Eric Byrnes

Time for some shamelessly idle speculation. I don't routinely indulge in this kind of posting, but what the heck.

Both Athletics Nation and Baysball are expressing the belief that arbitration-eligible Eric Byrnes will be headed out of town. They regard the D'backs as the team most interested in him. They express some hope the D'Backs will part with one of their outfield prospects. They also think the A's might settle for one of the D'Backs middle infielders, such as 24-year-old Scott Hairston. If the Athletics are looking for a pre-arbitration infielder, we have a few of them. And one of them, Freddy Sanchez, has had a good reputation among sabermetric types since his days in the Boston system.

Eric Byrnes is no Magglio Ordonez, but he can play centerfield and he's been a fan favorite in Oakland. A right-hander, he smokes left-handed pitching. While he doesn't hit right-handed pitching as well, he's better than Tike Redman.

If the Bucs acquire a guy like Byrnes, that would squeeze Tike Redman off the roster, I think. It would also eat into the available playing time that will probably fall to Daryle Ward. So any trade for Byrnes would be Player plus (diminished use of Redman) plus (diminished use of Ward). Some of you would call that addition by subtraction. Others might think that's selling your stock prematurely low.

Either way, I'm of the opinion that the Pirates should be dealing prospects they don't look to use extensively. Sanchez fits that description. If he hangs around and gets 100 plate appearances with the big team this year, his trade value will only decrease. Prospects are overvalued on the current trade market since prospects and only prospects serve to "save face" for GMs who are dumping players primarily for salary reasons. If the A's have to throw Byrnes overboard to pay their new Japanese pitcher, they also have to get some kind of prospect in return.

We need our own prospects, of course, but there's no sense in having a ton of guys ready for playing time rotting in the system. We'll be featuring a bunch of guys far short of hoary veteran status: Jack Wilson, Jason Bay, Jose Castillo, Ty Wigginton, Rob Mackowiak, Oliver Perez, Mike Gonzalez, etc. The team needs to get better players onto the big-league roster. Trading surplus prospects while they have value makes sense to me. It may not go over well with the fans, and it may not fit the "rebuilding through the minors" message easily, but it surely is part of the way a team would rebuild through the minors. Assuming Byrnes is due for several millions in arbitration, and assuming the team has the money left, how many of you would agree that it would be wise to trade Freddy Sanchez for him?

[Please note: this isn't based on any rumors. The source of this "rumor" is me. Some press reports suggest a deal sending Byrnes to Arizona is all but done, and I've never seen any press reports suggesting the Pirates ever showed any kind of interest in Byrnes.]

...and it's not like Littlefield doesn't trade prospects. Check out the first question, on Jeff Keppinger, in the latest Mets Q & A.