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Yesterday in Detroit, Royals RHP Brian Bannister allowed no runs and two hits through seven innings while striking out four.
Mets GM Omar Minaya traded Banniser to Kansas City in December, 2006, in exchange for RHP Ambiorix Burgos, 
who has pitched in just 17 games for New York, and who will miss most of this season following Tommy John surgery.
In 27 starts for the Royals last season, Bannister was 12–9 with a 3.87 ERA, though he struggled in September going 1–2 in five starts with a 7.30 ERA.
In a post to Mets Today, Joe Janish writes that it may still be premature to fully evaluate the Bannister-for-Burgos deal.
…i have been sent a lot of e-mail in the last day whining that minaya traded away bannister and does not get enough flack for it, which i think is mostly heightened by the sudden need for a fifth starter…
…i’m not sure why some people operate with the idea that every trade will be a gem…bad trades happen…especially when scouts and executives put so much stock in ‘stuff,’ like they all do…
…yes, the Mets should regret trading bannister, just like they should regret trading Heath Bell, as they will both likely continue to be poor trades…
…at the same time, they should continue to believe in burgos, and Jason Vargas, while boasting about deals that brought in Duaner Sanchez (for Jae Seo), John Maine (for Kris Benson), Johan Santana (for four minor leaguers), and Xavier Nady (for Mike Cameron), who helped get Oliver Perez…
…again, bad trades happen, but good trades happen too…it’s all part of the game…you take the good with the bad and hope it all comes out in your favor in the end…
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I totally agree with you. But I think Maine and Jorge Julio came in for Kris Benson… and then we got El Duque for Jorge Julio.
Basically, Benson and Nady got us Maine, Perez, El Duque and a half year of Roberto Hernandez.
And something else no one seems to mention. If Duaner wasn’t in that accident, we probably never get Oliver Perez. Of course, we may well very have a 2006 WS as well…
Well really, you could look at as Benson and Cameron got us those four guys, since Nady was acquired for Cameron. However you put it, that is a huge steal!!
you’re right, but Matt is correct with his point, too many people want every trade to work, and seem to think that the Mets should take more flack or don’t make good trades because of a couple mistakes. EVERY team makes bad trades, look at Terry Ryan in Minnesota, sure, he pulled off a great trade to get Liriano and all, but he also made some horrible ones before that happened. Expecting every trade to work out, or expecting your GM to have the foresight to predict every player’s value and future results is ridiculous. You take the bad, and hopefully there’s more good, which I’d say there has been around here for the past 3 years.
Getting on some trades is ridiculous. The Bannister deal is one of them. In Bannister for Burgos, you knew you were giving up a solid back-end starter for a high-upside young reliever. Based on team needs, and without the foreknowledge of Burgos’s injury, that’s a fine trade, with bad results.
The ones that sting are those where a good player is run out of town. You could see the Heath Bell trade sucking a mile away — everyone who likes stats was screaming about how Bell was going to be good at the time. I can show you my own comments from that day. So to say no one could see Bell blossoming is untrue. All the arrows pointed to him being a stud reliever, once he got past a little bad luck. That was a bad trade that shouldn’t have been made.
So there’s a big difference, in my book.
In Bell’s case much of his performance was dictated by his erratic usage at the major league level. I don’t believe he would have performed with the Mets as he has with SD. His minor league peripherals suggested his major league performance should be quite good but you can’t use this to project a performance level if the manager cannot or will not use you in a manner that gives you the best chance of succeeding.
Absolutely agree, Matt. People seem to have this belief that GMs have a magical crystal ball that they bring out every winter, allowing them to make the perfect trade. Obviously, doesnt happen.
you forgot the millidge deal also…=/
and lindstrom and so forth
we still don’t know which side the Milledge deal will come down on.
Milledge is looking really good, but guess what, so are Church and Schneider. Anytime you can get 2 right away starters for a competing team for 1 potential starter, you have to make that trade.
just pointing out that evaluating that trade as good or bad depends on a lot of things down the road a ways.
Every trade is not going to work out for both teams. I try not to dwell on players traded away. The only time they bother me is if they contribute directly to defeating the Mets, which someone like Brian Bannister is unlikely to do anytime soon. Now if Bell gets a key hold, or Milledge drives in a key run against the Mets, for that game, it bothers me. But usually there’s a game the next night and that bother is gone.
