hawk1689 said:
Well he also traded for Nelson Cruz, Cliff Lee, Elvis Andrus, Matt Harrison, Cole Hamels, Yovani Gallardo, David Murphy, Mike Napoli, and Nefali Feliz.
He scouted Colby Lewis and Yu Darvish out of Japan.
He signed Adrian Beltre.
Other than that, he really did nothing to build two pennant winners and four divisions in the midst and aftermath of owner bankruptcy.
Some of you guys have really short memories.
Without Hamilton, little of that has value and likely doesn't happen. Sure, JD had some wins in FA and trades, but was his net-benefit positive, negative, or a wash?! Largely... a wash.
Let's go through that.
Nelson Cruz - Hard to give you this one. He was left exposed to Rule V by the Rangers and nobody wanted him. For 3 years with the Rangers (until 27) he was mostly a AAAA spare. Nobody knew he was going to start the Roid machine. After testing positive, he was give FA by the Rangers, averaging 27 HRs/Season, he went to average 41 HRs/Season for the next 6 seasons.
Cliff Lee (15GS, 3.98ERA) essentially for Justin Smoak (1286 G, .229, 196 HRs, .322 OBP)
Lee walks. Signs with Philly where he goes 106 GS, 2.89 over 4 seasons.
The Atlanta trade was memorable. It was originally thought to be a HUGE Blockbuster. Probably JD's biggest steal.
Elvis Andrus + Matt Harrison + Nefali Feliz for Teixeira.Cole Hamels - I like Hamels but clearly Hamels did not like JD and Brocail while he was here. He came under the idea that Texas wasn't going to rebuild. He spoke out against JD's idea of using a 6-Man rotation. His splits for Texas (88GS, 3.90 ERA) were not what the Rangers thought they were getting (294GS, 3.30 ERA before trade with Philly), nor after (39 GS, 3.30 ERA) in CHC.
Philly got Alfaro (143 G, .270, 40 HR), Eickhoff (80GS, 4.35 ERA)
Yovani Gallardo - That was a win.
David Murphy - Win. We signed Gagne with the hope he'd do well enough to trade and that happened. Murphy wasn't great, but he was a fan favorite.
Mike Napoli - Win. Even more off-the-field.
Colby Lewis - Great Win
Yu Darvish - Great Win
He signed
Adrian Beltre - Best Get, by far.
Add these clunkers:
Soriano (1173 G, .263 BA, 250 HRs 120 SB) in 9 seasons after being traded. Put this in the Nelson Cruz Camp. Nobody would have known a 30+ year old would juice to success until 38.
Adrian Gonzalez + Chris Young to SDP for almost nothing (Eaton).
Gonzalez (23) had 59 G with MLB and team control. He went on to go 1870 G in 13 seasons and hit .289, 310 HR, with a .360 OBP. Yikes.
Chris young (26) had 38 GS and team control. He went on to go on to have 183 GS with a 3.88 ERA in 11 Seasons.
JD got
Brandon McCarthy from CHW and McCarthy had 3 seasons with the Rangers - 44GS, 4.68 ERA. NOT what the Rangers thought they were getting.
John Danks, who had not made his debut for MLB went on for 247 GS, 4.38 ERA for CHW for 10 Seasons. 6 of those years were favorable team controlled years.
For every FA Win - Colby Lewis, Yu Darvish, there was losers - Kevin Millwood
For every Great Trade - Murphy - there are losers - Crush Davis (add to Cruz variety), Danks.
JD made back-to-back WS appearances on the back of Josh Hamilton and has done little else.