Maybe you heard about the unfortunate post on the usually unreliable Bleacher Report website over the weekend. The writer had a "rumor" that had the Brewers considering sending J.J. Hardy, Manny Parra and two prospects to the Royals for -- wait for it -- Zack Greinke.
If this is the first you heard of it, I'll wait while you cycle through the normal emotions.
"WHAT?!?"
(shakes head in disgust)
"What kind of IDIOT.....?!?!"
"Why would ANYBODY....?!?"
"Stupid Al Gore and his internet..."
OK, good to have you back.
The purpose of today's post is not to crush the writer* or pile on talking about how stupid that rumor is, and one that should be laughed at instead of written about.
* Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain the Bleacher Report bloggers are volunteers or get paid next to nothing for what they do. It's a labor of love, and that's hard to make fun of with a clear conscience.
No, what this post is intended to point out is just how difficult it is to come up with a realistic trade idea. It's one of the hardest things about following baseball, either as a fan or reporter.
I mean, we can look at Matt Holliday and feel fairly certain he'll sign for seven years and $110 million or so this offseason. That will be a little off, but I'd bet a slab from Oklahoma Joe's that it's in the ballpark.
But these trades? Almost impossible. Would the Brewers have to throw in Ryan Braun to make that trade realistic? Braun and another prospect? Braun, Prince Fielder and the rights to Miller Park? Who the hell knows?
These things really pick up momentum at the winter meetings, where I once heard a colleague joke that he wanted to completely make up a trade idea, tell a few writers, and then a day or two later do a story pointing out how many places reported it.
I laughed, thought it was a brilliant idea, but then quickly imagined myself getting fooled. Then it wasn't as funny. Or brilliant.
Once, in a casual conversation a few years ago, a member of the Royals' front office gave me a homework assignment. He wanted me to come to him with a doable trade idea that would make the Royals better.
"And realistic," he said. "Don't have us trading Jimmy Gobble for Albert Pujols."
The next few days or so, I wore out Baseball-Reference and Baseball Cube and all the other nerdy sites even more than usual. I came up with something, I can't remember exactly what, but I vaguely recall suggesting either DeJesus or Teahen to the Cubs for a deal involving Ryan Theriot and other parts.
The Royals' executive considered it for a few seconds, acknowledged that it made sense in the obvious ways I pointed out, then listed two or three reasons it didn't make sense, reasons that I hadn't considered and most likely never would've known without that conversation.
I will acknowledge my obvious bias here, but if you're a Royals fan wanting to know which rumors to take seriously and which to ignore, follow the lead of The Star's excellent Royals beat writer, Bob Dutton.
If he writes about it -- even quoting a Royals source shooting it down -- it means there's some fire behind the smoke. The rumors about Teahen going to Cleveland for Franklin Gutierrez a year or two back come to mind. Real fire behind that smoke.
But if Dutton's ignoring it, you can probably be safe doing the same.
All that said, there is an unfounded rumor about a trade that isn't being talked about on any real level, but will be discussed here this week -- not because the Royals are thinking about it, but because they should.
I wouldn't trade Greinke for anyone. If/when the Royals make the playoffs you just can't replace that type of starter. No matter who we got in return, you just can't replace an ACE. If Greinke were in the last year of his contract and we had NO shot to resign him and were out of the playoff race (see Carlos Beltran), then trade him. But what separates Greinke from other Royals' stars that we had to trade is that he WANTS to be here. He's not all about the money, and though we can't take advantage of that and offer him ridiculously low deals, but we aren't talking about your run-of-the-mill all-star pitcher here. We are talking about a possible future hall-of-famer. You don't just trade those away, especially in Kansas City.
Paul L.