Of course all those guys will work out perfectly. No problems there. Oh, Yankees prospect fans…..

That’s not to say this information is completely inaccessible to anyone but those who are in a particular organization, but I think there’s a really good reason that, when an executive formerly affiliated with one team moves to another (especially those cases where he’ll take on GM responsibilities for another team), you will frequently hear of (or even see) that executive trying to deal with players who he was most familiar with in his previous organization. I really think that it’s a partly, if not entirely, a result of this privileged information he was previously privy to.

I, personally, will concede that–if I’m in Cashman’s position–based on all of the information that I myself have, if Smith calls me and offers Santana for Ian Kennedy, Melky Cabrera, and either Jairo Heredia, Dellin Betances, or Jesus Montero, I might have a very difficult time turning down that deal. Sure, you’d be giving a young, high-upside player in any of the three I mentioned, but I think that the Yankees system is deep enough to withstand such a blow.

But that’s just it: we all have very limited information, even in this day-and-age. As much as we think we know about prospects from websites like BA, BP, and writers like Keith Law, we still lack the resources (particularly in terms of scouting, and a team’s own internal evaluation of their developmental and coaching staff) to make true, sure-fire evaluations of all the players involved. Say what you want about “objective” analysis, but I firmly believe that no one knows their players more than the team they belong to, and while there might be a tendency to overrate or overvalue a team’s own assets, I still think that tendency is overcome by the sheer volume of information a team has on its players.

This isn’t to say that a team cannot be wrong or evaluate its assets poorly; a cursory look at MLB history (or even Johan Santana himself) will show that teams can, and have, missed big-time on their own talents. But I definitely think that MLB teams are certainly in a *much* better position than you, I, or even someone like Keith Law–despite his resources–to evaluate the moving pieces in a deal like this.

But that’s just my two or three cents.

I don’t think it’s a problem of “over” valuing our own prospects, I think it’s a case of us actually valuing them properly. Any other team in the league with a 23 year-old center fielder who was providing average offense at the position and above average defense wouldn’t even think about trading him when they have him under contract for years to come at an extremely favorable rate. Even leaving the intangibles out of this conversation, trading him makes no sense.

” Melky was to be the every-day center fielder until further notice. On that day, the Yankee record was 22-19, a .431 winning percentage. From that point on the Yankees played to a .649 winning percentage (72-39)”

i was referring to the above statement about melky by brian. melky may have been a factor in the increased winning percentage. it seems like “Correlation does not equal causation.” is used to imply that melky was not a factor. i think the opposite is also true that” correlation does not equal no causation” and that melky may have easily been a cause in the improved winning percentage.

ok, after giving myself a headache from too much logic,i’ll move on. just wanted to get that out.