Quote:
Originally Posted by Flickered Flame
How so? This is, is exactly what Beane has done over the past numbers of years. I bet by the end of 2 years from now that is, is an even trade. Donaldson is an upgrade over Lawrie, there is no doubt about that but Donaldson is very inconsistent at the plate. When he is on, he hits everything but when he is not, he is really bad and swings at a lot of bad pitches. What makes this trade for the Jays is not the on field stuff but the clubhouse aspect that Donaldson will bring. He was a real leader in Oakland, the type of player you win with.
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Right, but how do you go to the fans in Oakland and say "Come out pay money to watch us play when since the trade deadline last year we've traded away our two best offensive players on the team, and the top higher end pitchers we traded for are also going to be gone". It's a difficult sell right?
And that's before you remember they play in the worst or second worst (the Big O) sports stadium in North America. I get that Billy is always playing the long game because of their budget constraints, but it's pretty impossible to build a fanbase when any time you might have a window to win, it gets slammed shut by your owners.
This case seems particularly odd as Donaldson is on a very good contract for a few years yet. This just seems like making moves for the sake of making moves. Or maybe Billy saw the second half collapse last year and decided this team wasn't anywhere close to winning anything and is re-tooling for a few years from now. But that's still not going to help build their fanbase.