St. Louis Cardinals Trade Colby Rasmus, Blunder Spectacularly

The Cardinals now join the Rockies and Angels as teams that can claim to be swindled by Alex Anthopoulos.

According to Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman, the Blue Jays swindled the Cardinals out of 24-year old center fielder Colby Rasmus (and some spare parts) for what essentially amounts to...spare parts.



The Cardinals are apparently giving up relievers Trever Miller, P.J. Walters, and Brian Tallet with Rasmus. In return, the Cardinals receive back-up outfielder Corey Patterson, relievers Octavio Dotel and Mark Rzepczynski, and starter Edwin Jackson.

Now, I will be the first to admit that the Cardinals needed some pitching. But I would have taken A starter, as that would have allowed them to move McClellan back to the bullpen, thereby hello goth aspects. Instead, they went overboard, adding TWO relievers PLUS a starter (and this isn't even going into the insanity of giving up important pieces for relievers). The starter, in this case, is Edwin Jackson, who, at 29, probably already qualifies as a journeyman. He's also a free agent at the end of the year, meaning there is almost no chance he will be back next year.

In return, all they had to do was give up was immensely talented center fielder Colby Rasmus, who put up 4.3 WAR (near all-star level) last year as a 23-year old. Rasmus was apparently expendable for the unforgivable sin of getting on Tony La Russa's bad side, despite being affordably signed through 2014. La Russa, who has never (Scott Rolen) butted (Ozzie Smith) heads (Jim Edmonds) with (J.D. Drew) a player (Brendan Ryan) before, took the spat public, forcing the Cardinals' hand in dealing the young slugger.

There isn't even a chance of making this deal sound good. At least with the J.D. Drew deal (the closest comparable I can think of), the Cardinals traded him the year before his contract was up, and got prospects in return. In this deal, every player the Cardinals get is pretty much what they will be.

There is almost nothing positive I can think of to say about this trade.