"Fungible" is a fad word at BP.  If you look it up, it seems to mean "easily replaceable" or some slop like that.  If your daughter drops the mayo jar and breaks it, who cares?  It’s $1.49 for another jar.  Now, if she drops it on your Persian rug, you care.  (If you have a Persian rug, you’re not reading D-O-V, but that’s another story.)

We baseball analysts use the word "fungible" to convey the important impression that we wholesale-trade, or stock-trade, 100’s of commodities — some fungible, some not. You’ve got to keep your credibility bases covered when you make the kind of blogging money we do.

===== THE BAD, Dept. =====

BP, in my humble opinion, uses "fungible" to reach some sticky conclusions that real GM’s do not.

Raul Ibanez was a bad signing, at the time, because he was "fungible."  Not only was he pretty much a huge jar of store-brand mayo, but there were cheap alternatives, like Todd Hollandsworth or Bucky Jacobsen, who would do the same job just as well, right? 

Turned out Raul wasn’t as fungible as he was cracked up to be.

Ryan Franklin is a bad idea because, say, Damian Moss or Jeff Harris could do what he does, for a couple mill less, right?

Real GM’s have discovered that when you actually DO go to the store to buy a new jar of mayo, every other jar is loaded with botulism.  (Hope you’ve already hit the pastry cart; we wouldn’t want to put you off your appetite for either 10-minute coffee breaks or Weyehaeuser "work" on D-O-V!)

It’s fine to say that, say, Jeff Harris is as good as Ryan Franklin.  But Pat Gillick has had about 40 years’ worth of cracking open Harris jars and finding that they make a big greasy mess on his W/L column.  Yes, Harris might run a 4.99 ERA in 30 starts if he ever got the chance … but then again, he might give up 4.99 runs per inning.  After the NL "books" him.

By the time you run through four or five "fungible" Mosses and Harrises and Cloudes and Wolcotts, your season is shot to blazes.  So Gillick goes to the mayo jar (Franklin) that he knows has been kept refrigerated.

===== THE GOOD, Dept. =====

Now the word "fungible" DOES come into its own when you are biting your fingernails about a major trade.

Here are the fungibility factors for the four players in the Red Sox Nation rumor:

1. Bronson Arroyo - You can find pitchers like him, fairly easily
2. AA reliever — what is the word that is beyond "fungible"?  Is it "buy one get five free"?
3. Veteran Reliever — ehhhh… pretty fungible.  You could funge them with Soriano, Sherrill, etc.
4. Jeremy Reed - about as fungible as Captain Jack Sparrow’s gold medallion that lifts the curse

If and when Reed goes, it is NOT the total value that makes or breaks the trade for M’s fans.  It isn’t by counting VORP that we can assess the deal.  (Arroyo 30 VORP, Mota 20 VORP, AA reliever 5 VORP, Reed only 25 VORP … heyyyyy!)

It is with the idea of fungibility that we get our bearings on any Reed trade.  (It is also the most important principle when weighing Roto trades.  "Don’t give up the best player in any deal" is about 10 degrees off of the real key:  give up players you can replace, and get back players you cannot.)

If you take back players for Jeremy Reed, you MUST get at least one that you couldn’t get any other way. 

Does Bill Bavasi have this light bulb on?  …well, why do you think he has dug in his heels so hard over Lester - Papelbon?

===== THE UGLY Dept. =====

If you amigos want to go the rest of the year without quoting Red Sox Nation fans on Lester and Papelbon, that’ll be just fine.  Don’t make us come over there (into the comments). 

Some M’s fans won’t trade Reed for anything they wouldn’t trade the 25-year-old Rusty Greer for — that’s excusable.

But Red Sox fans won’t trade Papelbon for anything they wouldn’t trade the 25-year-old Tom Seaver for.  For Sox fans, the 1% best-case outcome on any prospect is a given.  Heh, heh. 

So don’t quote them to prove that Jon Lester is:

1. Untouchable, off-the-table, booby-trapped, etc.
2. The next Steve Carlton, or at least, Bruce Hurst
3. As valuable now (in AA) as if he were an established major leaguer
4. 98 mph without breaking a sweat
5. A lot more valuable than Jeremy Reed

The fact is, MLB GM’s are going to value Jeremy Reed more highly than Jon Lester.  I know it sounds stupid, but:  Lester is a minor leaguer, and Reed is a major leaguer.  Call ‘em naive.  GM’s seem to look at that.

But Lester IS "non-fungible."  He’s not a jar of mayo; he’s the Chinese herb that you once heard stops a cough.  Good luck finding it, if you don’t already have it.

===== THE TRADE, Dept. =====

Reed and Lester are similar in fungibility — but Reed, we’re sorry to say, is worth about 25% more than Lester (because his chances of being a good MLB’er are higher — 75%, rather than 40-50%).

A Reed-Lester (-Papelbon) trade makes sense because both sides get a rare commodity, and both sides get something they need.

But Lester does the M’s little good for 2006, maybe little good for 2007.  So the M’s would ALSO need something that improves them for 2006.  Like what?  Like Bronson Arroyo.  Voila.

But Arroyo & Lester for Reed is too much for Boston to pay, so the M’s have to send something else … say, Clint Nageotte.

Arroyo-Lester for Reed & good prospect is a fair deal, whatever Red Sox Nation fans (or Seattle Reed fans) tell ya. 

Alternatively, Reed-Papelbon is pretty close right there, because Papelbon is ready to win, right now.  He removes the need for Arroyo:  Papelbon is pretty much Arroyo CROSSED WITH Lester.

Reed for Papelbon & throwin is a fair deal too.  But one thing’s for sure:  if you deal Reed, you need a rare commodity back.

And that’s why Bill Bavasi is digging his heels in.  He wants a rare commodity for Reed.  If the Red Sox won’t give one up, that’s their problem.

Go Billy,

Dr D