What would we say if Dan O'Dowd decided to trade Christian Friedrich this past winter for a 30 year old second baseman with a career OPS of .738 (OPS+ of 92) who was coming off of a career year and was clearly overvalued? Well, that's precisely what the Rockies did eleven years ago when they acquired Mike Lansing from Montreal for Westbrook and two other minor leaguers. It was the kind of reckless move that was typical of the franchise from our 1995 wild card appearance through 2002 under both GM's Bob Gebhard and O'Dowd, where there was seemingly no long term vision, either forward or backward, and every transaction seemed based solely on what happened the year prior or what the franchise hoped to happen in the year following.
Since, the stability of a longer outlook has done wonders for the team, and we are actually able to look forward to talented homegrown players such as Friedrich or Tyler Matzek someday donning the purple pinstripes rather than being shipped off to plug the leak du jour on the major league team, whatever it may be. Thank goodness for that. For Westbrook, though, sorry friend, you're stuck with the Indians now. Gebhard and staff did make up for losing Westbrook a couple of seasons later in the draft, according to Baseball-Reference, Westbrook's most comparable pitcher is Aaron Cook.
GO ROCKIES!