Disaster Averted - Looking Back at a Possible Matt Holliday Trade

The first big name to pop up on team's trade radars this winter was former Colorado Rockies' OF Matt Holliday. Among the teams involved in the Holliday sweepstakes were the Oakland A's, who wound up the winner, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals.

Before I really delve deep into this topic, I'd like to thank Cardinals GM John Mozeliak for at least pursuing Holliday. It is nice to know that he put in a lot of effort in trying to get one of the better players in baseball. He didn't get his man, but as I will soon point out, that is probably a very good thing.

Let's first take a look at what the Oakland A's gave up to acquire one certain year of Matt Holliday:
-Carlos Gonzalez: Potential middle of the order hitter and top prospect. Big name going to Oakland in the Dan Haren trade.
-Greg Smith: Solid #3-4 major league starter, also a big part of the Dan Haren deal.
-Huston Street: Decent closer who had a rough 2008 season blowing more than a few saves. Overall, though, his numbers weren't bad at all.

The Athletics gave up a ton and the Rockies got exactly what they wanted. Gonzalez and Smith are under the Rockies' control for 6 and 5 more years, respectively. Street has 2 more years of arbitration and acquiring him allowed the Rockies to let Brian Fuentes go for 2 draft picks.

Billy Beane pretty much pulled the opposite of every trade he has ever made by giving up 3 good young players for 1 year of a superstar.

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Cardinals and Rockies were discussing a deal that would have sent Holliday to the Cardinals for Ryan Ludwick, Skip Schumaker and Mitchell Boggs.
Compared to what Oakland gave up, that isn't a tough deal to swallow and I wouldn't be surprised if Schumaker wasn't in the final discussion and Chris Perez was but that is neither here nor there.

There are two reasons why the Cardinals just missed disaster with this trade:
1)Giving up 3 cheaper years of Ludwick, 4 of Schumaker and 6 of Boggs
2)Future contract extension for Matt Holliday

I really don't want to mention the fact that Holliday isn't an elite hitter away from Coors Field because Ryan Ludwick has his question marks too as he's been a one year wonder up to this point. It is up to one's opinion on how good he'll be next season.

For the sake of fair discussion I'll take the middle ground and say both are the same hitters next year as they were this year. Although I think the only reason why Mozeliak was strongly considering this was because he wasn't as certain about Ludwick's future. But I can't predict a serious regression for Ludwick in 2009 because there isn't overwhelming support to back the notion up.

Anyways(I feel like I'm talking too much), the main point of this post was to look at Matt Holliday's future contract extension.

I want to use a comparable player to Holliday to help us predict a future contract for the slugger. See if you can guess who's 162 game average season this is:
.290/.378/.552, 36 HR, 121 RBI, 79 BB, 122 K, 2 SB, 40 2B, 2 3B

If you guessed Mark Teixeira, you'd be right.

Now compare it to Holliday's average 162 game season:
.319/.386/.552, 30 HR, 112 RBI, 58 BB, 117 K, 15 SB, 44 2B, 5 3B

Not far off.

Texeira recently signed an 8 year, 180 million contract with the New York Yankees.

I'd have to imagine that if Holliday has a strong 2009 season, he'll want a comparable contract to what Texeira signed. For some teams that isn't a big negative. For the Cardinals, it is.

Almost every Cardinal fan's biggest fear is the day Albert Pujols puts on another team's uniform. With Matt Holliday making 20 million a year, it isn't difficult to see the Cardinals struggling to re-sign Pujols.

Could the Cardinals afford to have both a 7-8 year, 150-170 million contract for Holliday and a 8-9 year, 180-200 million contract for Pujols on the books?
Also consider Adam Wainwright will be making 10-12 million in 2011 and 2012 and becoming a free agent after 2013. You're talking about 50-55 million locked up in the three players in 2014.
60-65 million in 4 players when you consider Kyle Lohse's new contract although that'd be just for 2012 as Lohse is a free agent after that season.
Add in Holliday's 20 million into the 2010 and 2011 payrolls and you're talking about 51 million or so for him, Pujols and Carpenter.

Signing Holliday to the extension he is going to be asking for, and probably recieving if he gets to free agency, will severely handcuff the Cardinals in future years if their farm system doesn't produce like we hope it will.
Even if it does produce several good players, Bill DeWitt would have to bump his payroll up to around 120 million for the team to have some breathing room.

Perhaps losing Pujols wouldn't be so tough to swallow with Holliday and possible 1st base replacement Brett Wallace on the team but I doubt it. There isn't a player like Pujols in the game today and losing him would be a huge blow to the Cardinals.