If Holliday Is Not Worth It...Trade Should Not Have Been Made

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The big talk around town is whether or not Matt Holliday is "worth" going above and beyond to sign.  Can the Cards afford to dish out $15 million or even $20 million a year for him?

Here's what I'm having a hard time understanding:

If Matt Holliday is not worth the big bucks YOU KNEW he was going to cost when you made this deal...why did you make this trade in the first place???

I could care less about Clayton Mortensen.  Lance Lynn is better than him anyway.

I don't mind losing Shane Peterson.  He's the same type of player as Jon Jay and Jay's closer to the majors as it is.

The piece you gave up that is going to determine who won the trade between the Cards and Oakland is Brett Wallace. Wallace is a star-in-the-making...one that costs significantly less for a long time.

And if you gave up that cornerstone piece of your farm system to get someone you had a good idea would only be on your team for a couple months, that's just not very smart.

Holliday certainly made the Cards a more dangerous team for the stretch run.  No question about that.  I just hate (I repeat: HATE) trades made for one shot at a title.  Teams that mortgage the future just for the chance they'll win it all that season really bother me.

This is professional sports.  Winning in a given year is not easy.  Scratch that...it's incredibly hard.  The odds are not with you.

And if you don't win...it creates problems.  Because when the guy (whomever you traded for) signs with someone else, it sets your franchise back a couple years.

That is exactly what will happen to the Cards franchise if they lose Matt Holliday.  They will get set back 2 full years.  They'll be right back where they were to begin 2008 when they didn't have Brett Wallace yet.

They drafted Wallace that June, developed him to the point where he was nearly ready a year later and got what for him?  A couple compensatory draft picks because Matt Holliday left?

That's it?

If Matt Holliday isn't worth what YOU KNEW he was going to cost, this deal should never have been made.  'Mo' knew what he was getting himself into when he decided to gamble on negotiating with Scott Boras. 

Trying to win now while forgetting about the future sounds nice at the time.  But if it doesn't work, when the future eventually turns into the present, it does not sound nearly as nice.