At Viva El Birdos, where I am serving out the last of my week-long suspension vacation, azruavatar lays out the case for the Ryan Ludwick trade—
↵The Cardinals are in a pennant race and their marginal wins are more valuable in 2010 than in 2011. An extra win to the Cardinals in 2010 should count for more than a extra win in 2011. How much more? I have no idea how to put a number on that. If the Cardinals make the playoffs they get additional ticket gate sales so you could argue that the addition of a single marginal win could be critical and worth millions.
↵[There's also] opportunity cost. We complain about this a lot when a crappy veteran is talking away at bats from a prospect in the minors. You lose the chance to see what that player can do. It's doubly damning if that player is on the 40-man roster and you're burning an option year. This year we've been confronted by something different. The Cardinals have a productive player in Ryan Ludwick as well as Matt Holliday, Allen Craig and Jon Jay. The Cardinals are losing service time control on these players (and I'm primarily lookin at Rasmus here) without maximizing their contributions. There's value in giving these players more playing time that we otherwise would not have gotten. I can't stress how important it is to consider that for the same price we might get an extra 5 runs out of Rasmus & Jay than we otherwise would have gotten.
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