was a great deal for the Jays, a STEAL even at the time. Remember there were people saying that the trade might get vetoed by Mr Selig because of how lopsided it looked. So in hindsight the trade was terrible for us but at the time Reyes, Beurhle, Johnson, Boni was a great haul for what we had gave up.

I didnt like the Dickey trade but I totally understand why AA made it and he had the grounds for it.

All in all I, personally do not blame AA for the teams misfortunes but the players themselves who under performed maybe even the coaches, especially Pete Walker.

[number15]

Matt Kemp for Cecil, Jannsen, Delabar, Sierra..... Oh wait, that hasn't happend quite yet

[mikero]

Not a franchise altering move by any means, but I think AA`s trade for Olivo to get a draft pick was brilliant.

The only move I think was truly bad was the Cordero signing.

[dkmo]

Six months ago I would have argued that the Napoli-Fransico trade was his worst one. Now it's looking like the Marlins trade has derailed the franchise and squandered whatever momentum we were building up. If the team can somehow make the playoffs next year, I'll have to eat my words... but as of now the team's future looks bleak.

And, hell, who knew Rogers had all that money to burn? People are complaining about Seattle and Cano... but we burnt even more money on those Marlin players. At least the Mariners got to keep their prospects.