Plus I think you HAVE to make some trades that don’t work out for you, otherwise no one will want to trade with you, fearing your “magic touch.”
I agree in principle but Maine and Perez were throw ins on deals not the foucs of those deals. In any event, as a fan , I hope the good deals outweigh the bad ones but the Bannister trade bothered me becuase he seemed like the type of guy who would be successful even without the “stuff” as you put it. All we got from that deal was another guy who threw hard and had limited control, like Zambrano for Kazmir. Meanwhil ewe gave away a “pitcher.”
I don’t think they were Throw-Ins. That’s like saying that if we had added Fernando Martinez to the Santana deal, he would have been a throw-in. I believe Omar wanted Perez and Maine more than Julio and Roberto Hernandez.
Seriously, is this guy kidding? It isnt like Omar stuck his hand in a bag and pulled out Oliver Perez’s name. He wanted Perez and Maine and got them for nothing, and now they are two legit MLB starters in their mid 20’s and improving. Maine improving rapidly. We got them for nobodyy. Omar takes so much crap its crazy. I think a lot of it is from the younger teenage kids that dont really remember that the end of the Phillips tenure and the entire Duquette tenure they were a joke. A humongous mess. They were like the Knicks are right now. A year afer Omar came in they were back over 500, the next year they ran away with the NL in the regular season, and last year it took and epic collapse to lose the division.
While I’m a supporter of Omar, I don’t buy the notion that taking over a team in a bad situation and making them better makes a GM a genius. If you look at the Mets of 2003, they were so bad, that they had nowhere to go but up. On the contrary, let’s say Theo Epstein quits his Red Sox job right now. Whoever replaces him will have quite a chore in front of him in order to match Epstein’s tenure.
common misconception. Maine and Ollie were the centerpiece of both deals.
I disagree. Go back a review the comments at the time. Perez was a wash out, “ruined” by the Pirates and Maine was a nobody from the comments. I remember saying on this site that because I live near Baltimore I had heard a bunch about Maine in the O’s minor system, and Maine could turn out to be a steal because he had been at one time rated well by the O’s but they had given up on him for some reason. I am not buying that either were in any way “center pieces.” No chance on that.
to me, them being throw-ins only enhances the quality of the deal.. the throw-ins are where a GM makes his money, being able to pickout the change of scenery guys, the guys you can help, the ones no one else has heard of, that’s the skill here.
Maine sounds like Milledge.
Of course some trades work out and some don’t, but that doesn’t mean some aren’t better/ worse than others. Yes, the jury is out on these trades, but on the whole, it looks like the best trades had a lot of luck to them.
It’s not just Omar, either. Note that scouting, player development, etc. factor into the success/failure of these deals. Yeah, it’s his regime, but I’m sure he inherited much of the FO.
They were the centerpieces. the comments on metsblog have nothing to do with it. Omar has been on record saying that he was chasing Maine and Ollie for quite some time. He had to take salary back to get Maine for Benson (julio). Pitt was asking for Nady straight up for Ollie and Omar thought that was too much to give up. After the cab accident, he realized that he needed another back of the bullpen arm and told pitt they would have a deal if they threw in hernandez.
these are well known stories. just because you haven’t heard of them, doesn’t mean they were throw ins.
False. They were not the centerpieces. That’s fiction. At least in Maine’s case.
Maine was a throw-in.
It’s also hard to think Ollie was the centerpiece of the Nady deal when Omar tried to trade him for Linebrink right after the trade. But the Padres turned it down.
Again. Omar was lucky there. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It takes luck for GM’s to succeed as well as smarts.
It’s not so much that they were the Centerpieces of the deals, because lets face it, they weren’t. But the idea that they were throw-ins is also false. Minaya clearly targeted those specific players and wouldn’t have pulled the trigger on those deals without those players involved.
I’m not so sure of that in the case of Maine. It was widely reported that Omar had long been enamored of Julio. If not for the criticism in the media, he may have done Julio for Benson straight up. That’s what Olney’s story says.
Olney isn’t exactly the most ethical reporter. 75% odds that he made that up just to make his previous reports of the Benson/Julio talks look fully correct when it wasn’t.
I seem to remember Minaya on WFAN saying to watch out for Maine and that they think very highly of him when the deal was made. That’s not something you say about a throw-in.
