Stokes comparison makes no sense. First, he’s 4 years older than Jackson, which would be one obvious reason to think his room for improvement was smaller. Second, his FIP (as a reliever) was worse than Jackson’s (as a starter) in 2007. In 2006, his FIP was slightly lower than Jacksons based on a sample size of 24 innings, which is really too small to draw any conclusions. Although he has a decent fastball it definitely topped out lower than Jacksons in almost every appearance. Finally, the organization saw him as a reliever and losing a good reliever (which he isn’t) is not nearly as big a loss as losing a good starter. Is that enough reasons for why people didn’t get all bent out of shape about Stokes?

Reasons to suspect Edwin might improve:

- 24 years old in 2008
- improving bb/9 ratios for three straight seasons (6.19, 4.92, 3.78 — this year it is 2.18)
- splits between the stretch and the windup: in 2008 ops against out of windup: .830, ops against out of stretch: .754. You can say this was luck, which is possible but to me it screams that a tinkering with mechanics could improve Jackson. One of the major reasons for the difference in OPSa was his walk rate form the stretch which was about 50% of what it was from the windup. Room for improvement.
- exceptional fastball velocity
- above average slider ( as evidence by positive linear pitch weights in 07 and 08).

So those are some of the reasons for the " absolute blind faith" I had in Jackson.

Finally, I never said or even implied that Friedman woke up one day and just decided to trade Jackson on gut instinct. I do believe his evaluation, however thorough, underestimated the potential of Jackson. Thus, the process was not good. Trades are all about predicting future performance.

As for the the PtB comparison, I think it is fair to say that the team has a limited payroll. Money spent on a DH would have been better spent on bolstering SP depth. The decline of Kazmir and Sonny just goes to prove the statement that “you can never have enough pitching.” Based on their past numbers (not this year), a platoon of Gomes/Aybar would put up a very similar wOBA and WAR to Burrell for substantially less money. I would have preferred if the team spent that money somewhere else. Even if Burrell were matching a career year I don’t think would have been worth it.