Yosemite Dan wrote:Some of you guys can spin this trade anyway you want to make yourself feel better but this is an absolutely HORRIBLE trade. I'm not sure what AA is smoking but I think he just made his 1st major mistake. You do not give up a legit #2 starter (any argument to the contrary is silly) for a prospect and Lawrie is far from a sure thing and several years away from the major leagues so it's like he is gonna help us in any way in the next 3 years.
If AA thinks that he's got legit and consistent workhorse starters in Morrow and Cecil then we all might be in for a rude awakening. Cecil didn't finish well and had good run support last year and Morrow could not even be counted to pitch the last 6 weeks of the season because of concerns about damaging his arm so he is not a sure thing by any means and he's been inconsistent his whole career. To say he bombs next year is a distinct possibility because he's like Burnett between the ears and not the strongest mentally.
Basically we had Romero and Marcum who could be counted to quality and consistent starters next year and to give up half that for a 2nd basemen who may have to be a 3rd baseman but not 3rd baseman power makes little sense at this point. I can see Marcum becoming the next Chris Carpenter in the NL. This trade may haunt us.
Those are some pretty pessimistic views on Cecil and Morrow. These guys are young and improving, there is no reason to expect them to regress. Cecil just finished his first season as a full time starter, not surprised he may not have finished with a flourish. At the beginning of last season, would you have labeled romero badly just because he only put together 1 good season? He has now put together 2 and is well on his way to being a very good pitcher, as you alluded to.
Morrow didn't get to pitch the last 6 weeks because of his incredibly terrible usage with the Mariners. He was yo-yo'd back and forth from relief to starter relief to starter and majors to minors majors to minors. The Blue Jays said they were going to stabilize his position as a starter, and treat him carefully and bring him up to speed buy not overdoing his workload. He already pitched more than double the amount of innings he did in 2009 once they shut him down. And don't label Morrow's mind like Burnett's just because they have a similar pitching style. I don;t think Burnett will ever show the class Morrow did with that 17K performance last year, and the dude has diabetes on top of it all, another thing he deals with exceptionally well.
