For me, that makes the trade even more problematic. I would prefer that we still have Boog; however, if the clubhouse voiced clear dislike of his attitude/actions and it was made apparent he was a problem, then I can see justification for a move. I just fail to understand why Colby “had” to go, other than Tony wanted Jackson and bullpen help (specifically a LOOGY R-whatever & McCllellan’s ability to tame lefty’s) to manage late-game situations as he prefers to do.

Mo has defended the move stating that he feared Colby’s value would erode over the remainder of the year. However, national pundits have cited numerous reports from unnamed executives who stated how surprised they are in the return the Cards received and expressed the belief the Cards could have received more. I think Ken Rosenthal’s quote sums it up nicely, “Well, I’ve finally identified the most difficult-to-find commodity in baseball. Not a catcher. Not a shortstop. Not a third baseman. Someone who likes the Cardinals’ return for outfielder Colby Rasmus”.

I fear Mo has shown an inability to shrewdly negotiate trades and is forced to acquiesce to the demands of the Manager, whom for the past few years has worked on a year-to-year basis. Although I had come to belief that Colby would probably need to traded, instead of ensuring maximum return on our value, we ensured moving him as quickly as possible, once management panicked under a false mandate that Colby had to be traded.

Finally, this trade could reek of last year’s Ludwick move if Berkman and Jay don’t maintain current levels of performance throughout the season. If either were to drop off, not only could the team be worse in the future, it could possibly be worse this season.

Yuck.

As far as the players go, they had some pretty positive things to say about Colby in D-Goold’s story this morning at STL-Today. Pujols made some especially flattering remarks about the career he expects Colby to have… and David Freese talked about how Colby helped him make the transition into the big leagues.

While there are many parallels between Rasmus / Ryan and their tumultuous relationship with Tony, player quotes after the Ryan trade indicated that the players wanted Ryan to be traded, not just the manager (credit to Bernie, who discussed this on his radio show today). While Colby clearly wasn’t a team leader, I wonder if there was player sentiment for him to be moved such as there appeared to be for Ryan.

Nonetheless, we traded Colby to appease TLR’s desired personnel for a playoff run, and got about 50 cents on the dollar, as a result. Anthopoulos is really making a name for himself between this and convincing the Angels to take on Vernon Wells.

Other than that, though, I completely agree with all you’ve got here!