Trading for Wins

I find it hard to believe anyone who could rise to GM today didn’t realize that. The trade was just a dump of Dan Haren, and Joe Saunders was the best the Diamondbacks could do. That’s sad.
For two years,Get the Pregnancy Glow, what Joe Saunders did right was show up and pitch for a very good team. He made regular starts, went about six innings per game, gave up about three runs, and turned things over to a great bullpen and offense. In that context, he went 33-14. Take Joe out of that context, which also included a great defense behind him, and he’s no different than any other pitcher with a 4.50 ERA.
Saunders hasn’t even been the “winner” that Jerry DiPoto described as one of the reasons for bringing in Saunders over Haren. Saunders has only won two of his seven decisions and has a -0.50 WPA to go along with that poor record. Joe Saunders simply hasn’t been the guy needed to justify the trade. There was never any reason to believe that he would be, and there’s no reason to believe that he will be in the future either.
Jack Moore looks at how the Dan Haren/Joe Saunders trade hurt Arizona. Moore also touches on the idea that I thought died with the Royals signing Storm Davis:
Wins, RBI and runs are team stats credited to individual players. If you look at the win column for one year base your rating of the pitcher on that,Cheap Montreal Expos Hats, you might be extremely wrong. Over the longer term, pitchers that consistently win,HOT Styles Sale, players that consistently score and drive in runs are probably doing a lot of things right to get there.