FanShot

Since it's easy shooting ducks (or a duck, GMDM) in a barrel...

5

...I very much appreciate this piece from David Schenfield. I especially liked these four paragraphs: Because it's the Royals, it is easier to rip the deal. Now, everyone could certainly be right. Maybe Myers does turn into the next Longoria or an American League version of Giancarlo Stanton, and maybe Shields struggles away from The Trop and Joe Maddon's defensive shifts and the Royals finish 75-87. At the same time, it's important not to overvalue your own prospects. Because while prospects are valuable commodities as future big leaguers, they're also valuable commodities as trade chips. Think of Cliff Lee: The Phillies, Mariners and Rangers all traded for Lee before he returned to Philadelphia as a free agent. None of the 11 prospects in those three deals has created much value at the major league level. True, none of those prospects were on Myers' level (Justin Smoak would have been the highest rated, a top-15 prospect). R.J. Anderson of Baseball Prospectus wrote an article in late November, however, that listed the 23 top-10 Baseball America prospects since 1990 who had been traded within three years of their ranking. It's a mixed bag of prospects -- that Pedro Martinez guy turned out pretty good -- and pitcher Brad Penny is the only other player on the list traded before he had reached the majors, but the list includes flops such as Marte, Ruben Mateo and Travis Lee. The two players traded most recently, Jesus Montero and Rasmus, have hardly inspired confidence that they will turn into stars. And Myers isn't a perfect prospect -- he struck out 140 times last year, a red flag in my book. Maybe this will turn into another Martinez-Delino DeShields deal. Maybe it will be the deal that costs Dayton Moore his job. On the other hand, the Royals are finally trying to win, trying to end the parade of replacement-level starting pitchers. The Royals need Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez to turn into stars; the Royals' future rests on their shoulders as much as it would have on Myers', and they have enough experience that it's now or never for that group.