Nope. At home working on the book.

Tyler Matzek is an exciting young arm. He has the potential to be an ace. Miguel Cabrera is one hell of a bat, but his contract is average for the type of player he is. In Major League Baseball, Cabrera’s trade value should be pretty average.

Basically, average players on great contracts can sometimes be more valuable than great players on average contracts, depending on the situation, and with most of free agency still in front of them, it’s better for the Rockies to keep their cash and their prospect (and either use their cash for somebody else or keep it in case the economy returns to the crapper) than trade their prospect and use their cash to pay a guy they traded for.

Although I don’t really like the model (and neither does my computer, since my computer pretty much hates Excel files) this is a good introduction to the idea:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/7/15/950094/saber-friendly-blogging-101-trade

Im not a huge Miggy fan, and the drinking incident really bothered me, but you’re talking about a guy who brings ~40 runs a year with his bat. You take that and run.

I love Matusz. More than most people on this site (where he is strangely underrated because of the lack of a top notch fastball. People are worried about what he’s NOT rather than looking at all the good things he IS). BUT if you get the chance to move a guy like that straight up for one of the best hitters in the game you do it. 100% McPhail would do it. Hell, if he wanted, he could trade Matusz for Miggy, then turn around and trade Miggy for a guy equivalent to Matusz plus a lot more! Think about it!

You absolutely do that deal all day long. Yes, Miggy has his worts, and yes he is paid a lot. You still do it. He’s a 5+ win player every year. Even forgetting the attrition rate of young pitchers, its very hard for me to project Matusz as a consistent 5 win pitcher. There were ten pitchers with 6 or more WAR in 2009 and only 7 with more than 5.5 in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Like I said, I love Matusz, but simple odds here, much more likely Cabrera is worth 5-6+ wins each year like he’s been pretty much every year – much more likely than Matusz being one of the top 7 pitchers in baseball every year.

You absolutely do that deal all day long – AND no way do the Tigers take Matusz straight up – AND not only that, but 10 friggin teams would be lined up with better bids.

Absolute steal.