Gordon Edes on evaluating the past (and predicting the future)

May 6th, 2007 → 9:13 am @

I’m in Boston this weekend (for an engagement party — my own, actually — which is why I’m going to need to split in a second), which gives me a chance to read the paper copy of the Globe with my morning cereal. I was very happy to see an article by Gordon Edes that looked at last year’s trades in the context of what’s been going on recently. It’s rare that you get this kind of retrospective look at recent history when there don’t seem to be clear cut answers, and rarer still when there’s a re-examination of moves that engendered criticism when they occurred (or soon afterwards). (I’m not holding my breath waiting for Shaughnessy to re-visit this statement: “Is anybody rethinking that Johnny Damon decision now? On a day when Coco Crisp was rested, Damon continued his Bang Bang tour through Boston…”)

As Gordo points out, things look a lot differently now than they did at various points last year: to take the most obvious example, Anibal Sanchez has just been shipped to AAA, and Josh Beckett looks like the pitcher everyone hoped he’d be. The one thing I would have liked to see: an acknowledgment that it’ll be many years still before we can fully appreciate the pros and cons of these deals…just as it won’t be until the end of next season before we’ll know whether it was a good idea for the Mets to offer Pedo four guaranteed years.

Post Categories: Gordon Edes & Sports Reporters & Trades