Good tweets.

Twitterers are kicking ass so far today:

Patrick Sull, someone I've never heard of, says this:

Deal Colby Rasmus, qualify for the World Series. Tough day for group think.

Now, I'm definitely not one to condone stupidity, and am typically first to challenge the notion that the ends justify the means.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Just because you got the intended result doesn't mean that what was done is at all excusable.  I'm talking, of course, about the Rasmus trade, which, from the STL perspective, was fucking terrible. Even if Edwin Jackson and Octavio Dotel weren't going to be free agents at the end of the season, you're still giving up way too much for an average starter and 2 relievers.

Having said that, St Louis did need another starting pitcher (who gave up 4 ER over 2 innings last night!) and bullpen help.  Giving up a 25 year old, potential superstar CF with 3 more years of team control (and what likely end up as cash) is a massive overpay for what they got in return.

So the question becomes this: had the Cards not made the Rasmus trade, do they still get to where they are now?  My answer is a clear "no".  I'm not saying that Rzep, Dotel and Jackson were responsible for the entire 10-game deficit being closed, nor are they fully responsible for even a single win to this point in the playoffs.  But getting here probably doesn't happen if Trever Miller or Brian Tallet or PJ Walters are in the bullpen, and Jackson pitched well enough in his 50-ish regular season innings as a Cardinal to help out there too.  This of course assumes that they would have been in the same 10-game hole that they got in after the trade, but still; there's probably a 1-win difference over the last 2.5 months between [Dotel+Rzep+Jackson+Patterson-0.5 Rasmus+0.5 John Jay-0.5 Kyle Maclellan] and [Tallet+Miller+Walters+0.5 John Jay-0.5 Rasmus+More McLellan starting and less of him in the bullpen], especially the way this bullpen has pitched in the playoffs, if that makes any sense.

Again, at no point does it ever make sense to make that trade if you're John Mozeliak, as there is no way that he actually thought "Well we're 2 relievers and a shitty starter away from getting to the World Series, all we gotta do is give up a potentially elite CF to do it!", but I'm sure if you told him that he could make that trade in exchange for the exact result he got, he, and every other GM in baseball, would probably make it any day of the week.  If the Cards win the World Series, the ends actually do justify the means, because winning the World Series is the only thing that really matters.  I'm sure they mortgaged off a good piece of their future by trading Rasmus, but getting the ring is much more important.  Basically, everyone shit on that trade, but STL probably doesn't get to where they are without it, and thus, we, the people who are the fans of the advanced metrics, the Moneyballers, the critics of braindead GM-ery, have been told by John Mozeliak himself, to politely suck it.

Good tweet #2 comes from @Bluejaysbatboy:

Sox blogs/comments talking about getting Farrell back to manage. For money or prospects, I think the Jays should be very open to this idea.

Umm, shit yes.  I mean, is there really very much value in a manager?  Especially one that, in his rookie season, made a lot of really basic errors, with regards to pinch hitting, lineup selection, bullpen management (I mean AA had to trade away Dotel to get him to stop facing lefty hitters), stealing bases with your best hitter at the plate, etc. And now we have the option of not only letting him manage a division rival, but getting compensation for it?  Man oh man.  I mean, Farrell can't possibly be noticeably more valuable than any other candidate out there, can he?  There's no WAR or WPA stat for managers, out there, but if we could say Farrell is worth Y mWAR, it's not like any other manager that could ever replace him would be worth (Y-1) mWAR-- it's impossible.

 It saddens me that AA said like a week ago that any of his staff could seek other employment without permission, because that might put a damper on *snicker* Farrell's trade value *pfffftttt hahahaha*.  To be fair, that comment AA made was about his scouts, front office management, and any assistants (i.e. LaCava, Wakamatsu, Luvollo) who could go to other organizations and qualify for promotions that they otherwise wouldn't get yet in Toronto, as opposed to Farrell, who, as Manager, probably won't be finding any promotions.  I fucking hope not anyway.  Unless he considers the same job in a different city to be a promotion.

I really don't think there's much of a chance of Farrell getting traded, by the way.  If he wants to manage in Boston, they'll probably just let him, but I doubt they did that big long manager search last offseason only to trade him this offseason.  The irony would just be so goddamned delicious though.

Finally, Mike Axisa of River Ave. Blues and MLBTR:

Pffft, I liked Colby Rasmus before AA was anywhere near the GM's seat.

Same.  It just seemed like I always traded for him or eventually signed him when playing MLB The Show in franchise mode.  For what it's worth, I also traded for Roberto Luongo on NHL 2005, as the Vancouver Canucks.