Baseball's New Landscape

"If you don't grow your own talent, you have to allocate a lot of resources -- either players or money -- to get it," said Larry Beinfest, general manager of the Florida Marlins. "And it's very expensive. Young pitching, especially, is so coveted in today's game. We draft heavy on pitching and put a lot of premium on it because we think that's how you win."

Last year, the Marlins proved that a massive rebuilding effort with prospects did not have to be a long-term process. In the fire sale that followed their 2005 season, they traded away star players such as Carlos Delgado, Paul Lo Duca and Josh Beckett -- getting a total of 15 players in return, most of them prospects, including 11 pitchers. Widely predicted to finish in last place in 2006, the Marlins, fueled by rookies, remained in playoff contention until mid-September and wound up finishing fourth.

"We traded away premium guys," Beinfest said. "That's the price you have to pay to acquire young pitching nowadays."

In Washington, fans may be hoping for a repeat of the Marlins' model in 2007, as the Nationals undertake a difficult rebuilding -- featuring a payroll that will fall from $60 million in 2006 to around $33 million this year -- that is predicated upon their farm system. Seven of the top 10 prospects in the organization, as rated by Baseball America, have been acquired since new ownership took over last summer, and the team spent a total of $5.3 million in draft bonuses to get its picks signed, the 10th-highest figure in the majors.

However, the Marlins of 2006 had a healthy advantage over the Nationals in 2007, in that their farm system already was in good shape, and that they had premium major league stars available to trade. Their trade of Beckett to the Boston Red Sox, for example, netted them both shortstop Hanley Ramirez, who wound up being named the NL rookie of the year, and right-hander Anibal Sanchez, who won 10 games in 2006.

Of course, the Nationals did have one premium player to trade last summer -- left fielder Alfonso Soriano -- but they failed to do so, much to the chagrin of some fans and analysts, and instead allowed him to walk away via free agency, receiving two extra draft picks as a compensation.

In their inability to find a palatable offer for Soriano, the Nationals found themselves face-to-face with the new paradigm in baseball: Teams are no longer willing to give up their top pitching prospects in trades, particularly for what would have amounted to a two- to three-month rental of a player on the verge of free agency.

"They had a view of the market from the past," Phillips said, "and the game has evolved to the point where that's not the market anymore."

Here is how the market works now: One of the teams the Nationals spoke with extensively last summer regarding Soriano was the Minnesota Twins, according to industry sources. In return for Soriano, the Nationals asked for a package headed by one of the Twins' top pitching prospects, either left-hander Glen Perkins or right-hander Matt Garza -- rated the Twins' fourth- and seventh-best prospects in 2006 -- but the Twins' best offer was for right-hander Kevin Slowey, a control specialist who was not among the team's top 10 prospects in 2006.

The Nationals passed. Slowey, however, after an impressive 2006 season, has climbed to the Twins' third-best prospect in the 2007 Baseball America rankings and received consideration in the Twins' camp this spring for promotion to the majors.

"All these months later, and knowing everything I know now," Nationals President Stan Kasten said, with regard to the Soriano non-trade, "I'd still do the same thing."

This spring, a version of the same trend likely has kept closer Chad Cordero in Washington. As recently as a couple of years ago, the Boston Red Sox might have given the Nationals what they wanted for Cordero -- multiple top prospects -- but this time the Red Sox held firm.