Cardinals Trade Colby Rasmus to Blue Jays

While we’re waiting to get the official word on the Carlos Beltran deal, you may be interested to know that the Cardinals have traded young centerfielder Colby Rasmus to the Blue Jays in return for Edwin Jackson, Octavio Dotel, Marc Rzepczynski, Corey Patterson, and either players to be named later or cash considerations. In addition to Rasmus, the Cardinals also dealt Trever Miller, P.J. Walters, and Brian Tallet.

Jackson had been acquired by the Blue Jays only hours before the Rasmus deal, in a trade with the White Sox that also netted Mark Teahen and sent back Jason Frasor and Zach Stewart to Chicago.

Got all that?

I have to say I’m stunned that the Cardinals received as little as they did for Rasmus. Though they acquired several players, none of them will have an impact in St. Louis beyond this year. I realize that Rasmus had a major personality conflict with Tony LaRussa and his teammates, so I understand why he was traded. But what I don’t get is why the Cardinals didn’t insist on getting at least one youngster who is a potential stud. It reminds me a little of when the Mets traded Scott Kazmir, in that we understood that they wanted to ship off the young lefthander, but why not get something better than Victor Zambrano in return?

Looking at this trade from the perspective of a Mets fan, I wonder if Sandy Alderson would have been able to obtain Rasmus from St. Louis in return for, say, Mike Pelfrey and Jason Isringhausen? Or maybe Chris Capuano, Angel Pagan, and Tim Byrdak (or Isringhausen)? I personally am hesitant to believe that Rasmus would have been a good fit in New York, but his raw talent is such that I’d do either of those deals in a second.

Baffling to me that the Cards did this deal and didn’t get back a package that would provide more long-term impact. Also, the timing was awful. If they waited until after Beltran was traded, they likely could have elicited competition from more teams bidding for Rasmus’ services — because with Beltran off the market, there are less big outfield bats available and many teams looking to add one.

What are your thoughts? Did the Cardinals make a bad deal? Would you have made a play for Rasmus?