If you want to trade for a significant upgrade, you have to be willing to be the highest bidder.
Our FO is not willing to do so...and as long as they hold to that, they are unlikely to field a high end contender. Meanwhile, every player gets closer to free agency and every prospect gets closer to running out of options....and in our situation, prospects get backed up three levels down, while their values keep declining.
Folks may have felt that NY won the Miller trade, but that was because they over valued prospects...a constant market inefficiency.
I was not happy with the Miller trade, but it was the trade that changed my thinking.
We traded/offered EIGHT prospects for Miller and Lucroy. Seven of them busted...Feyereisen turned into a decent middle reliever. Lucroy flopped, but even if we had gotten him, what we gave up ended up being of no value.
It doesnt matter if it is due to injury or non production, prospects...even top 100s...have very little chance of becoming significant MLB contributors. You can always point to the exceptions, but they are still exceptions.
Some folks on here seemingly love BTV, and act like its is gospel when it comes to trade values. But they ignore what BTV says about our highest position prospects. All but one high end position prospect has lost significant trade value as they've risen thru the levels.
Jones, Valera, Rocchio, Freeman, Arias.
Only Bo has a higher trade value now than he did two years ago, but only marginally.
These kids comprised much of our top ten, and all were top 100s in at least one of the major services.
The FO...and many fans...are so risk averse as to be paralyzed. We are so risk averse that we willingly allow our prospects to die on the vine until they have lost almost all value.
No risk, no reward. We don't have money to risk, but we do have prospects...prospects with a high likelihood of failure.
If your analysis is correct that trades always overvalue prospects, then it should work in both directions versus just the overvalued prospects that other GMs want from us that you cherry pick. Yet, if Guardians FO is better than BA, BP,FG ... analysis of prospects that we use in order to come up with this notion "that many prospects fail", then how can our FO win so many trades (just happen to luck out on picking over-valued prospects that just happen to pan out or have their own prospect value chart). You just can't cherry pick prospects that are hyped by services that don't make the trades as they don't see these kids day-to-day and just want our $$$ for crap. Rather, you need to look at trades Guardians actually make (both ways if your logic is correct). Maybe FO knows more than us fans and these paid sites. And maybe why we couldn't trade Jones or others before they seem to fall off the prospect value charts of paid sites because other GMs didn't value him as highly as these paid sites. And, thus our value for Jones was to hold onto him and see if something clicked like it did for Kwan and Oscar (who many inc myself gave up on) as he had closer to little value on the actual trade market than we were lead to believe by top-100 prospect lists.
Big Guardians Trades:
Your Hand and Cimber for Mejia (we clearly won)
Your Miller for Frazier, Sheffield, Feyereisen and Heller (we won -- maybe just because FO knew who to unload on unwilling GM or due to inuries)
Proposed LuCroy for Mejia, Chang and Armstrong (draw as only Armstrong really did anything after we got Int money for him) - but also why did Guardians push Mejia on 2 teams (did they know he was overvalued???? even on other GM scales and especially fan prospect scales????)
Donaldson for Merryweather (we won for a rental -- so we do trade prospects when it makes sense)
You can use this to try to win your argument (as you have done over and over) but then if you reverse it, your logic all falls apart
Lindor and Carrasco for Rosario and Gimenez (and Wolf and Greene who were 3rd and 4th throw ins) - looking good for inj pitcher and 1 year of Lindor
Clevinger, Allen and Waldron for Naylor, Arias, Quantrill, Hedges, Miller and Cantillo - as Clevinger never did anything for Padres - another win -- yes even vets can fail (cannot just look at prospect side) and Bimbo said Cantillo is no same level as Williams, Espino, Bibee and Allen (just a bit behind in developing/adjusting into bigger body)
Kluber for Clase - wonder who won that one
Hernandez for Pilk - nothing much for either side
Luplow and DJ Johnson for Battenfield - we may actually win this even though Luplow was just a rental
Bauer for Puig, Reyes, Allen Sr and Nova (Reds won it due to us wanting to unload him and they got a comp pick and 1 good year)
Only other trade we lost recently is the Tampa Bauers for Diaz but won the E'EE for Santana portion of trade (making prospect Diaz blocked for a vet)
Yet before this ... let's count the wins (for rentals)
Westbrook for Klubler
CC for Brantley (even though LaPorta never panned out)
Lee for Carrasco, and Jason Donald and Marson (even though Knapp never panned out)
Clevinger for Vinnie Pastano
Bauer and Shaw for Choo and Jason Donald
Choo for Broussard
......
We wouldn't have a franchise in the state it is if we didn't win with not just random overvalued fan prospect board sites but with WHO our FO actually values that seems to pay off than your "MOST prospects fail" arguement. And even if 3 of 5 of these prospects we wanted fail, we needed the 1 or 2 who didn't as most were happy with Bradley being greater than Laporta and Cookie being greater than Knapp (it only takes a couple to fill a team holes).
The approach has worked so well that 3 of the top 5 in CBS current power chart have used a similar approach to prospects - Tampa, Pirates and Baltimore
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