Diamondbacks - Acquired Rauch

Rauch, like Big Unit before him, has finally found his niche the last few years, and is now known as a good pitcher before being known as "that really tall guy." Bowden's flipping Rauch now, but he would still have netted a bigger return if he had flipped Chad Cordero before the season. The Diamondback bullpen is better than generally believed and it would be even better if The Large Component was a lefty, but any improvement helps in such a lousy division, a division which arguably 11 of 14 AL teams could be leading right now.

It's encouraging for a Hall of Famer to appear on Bonifacio's comp list, but Red Schoendienst isn't the guy that you really want to show up there. He's not even really a good comp as ZiPS had a lot of problems finding comps, with slapping swifties generally being low strikeout guys when they're low walk guys. Bonifacio simply doesn't put enough balls in play to be a usable offensive player in this day and age. He does have a great pope name, the best since Calixtus Antonine "Mike" Pagliarulo.

OK, I made that last one up.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Jon Rauch
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               W   L   G  GS     IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA 
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Year-to-Date   4   2  48   0   48.1   42   16   5   7  44  2.98   
Rest-of-Yr?    2   2  29   0   30.0   29   13   4   8  25  3.90
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Total          6   4  77   0   78.1   71   29   9  15  69  3.33
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2009?          6   5  85   0   85.0   84   39  12  25  69  4.13
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Top Comps:  Rod Beck, Bryn Smith

2008 ZiPS Projection - Emilio Bonifacio
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Period         AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG 
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Year-to-Date* 371  36   99  15  2   1  23  20  53  15  .267  .304  .326  
Rest-of-Yr?   221  24   54   9  1   1  16  11  43  12  .244  .283  .308	
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* - Includes Minor League Translation         
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2009?         593  68  155  22  2   2  48  37 106  29  .261  .308  .315  
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Top Comps:  Red Schoendienst, Anderson Hernandez