On Mark Kotsay and Joey Devine

(Note: This was all warranted by a thread concerning the Kotsay/Devine trade on Braves-Nation, you can stroll over there and check it out if you want more context.)

Bottomline is this: I was incredibly high on the Kotsay/Devine trade when it went down because I felt it gave the Braves the one piece they were missing to become a legit contender -- a bonafide CF who can play exceptional defense and supply at least leage-average pop. What they gave up was a piece which they already have a surplus of: RH middle relief type pitchers (see: Yates, Acosta, Boyer, Resop, Stockman, Schreiber); along with RH lights out guys like Soriano and Moylan, and two RH swingmen in Bennett and Carlyle. The Braves were absolutely loaded at the time with RH relievers who were more than capable of getting the job done. So trading one of those, any of those, for a crucial piece like Kotsay was a no-brainer. It could have been Resop, Yates, Boyer whoever. The difference in Devine and all the others, however -- outside of Stockman and Schreiber -- was they had at least somewhat proven themself capable of being an asset at the ML level. Devine was simply the odd man out. I'm sure it came down to either Devine or Acosta, and while both are very comparable, the club obviously had more faith in Acosta (see his 21 outings in '07 compared to Joey's ten).

Remember, this is all the mindset of the organization on January 14th, hindsight is completely 20/20.

Did any of us, be it supporters of the trade or the dijectors, see all the injuries which have befalled the starting rotation? The injuries to both Soriano and Moylan? The struggles of Diaz, Francoeur, Escobar and Johnson? The combined 182 starts between Infante, Blanco and Norton? The team being so far out of the race in July they would deal Mark Teixeira for the much inferior Casey Kotchman? Chipper missing a month of action? Kotsay missing almost two months? Julian Taverez, Vladimir Nunez and Elmer Dessens being crucial parts of the bullpen on August 30th?

No, the answer is not a damn one of us saw any of it coming. Even I, one of the biggest doubters of this team coming into the 2008 season, predicted this type of epic collapse.

Sure, sending Devine to Oakland for Kotsay and then turing around and dealing him to Boston before September looks like a total bitch move at this point. Who wouldn't think so? But at the time, the deal was a very logical one which greatly enhanced what was likely going to be an offense which fell below league average; while the bullpen was left with very few questions or concerns.

Devine simply didn't fit into the equation, no matter if you view him as being just a regular RH reliever or the next Jon Papelbon. Trading away expendable pieces for options which are going to greatly enhance another part of your club is what you do, it's how you build a successful team. Granted, you likely don't trade them for one-off thirty-plus options like Kotsay all the time, but given the Braves current outfield depth all around the Minors, this time it made sense. Did it work out? No, but in this grand game, there's never guarantees.

Somewhere down the line, you think the Twins are going to regret trading away Matt Garza for Delmon Young? You bet your sweet ass they are. Hell, they already do. But I'll say now what I said then, it's a move they could afford to make. They had a lot of questions in their outfield with Torii Hunter going to the Angels and needed to add OF depth. Their strong point at the time was having a slew of young, ML ready starting pitchers -- Blackburn, Slowey, Perkins, Baker, Bonser -- not to mention they also still had Santana and Liriano was making great progress. So it made perfect sense to acquire a stud OF prospect in Young for a expendable prospect like Garza. And how have things worked out for the Twins? Well, I'd say being sixteen games over .500, 1.5 games back in their division and 2.5 games back in the Wildcard race is pretty damn good.

Does that mean they wouldn't like to have Garza back? Of course not. But they still have the best young overall core of any staff in baseball. They may not have the best 1-2-3 punch, but they certainly have more depth than any other team out there. Is Young going to turn into a legit star? Right now he's putting up pretty mediocre numbers, but he could always be one AB away from turning the corner and becoming the next Carlos Beltran.

How does all of this tie into the Braves? They could very well be in the situation the Twins are in right now and no one would be kicking themselves to any extreme because Joey Devine is putting up a good season in an incredible Oakland bullpen. Hell, if there is one thing which can be learned from this, it's you can have two pitchers like Devine and Brad Ziegler in your bullpen and still be ten games below .500 and twenty games out of first place.

Relievers are only one player. They're going to be lucky to get into half of your team's ballgames. Unless you do have a player like Mo Rivera, Jon Papelbon, Franky Rodriguez or Joe Nathan to close out games for you, almost every part of your bullpen is going to be interchangable and it isn't going to matter from game to game how a reliever performed the day before, or the day before that.

An everyday player is going to be in the lineup most likely 90% of team games and likely come to the plate 600 times in a season. When your options in center heading into a season are two light-hitting players with little to no ML experience, and your offense is already showing possible signs of struggling, what do you move to try and remedy the situation? Well, if one of the more consistent CF (re: consistent, not star-caliber or most productive) of this generation, you attempt to make a move for them.

Do you trade away a SP? Well, no, the Braves actually had to go out and get Jurrjens and Glavine, so that's out of the question.

Do you trade away a bat? Well, no, if the Braves had enough of those, they wouldn't be in this situation.

Do you trade away one of the key prospects? Absolutely not. I'm all for shipping off unproven prospects, but only if you are getting a player who is going to help out the team in the long-term, not essentially a rental like with Kotsay.

How about the bullpen? Well, we've got a lot of righties, and with the addition of Ohman there is now a core of lefties... What could be the most valuable, yet expendable, piece there? Hrm, Joey Devine has a lot of upside, and we've got a couple arms in Acosta, Resop and Stockman who are comparable, so let's send him to Oakland.

Honestly, how can you possibly doubt the logic involved here?