Davidi on MLB: Changing the perception

ARLINGTON, Texas — St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak knows how quickly the perceived winners and losers of a trade can change.

Crushed by a torrent of criticism after dealing centre-fielder Colby Rasmus to the Toronto Blue Jays on July 27 for starter Edwin Jackson, relievers Marc Rzepczynski and Octavio Dotel, and outfielder Corey Patterson, Mozeliak now looks brilliant with his team in the World Series.

The criticism has since shifted to counterpart Alex Anthopoulos, who surrendered a talented young lefty in Rzepczynski, two free agents who may return compensatory draft picks this winter, plus prospect Zach Stewart to help pry Jackson from the Chicago White Sox so he could be flipped to the Cardinals.

For Anthopoulos’s trouble Rasmus didn’t make an ideal first impression on an initially excited fan base, posting a batting line of .173/.201/.316 line with three homers and 13 RBIs in 35 games with Toronto.

“That’s sort of ironic, originally it was the other way around,” Mozeliak mused of how judgment of the trade has changed. “Obviously public perception and media perception is important in what we do, but it can’t be our sole compass for decision making.

“I talked to Alex just a few days ago, and I was saying, ‘Look, you made a choice to invest in the future of a player and the player still has upside, that’s not going away.’ Now, will he end up being what people maybe hoped he would be a couple of years ago? I don’t know, nobody knows. That’s why we play and we watch, but both teams understood what they got into and at the end of the day both teams got what they wanted out of it. We ended up winning, and they have a centre-fielder under control for three years.”

At the time of the deal Anthopoulos acknowledged the risk but it fit in with his overall philosophy of taking chances to get elite-level players. And talent of Rasmus’ calibre and experience isn’t easy to get, usually only becoming available when they are, in Mozeliak’s words, a “distressed asset.”

The 28th overall pick in the 2005 draft had been clashing with manager Tony La Russa and the relationship had reached the breaking point by July, when trade talks with the Blue Jays and other teams picked up.

Looking to plug some holes with his team in contention for the post-season, Mozeliak felt he needed to move Rasmus before his value began to diminish, and Anthopoulos pounced on the opportunity, hoping he was buying low.

“If you think about Colby coming up through the minor leagues and even his first couple of years in the big-leagues, he was highly valued, highly thought of,” said Mozeliak. “I just thought if he’s not in our lineup playing as much anymore, and at the time I did not think our manager was going to give him as many opportunities as what we had seen previously, if we wanted to move him the longer we waited the less we would actually get from him.

“I’m not saying it’s any reflection of his potential talent, because I still think he’s a very talented guy.”

Inherent to that statement is Mozeliak’s belief that Rasmus would never be able to maximize those skills in St. Louis. Though some members of the front office didn’t want to move the 25-year-old, he decided it was a deal that needed to happen.

“He was having a hard time playing here,” said Mozeliak. “Rather than try to fit the square peg into a round hole, I just thought it made more sense to try and see what we could get for him, to see if we could find some help for this club now.”

Rasmus joined the Blue Jays drained from his friction with the Cardinals coaching staff and worn down by his season-long struggles at the plate.

As well, years of trying to live up to the impossible expectations placed upon him by Cardinals fans had worn him down.

Mozeliak acknowledged signs of that before the deal.

“When I look at his time in St. Louis, there was just so much expectation for him to just come out and be an extraordinary talent, and just from an individual having to deal with that on a day-to-day basis, I think that was tough on him,” he said. “I think it was an awful lot of pressure to put on any player and I think he had a hard time dealing with it.

“As a young player coming out of high school, he had visions of grandeur and success and he should, he’s a gifted guy. (But) it’s hard to manage expectations if you don’t 100 per cent control them.”

Despite the way the trade looks now, the Blue Jays may very well end up benefitting from it as much as the Cardinals have.

A winter off after a difficult season could allow Rasmus to clear his mind and make the necessary adjustments to his swing to find success. So Anthopoulos may yet be lauded for the acquisition.

Mozeliak, on the other hand, is already getting his props. And even if the Cardinals didn’t reach the post-season, he’d have no regrets.

“You’d have to look at it two ways,” he said. “One, it would have been disappointing that we didn’t get there, but two, the other way to think about it would be that I did think (Rasmus) was no longer going to be a fit for our organization moving forward.”