Thursday: Ugly Trade #4

The Colorado Rockies send: Matt Holliday
The Oakland Athletics send: Greg Smith, Huston Street, and Carlos Gonzalez

Matt Holliday in the World Series

Boy, does this one look ugly. Heading into the 2009 season Billy Beane decided he was going to make a power play for the AL West. The Rockies, looking to cash in on their expensive left fielder, put Matt Holliday on the block. Beane took his shot and traded for the power happy hitter. People were highly critical of the deal, saying Holliday would never possess in Oakland what he had in Colorado. 

He wasn't terrible in Oakland. In 93 games he posted an .831 OPS, with 11 home runs and 12 bags. However, the Athletics felt it'd be more worth it to trade him again before the season was over. Unfortunately, they traded Holliday just as he was getting hot, and he went on to post a 1.023 OPS with 13 home runs in 63 games for the Cardinals. Despite what they gave up for Holliday, Oakland got pretty much nothing from St. Louis. The sad thing is, Oakland had a pretty good team that year, and if they had kept Holliday as he was getting hot they might have made a big comeback; or, Beane could have gone off his normal behavior and extended the slugger and built a franchise around him.


So, what makes this so ugly, besides the results for Oakland? What they gave up in return, that's what. Greg Smith isn't even worth mentioning, so let's ignore him. The Rockies got a hell of a reliever in Huston Street. Street was really good in Oakland, and he adjusted great to Coors and has handled himself well there. In two seasons with the Rockies he's had a 3.10 ERA, 55 saves, a 0.966 WHIP, and a killer 9.5 K/9. Street has developed into an incredibly dependable closer. Could you imagine him in that Oakland bullpen with Andrew Bailey? Talk about shut down.

Oh, what could have been

The true gem though was Carlos Gonzalez. The kid is a phenomenal 5-tool player. He's the second coming of Grady Sizemore; i.e. he's going to be a consistent 30-30 player. The one thing Car-Go has, that Sizemore never did, is Coors. It takes a 30-30 player and pushes him to 40-30 potential (and with Gonzalez's athleticism he could have back-to-back seasons at 40-40). Oakland lost a amazing player in this deal; and imagine, Car-Go has all the tools Oakland was looking for in Holliday. I love Beane, and there's no way he could know just how good Gonzalez was going to be; but, no matter how you look at it Oakland looks stupid on this trade. 

However, people have been critical of Car-Go. They claim he only succeeds at spacious Coors, shown by his pretty skewed home/road splits. I think he'll be just fine though. He almost had 200 hits last season (he had 197); even in Coors that's a hard feat to reach. This kid is the next great lefty slugger in the game and soon enough everyone will know his name; and that's going to kill Oakland fans.