I'm not saying Barrett was worthless -- I don't recall anyone suggesting he be DFA'ed, but he was no longer worth the trouble.

The fact that the Cubs had to pick up most of Barrett's remaining salary ($1.5m of $2.3m according to the Trib) does seem to indicate teams weren't elbowing each other out of the way to acquire Barrett.

Barrett 4.40
Blanco 4.39
Hill 2.28 (only 67 innings)

Its hard to see a case that Barrett is costing a lot of runs beyond his poor catch and throw skills. The Woolner study found no correlation with matched pairs of pitchers/catchers, and as far as I know where still looking for evidence of ability in this area.

You add the 67 innings as "only" for Hill like it is small sample size and should be eliminated but don't put in the "only" for Blanco's 85 innings.

In 2004 and 2005 the non-Barrett catchers were significantly better and in 2006 Barrett did better but did not catch the last month of the season when the Cubs rotation was essentially rookie tryouts.

I am not trying to scapegoat him but I had always know that he was not that great at handling the staff but felt that his hitting made up for it. After the antics and his hitting dipping a bit I am willing to see what life is like without him.

If the Cubs are gonna trade everybody on the team who screws up on the bases, we're gonna have trouble fielding a team. :-)

Not a fan of the trade but I agree with a post way back there that I wouldn't want them to re-sign him anyway so there's almost no way this trade comes back to bite us in the butt. And I'll give Hendry credit -- other than the Pierre trade, he's never really lost one and he almost never gives up anything of real value in a trade. Of course that's a negative too -- he plays it too safe. And most of the time he's not getting significant value in return either.

DeFonteRiot is an above-average second baseman.

Well, De has hit quite well for a 2B. Fonte has been awesome in his short time. Riot ... not so much. 73 OPS+. His sOPS+, if that means what somebody earlier said it means, is just 78.

I know he's scrappy and all but Theriot's OPS is down to 656 and 563 in the last 28 days. Yet he's 3rd on the team in AB. Some of that was due to little injuries to others here and there, but he's gotten a smidgen more playing time than DeRosa (801 OPS, 108 OPS+) and that's ridiculous. He's Neifi Perez 2005 (admittedly a good year for Neifi).

But he does seem to know how to run the bases. Give him another couple years with the Cubs and he'll be getting doubled off second on popups.

While trading a starting catcher for a back-up and paying $1.5 million of the remaining $2.3 million on Barrett's contract appears to be addition by subtraction, Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said it was simply time to "shuffle the deck" and improve the club defensively.

"We felt (Barrett) was well on his way to becoming a terrific player, an All-Star caliber player," Hendry said. "This year he's had a tougher time defensively, and a lot of it's probably from trying to hard, and some of it's maybe because it's the last year of his deal. But he's been a really, really good offensive player.

"For the first couple of years (with the Cubs) he showed a lot of improvement defensively, and then he had a rougher time defensively the first half of this year. We just felt like we needed to make a change and we're happy to have Rob."

Trib (RR)

In 2004 and 2005 the non-Barrett catchers were significantly better and in 2006 Barrett did better but did not catch the last month of the season when the Cubs rotation was essentially rookie tryouts.

I am not trying to scapegoat him but I had always know that he was not that great at handling the staff but felt that his hitting made up for it. After the antics and his hitting dipping a bit I am willing to see what life is like without him.

You sure you're not trying to scapegoat him? Seriously, cERA?

Barrett missing the last month of the season happened to mean he'd miss Rich Hill being one of the best pitchers in the majors, nevermind the fact that the whole ####### year was a rookie tryout camp for starting pitchers.

Dusty used the backup catcher as a rotating personal caddy for pitchers, which meant Barrett pretty much always caught the worst couple starters in the rotation, as you don't use a personal catcher for a shitty pitcher. After browsing the game logs for last year my guess rings true as Blanco mostly caught the only 2 vets in Maddux and Zambrano, except for most of Maddux's great April.

cERA is more worthless than pitching wins.

Barrett missing the last month of the season happened to mean he'd miss Rich Hill being one of the best pitchers in the majors, nevermind the fact that the whole ####### year was a rookie tryout camp for starting pitchers.

I'm not saying I'm any great believer in cERA... but you gotta wonder -- Hill looks awful for most of 2 looks. Barrett gets hurt, and he suddenly puts it together... I think the first good start of his late season run was with Barrett.

There are bigger problems with this team than Barrett - but I'm perfectly content to live without him.

I'm of the belief that Hill just needed some consistent starts in the bigs to get on track. He was absurd in AAA. Hill did quite well with Barrett this year.

