You’re probably right. I did account for Miller being a prime prospect, and de la Cruz being a solid guy. Knew very little about Trahern, I’ll give you that. That being said, it looks both of those guys would have theoretically provided something much higher than the surplus value given by Cabrera. BA had Maybin as the sixth best prospect in baseball in 2007 and Miller the 10th. Maybin was still the sixth in ‘08, which means he would have been expected to provide $36.5M in surplus alone, something like $8M more in surplus than Miggy was expected to make in his two arb years.

I think the general point does stand, but I apologize for not looking up Maybin’s status. I went with what was commonly viewed as a poor haul, that was not the best example for me.

But both Andrew Miller and Maybin were A- prospects, both rated top 10 in the game. Trahern and De La Cruz were C+ to B- prospects, Trahern expected to a mid-to-back rotation sinker baller and DLC a back of the bullpen arm. That’s a really damn good haul.

Now yeah De La Cruz is now gone, Trahern has suffered from injuries, Miller has suffered from suck, and it’s rather funny that the worst pitching prospect of the bunch is the only one with MLB success (Badenhop), but that’s using hindsight. At the time, these were very valuable commodities.