I’m 99.99% sure he didn’t make that up. He has no record of making things up. If you think he does, give one single incident and back it up.
And what previous reports? Unless you can show some previous reports in which he said the same thing, then you’re just throwing things out there.
And why wouldn’t a GM praise every single player he traded for? There is no reason not to. It makes no sense to hold back praise for any player you trade for. What is he supposed to say? (”Oh, Julio was the guy we really wanted but when we heard you guys bash us for just getting him back we went to Jim and said — hey give us another guy — and so he threw in Maine who we think has potential. But we don’t know how much.”)
OP was definitely a throw in in that deal. What was Minaya’s motivation for making the deal??? It was to acquire a reliever for the stretch run, not to acquire a potential washed up starter for the next 2 years.
True. I believe it was “I need more then Julio in return. Maybe you can throw in this Maine kid you have.” Same in his deal that got Perez. Though they were not the centerpieces, Omar did make a point to get them included in the deals.
here’s some faulty logic 101:
vcarver says that Perez obviously wasn’t the centerpiece, because he tried to turn around and trade him for linebrink, even though it was reported that Minaya long-sought Perez
he then says, 2 posts later, that Maine was obviously a throw-in because Minaya had long-sought Julio…who he turned around and traded a week into the season.
Why is it faulty logic? Did Omar try to trade Julio right after he got him?
No. But he did try to trade Ollie.
In Ollie’s case, I know it as fact that Rick Peterson asked for him by name as the throw-in. Take that however you want it.
As for Olney (who claimed Maine was thrown in because it looked bad that Julio for Benson was too little), I see someone says he doesn’t make stuff up. I’m laughing to myself, meanwhile. I do hear things through the grapevine, and I’d say of any columnist, Olney is probably the absolute worst at making stuff up. He’s a habitual liar who has been “unofficially banned” (as in, the players just give him a run-around and don’t tell him anything about trade talks) from several MLB clubhouses. Ever wonder why he kept going back and idly speculating about the Oakland A’s, for example, and was literally wrong with every single rumor starting, oh, around 2006?
I said he doesn’t make things up. If you think he does, name one incident where he made it up and give a link to support it. Just one. I mean, if he has such a rep, it should be easy to find, right?
And I’m not talking about instances where he reports rumors/buzz (as Matt does sometimes). It’s different to say “An executive of a ML club told me that Omar is interested in trading for Julio.” … and “Omar called the Orioles to ask about Julio.”
“If you think he does, name one incident where he made it up and give a link to support it. Just one. I mean, if he has such a rep, it should be easy to find, right?”
Danny Haren and Santiago Casilla for Aaron Heilman, Lastings Milledge, and I don’t remember if it was Mike Pelfrey or Philip Humber. Google that one. Or better yet, look it up on Tim Dierkes’ mlbtraderumors.com. At one point, Olney announced the trade as having been completed and posted it on MLB.com. Both the A’s and the Mets denied 1) ever having talked about Santiago Casilla and 2) ever having talked about Pelfrey or Humber. The A’s denied ever having put Haren on the table. The Mets said they wanted him, but the only two pitchers the A’s were willing to give up were Joe Blanton and Rich Harden.
I don’t have a link saying “Buster Olney is a liar” in that many words, however, I know enough people in the right places to know he darn well is. Further, if you find the ESPN link (which is still accessable through Dierkes’ website, though may be dead by now) and then look at the statements made by both teams in reaction to when he posted it, I don’t see how on earth you could reach any other conclusion. I’m actually not going to get into a debate as far as Omar’s trades go…but I will darn well keep going at it with you that Olney cannot bring himself to tell the truth most of the time.
‘Scuse me, he posted it on ESPN.com, sorry.
Oh, and another Olney rumor…remember the monster three way trade he somehow came up with that involved the Mets, A’s, and Twins? Do you happen to recall not even any particular team’s response to that, but Billy Beane’s personal response to that? I don’t have the exact link, but it is out there. Google it. He was supposedly laughing like heck at the mere thought of such a trade happening.
Sorry, I’m not going to do your homework for you. You give me a link that proves your point.
And If Olney reports a trade rumor as such (being only a trade rumor) that’s different than reporting a trade is done. I hope you know the difference.
Matt reports a lot of buzz