My comment about scapegoating wasn't clear enough, since every person who has commented on it has misunderstood what I thought I was saying. I'm not arguing for the 2007 Michael Barrett, the 2005 Sammy Sosa or LaTroy Hawkins since he left (I'll just take those three, but if I thought more, I'd probably come up with more examples). I'm saying that once those guys leave, Cub fans understate the value those guys once had in ways that are annoyingly stupid. If I have to listen to or read one more person ##### about how Barrett has been an albatross for three years, I'm going to tattoo Damian Miller's career numbers on his chest, and Henry Blanco's on his back - because those guys suck offensively, and they were the other options the Cubs had during the past 3 years. I watch Cubs ball all the time, and I know that Barrett has been a red ass, and that he's been really stupid in every facet of the game this year. That doesn't change that I can't think of many other catchers I'd have wanted more for 2004-2006, and I can't think of any who could have been had, and the Cubs paid him about $3 million a year, which is a bargain.

Cub fans act like Sammy Sosa was just Dave Kingman on juice - the man had a 5 year run like Wrigley Field had never seen, and anyone who says otherwise is a dope. Sure, you can dislike him, but don't pretend that his performance was overrated.

LaTroy Hawkins was great with the Cubs for all of the time that he wasn't closing - look it up. And, I can remember many, many conversations about how Hawkins had been unable to close in Minnesota, with people wondering if this was relevant or psycho-babble. Once the Cubs asked him to close, he sucked. Fine. But when they let him do what they said he would do, he did it great. No one seems to remember that.

It might end up that Hendry dumped each guy at the moment when there was no more talent to be wrung from him (I concur that, in doing so, he manages to get about as little for talent as he can in many cases). But a mentally healthy Cub fan should be able to admit that these guys had value while they were here. To do otherwise is to be like the guy who swears that he was miserable the whole 19 years he was married.

Dusty used the backup catcher as a rotating personal caddy for pitchers, which meant Barrett pretty much always caught the worst couple starters in the rotation, as you don't use a personal catcher for a shitty pitcher. After browsing the game logs for last year my guess rings true as Blanco mostly caught the only 2 vets in Maddux and Zambrano, except for most of Maddux's great April.
cERA is more worthless than pitching wins.

Barrett 852 innings in 96 games started Blanco - 526 in 59 games started
Zambrano 11(games caught by Blanco) - 33(games started)
Juan Mateo 8 - 10
Greg Maddux 8 - 22
Sean Mashall 7 - 24
Rich Hill 6 - 16
Wade Miller 4 - 5
Glendon Ruesh 4 - 9
Mark Prior 4 - 9
Carlos Marmol 3 - 13
Angel Guzman 2 -10
Less Walrond 1 - 2
Ryan O'Mally 1 - 2
Kerry Wood 1 - 4

The games don't add up to 59 I think I added a games he started at first and don't want to go back and check which one. But the point is your browsing seems to have been lacking.

I do not think cERA captures it all but I don't think it is completely useless if you are able to look at the logs and get a couple of years to look at. By your comments I take it that you do not believe that a catcher has an effect on a pitching staff, if that is the case then I don't really know what I could show you to convince you. This has been a criticism of Barrett in the past so I don't know what you know that makes you think otherwise.

looking at last year Barrett had 10 passed balls the rest of the team 2, 5 errors to 2. Defensively there is just not much of an argument that he was good. So you can pick at my choice of stats but the fact remains that he was not good defensively.

know that Barrett has been a red ass, and that he's been really stupid in every facet of the game this year. That doesn't change that I can't think of many other catchers I'd have wanted more for 2004-2006

no doubt, I have liked Barrett and really don't think it is bashing him to say that he needed to go. He was a defensive liability who was able to make up for it and more with his bat. Now that his bat has trailed off some and he seems to find a new way to piss people off every year it is not worth putting up with anymore.

Jim Hendry wouldn’t rule out more trades in the coming weeks as the July 31 non-waiver deadline approaches. Right fielder Jacque Jones, whom the Cubs have been shopping without success for some time, could be the next to go.

“We’ll continue to try to do what I think makes us better and get back closer and hopefully catch the Brewers,” Hendry said. “We need to start closing the gap, and we need to put a couple runs together here and hope we’re going to have some streaks of seven or eight out of 10, things like that. We’ll keep our eyes and ears open.”

Daily Herald

If I have to listen to or read one more person ##### about how Barrett has been an albatross for three years, I'm going to tattoo Damian Miller's career numbers on his chest, and Henry Blanco's on his back - because those guys suck offensively

Umm, Damian Miller didn't suck offensively for a catcher until this year. Until then, he was always right around average. Blanco I'm with you on, but Miller could hit (for a catcher). He didn't do much for the Cubs but had 2 very nice years right after that. Barrett was much better with the stick so it was (probably, unless Barrett is as much of a monster as he is being made out to be) a good trade, but Miller was a servicable C for a good stretch.

JoeHova,

I'll concede your point. I was getting a bit too ranty. However, as you said, Barrett was much better with the stick. I just wish that Cub fans could celebrate what our guys did well as they leave.

I just wish that Cub fans could celebrate what our guys did well as they leave.

I think they are. I don't think we are upset with Barrett 2004-2006 at all. Like I said his hitting made up for his lack of defense/pitcher handling, to the point that I don't think we could have done much better at that possition.