Cardinals - Acquired Belliard

St. Louis Cardinals - Acquired 2B Ronnie Belliard from the Cleveland Indians for 2B Hector Luna.

This isn’t one of Walt Jocketty’s best trades.  While I was skeptical of Luna’s play last season, he’s playing just as well this season splitting time with Aaron Miles.  While Luna has a disproportionate amount of at-bats against left-handed pitchers, the difference in platoon splits is only 29 points of SLG (identical OBP), so one can’t argue that his stats are beefy from beating up lefties.  Speaking of platoon splits, the Miles/Luna sorta platoon has to be one of the most pointless platoons ever - Miles actually has a higher career OPS against lefties and hasn’t been as good as Hector Luna at either handedness.

While I appreciate Belliard and his impressive Fat-Leticism at second, I don’t see him as all that much a better player than Luna now (if at all) and I’d rather have 4 years of Luna than 2 months of Belliard.  Yes, the trade gets Aaron Miles out of the lineup, but the team could’ve done that anyway.  My only complaint is of utilization - Luna’s a good acquisition for a couple of months of Belliard, but I feel that Joe Inglett is around that range of quality and they already have him.