BackgroundThe Orioles have dealt LHP Garrett Olson and minor leage reliever Henry Williamson to the Chicago Cubs for OF Felix Pie. Pie, who turns 24 in early April, was rated as the Cubs #1 prospect by Baseball America in both 2006 and 2007.
StatsBecause the sample size is so small for both Olson and Pie, I'm going to stick to career minor league numbers instead of showing what they've done so far at the major league level, which, in both cases, is pretty ugly in any case.
Pie | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|
7 Yr | 627 | 2509 | 424 | 750 | 135 | 54 | 62 | 317 | 117 | 206 | 532 | .299 | .353 | .470 |
Olson | G | W | L | SV | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | WHIP |
4 Yr | 71 | 12 | 10 | 1 | 383.2 | 321 | 140 | 126 | 27 | 125 | 380 | 2.96 | 1.16 |
Williamson | G | W | L | SV | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | WHIP |
2 Yr | 36 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 90 | 80 | 50 | 40 | 4 | 22 | 110 | 4.00 | 1.13 |
ND's TakeFinally, a truly positive move by the front office this offseason!
Felix Pie (pronounced Pee-ay) is exactly the type of player this organization needs to build around. He's young, he's talented, and he's dying for a chance to play every day. The Cubs never gave him any of their OF slots outright, and among all the bouncing back and forth between Iowa and Chicago, Pie never managed to show much. Now he's out of options, and the contending Cubbies still didn't see him as a solution.
Enter the Orioles, who have coveted Pie for years. The outfield is set for the foreseeable future with Pie (24), Adam Jones (23), and Nick Markakis (25), all Gold Glove-caliber fielders and all top-rated prospects. Pie is a 5-tools guy. He'll never be Barry Bonds, but he's got enough power, enough speed, and enough plate discipline that he has all-star potential.
So who did we give up to get this wunderkind? Garrett Olson, primarily. Olson is a decent pitcher who was definitely thrust into the rotation way too soon last year. He's never been thought of as a top-of-the-rotation guy, but he projects as a decent #4 starter for someone, although I doubt it'll be with the Cubs.
All indications are that the Cubs made this move for two reasons:
1. Pie was out of options, and they wanted to ensure they got something for him, since he was unlikely to have much value to them this year.
2. The Padres have expressed an interest in Olson, and the Cubs might be able to turn him around as part of a larger package for Jake Peavy.
As for Williamson, He's 6'5", he was a 14th round draft pick out of junior college, and he's got some outstanding strikeout ratios, both per inning and compared to walks. But he just spent his 22-year-old season at low A ball, he's never had any success as a starter, and he's never been listed on the O's top prospect lists. So even if he does ever make the bigs, I think we're looking at a middling righthanded reliever type. Certainly, he's a perfectly acceptable throw-in for a deal like this one.
The big question now becomes Luke Scott. Do we DH him? That's a lot of lefties in the batting order. Do we trade him? This seems the most logical move to me. I like Scott a lot, but if this team is going to take a shot at becoming a contender in the next few years, we're going to have to ride the young horses.
With an offensive core of Wieters, Markakis, Jones, and Pie, and pitching built around Guthrie, Arrieta, Stillman, and Hernandez, there's hope yet for the future of this franchise. now if we could only re-sign Roberts to hold down the leadoff spot...
GG's TakeWhen it comes to dealing with MacPhail’s old team, our GM shows the creativity and depth of knowledge that ideally we would show in all our dealings. Knowing that Pie is out of options and plenty of outfielders remain available on the FA market, MacPhail swooped in and nabbed a prospect with plenty of upside.
Pie reached the upper levels of the minors young and more than held his own. As a 21-year-old in AAA Iowa, he put up a .781 OPS and by mid-April was handed the Cubs' starting CF job. He sputtered, and quickly lost playing time to Jacques Jones. The next year he was the Opening Day CF, and was given 63 ABs to prove himself before another vet (Jim Edmonds) supplanted him. Suddenly Pie was off the Cubs’ fast track, the weak link in a powerful Cubs lineup with plenty of alternatives and little tolerance for failure. But there’s every reason to suspect that the Cubs have given up on him too soon. Two clues: He reached the high minors at an early age and his top PECOTA comps includes Carlos Beltran. Most hitters struggle at first, and declaring Pie a faded prospect based on 260 scattered major league ABs is rather preposterous.
Enter the O’s, who are rebuilding and have a huge organizational need for bats. Despite his lack of success, Olson has the track record to suggest he will eventually become a mid-level starter. Whether he would have reached that ceiling as an Oriole is debatable. The AL East feasted off him (7.04 ERA). But when you have only 7 Quality Starts out of 25, it’s not just a matter of tough matchups; you’re not fooling everyone. Olson only reaches the mid-80s with his fastball, so it’s all about location for him, and that (he walked 4.22 BB per 9, or nearly a batter every other inning) didn’t go so well for him either.
Fallout: The O’s get a high-potential bat, and have any number of warm bodies capable of throwing the 150 mediocre IPs that even a vastly improved Olson would have provided. A clear win for the O’s, taking advantage of a roster crunch. Defensively, our OF becomes the best in baseball – there, I’ve said it, find me another OF that compares! Thumbs up to MacPhail for leveraging his Cubs connections to land a high-ceiling position player, of which the O's have far too few.