Monday, July 29, 2013

ESPN's Stark: Should Dodgers Consider Trading Matt Kemp?

Blasphemy, I know. But in the wake of listening to sports talk radio this morning indicating that Ned Colletti may be inquiring about specific bearded idiot relievers (god forbid, please say this is not true), ESPN.com's Jayson Stark lofts a trial balloon about our franchise player Matt Kemp:

We've seen a lot of speculation that the Dodgers could be open to trading Andre Ethier or Carl Crawford in a big deal. But some people wonder instead: Shouldn't they be more open to trading Matt Kemp? Since the Dodgers caught fire last month, Kemp has made it through an entire game only eight times. So they've essentially been winning without him. Ethier has actually played well in center in Kemp's absence. And the Dodgers have one of the bright lights of the Futures Game, center-field prospect Joc Pederson, just over the horizon. We keep waiting for a huge name to pop onto this market in the final two days before the deadline. So just asking a question others have pondered: Why not Matt Kemp?

I feel the vomit rising in my throat.

In other speculation, Jim Bowden says the second-place Diamondbacks should stand pat:

Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers’ phone never stops ringing because of the team’s stable of young starting pitchers in the major and minor leagues. However, when you’re a midmarket club, you just can’t trade that type of talent for stopgap players at the trade deadline.

The Diamondbacks are a solid blue-collar team that looked like an 85-win team in March and still look like that three days from the trade deadline.

In other words, this is a good team but not a great team. To make significant trades to improve the team, they’d have to mortgage the future because everyone keeps asking for elite pitching prospect Archie Bradley and Tyler Skaggs, and it just doesn’t make sense to trade years of non-arbitration eligibility to try to win now, especially when this team simply isn’t good enough to win a World Series by making those types of deadline deals.

Outside of a small deal for a left-handed reliever, they’re probably better off doing nothing and trying to win over the next several years with the young pitching they have stockpiled.

Oh yeah, and here's that other ire-provoking rumor I mentioned earlier:

Please don't let us be one of those four NL teams.

13 comments:

Franklin Stubbs said...

I'll be the one patrolling the streets of LA with a hedge trimmer if that hirsuite abomination is likely to be about.

Hideo Nomo said...

Nope.com to the Kemp trade.

Hideo Nomo said...

Oh, and I've already resigned myself to the inevitability of the Dodgers signing Wilson.

Hideo Nomo said...

*pre-emptively smacks the first person who says I love the Giants*

Franklin Stubbs said...

I love the Giants...



...looking increasing likely to finish out the season in the cellar.

QuadSevens said...

Whoever signs Wilson (and I hope it isn't us) needs to make him get rid of that bird nest he calls a beard.

Fred's Brim said...

I was scared we would trade for K-rod. I am terrified we might sign Wilson

Steve Sax said...

If we sign Wilson, we should get the gimp as a throw-in

Hideo Nomo said...

But isn't the gimp Pat Burrell? FB might fly out and kill Ned.

Fred's Brim said...

I would kill Ned with Burrell's diseased weiner

Paul said...

"Trade Kemp for what?" (using my best Stallone voice, which is pretty bad)

Paul said...

Nomo loves the Giants?

BJ Killeen said...

Blanket party awaits Mr.Wilson's arrival