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you just gotta love ed wade ...
Astros acquired RHP LaTroy Hawkins and cash from the Yankees for infielder Matt Cusick.
Good news and bad news for Hawkins. On the one hand, the chance to return to the NL should help his numbers and his chances of landing a significant major league deal this winter. On the other, the other teams that were after him, the Twins and Tigers, were legitimate contenders, while joining the Astros only guarantees that he'll have October off. He'll help set up for Jose Valverde. Cusick, a 2007 10th-round pick, was hitting .285/.356/.462 as a 22-year-old in low-A ball. He's unlikely to ever see the majors.
So the sandwiches might have been a better deal.
First of all, I never said or even implied that he's below average.
As for a shred of evidence that he's about average, I would say that his past 1800 at bats are such a shred. His sOPS+ as a catcher over the last four years have been 105, 107, 101, and (300 at bats worth of) 111. Is that "above average"? In a literal sense, sure. Even that 101 was "above average". But, Jesus Christ, I'm not saying he's exactly average and Farnsworth is exactly average and they are exactly equal to each other and blah blah blah. I'm saying that this trade is not outrageous.
And yes, obviously his arm improves upon that somewhat. But it's not like his CS% is unheard of, and it's not as good as it used to be.
Would you next like me to defend my claim that Ivan Rodriguez is the worst player ever, and Kyle Farnsworth is the best player ever?
No, but it's still one of the best in the majors today.
So how do the roster moves go now? Who replaces Farnsworth in the pen?
who can't worth a damn.
among catchers who can bat well enough to hold down a starting job, it is second best in the majors.
In response, people (yourself included) have:
(1) Disputed my claim (which I never made) that Pudge is not a significant upgrade over Molina.
(2) Disputed my claim (which I never made) that Pudge is below average.
(3) Called me a troll.
I might be wrong, but you haven't shown that, and I'm not trolling, you dumb ####.
I'm done with this conversation. Goodbye.
Just wondering, if Boston wasn't so busy trying to dump Manny, would they have found a way to upgrade from Varitek to I-Rod? We'll never know.
What would make sense of it is if the Tigers are saving a bunch of money. Is it really only $2.5?
Also Pudge might be an upgrade for the Yanks but he's not a dealmaker anymore. Still I do think that it is the Red Sox who are going to drop out, not the Yankees and not the Rays.
It was later edited
And I didn't think this was that bad until I saw Farnsworth's peripherals. He's terrible, just awful. There's not reason to trade a reasonably decent player for him.
Boston would not have replaced Varitek with IRod, regardless of Manny. He's the captain of the team, he's extremely streaky and looks awful when going bad. They'd have a mutiny if they replaced him and they probably would not have improved the team.
Except that the numbers don't support you. Pudge is clearly an above-average player. He is no longer what he was 5 years ago, but he clearly is an above average catcher, both as a hitter and gunning down baserunners.
Boston would not have replaced Varitek with IRod, regardless of Manny. He's the captain of the team, he's extremely streaky and looks awful when going bad. They'd have a mutiny if they replaced him and they probably would not have improved the team.
I think you are half-right here. I think they could definitely improve the team by replacing Varitek with a superior catcher. I-Rod is a better at both ends of the game now. But you are absolutely correct that there is no way they would replace their team captain in the middle of a pennant race.
Agree. Disagree.
Off topic here, I increasingly believe that Varitek/Red Sox just isn't going to end well.
Very. Last year is over. Projections based on last year do not take into account the expiration date on some catchers. Varitek has looked very toasty all year long, and does not seem to be getting better.
This year Varitek has thrown out 12 of 67 about baserunners, around 18%; Pudge has thrown out 18 of 50, or 36%
Reputation in game calling does not mean much, and even as to that, Pudge's reputation has gone up since he left Texas.
Now, if JV can pull off a dead cat bounce and prove me wrong, more power to him. But so far, we have seen no sign of it.
Defensively, I'm not all that sure what I think at this point.
I think Pudge would be a definite upgrade over Tek at the plate. And a possible upgrade in the field. But I agree with both you and Srul that there's no way that the team would or should replace the captain at this point in the year.
Any reasonable projection would include his performance from last year as well as this one, whether you throw in a magical expiration date or not.
You can say that calling games doesn't mean much, but really we just can't measure it. Those aren't the same thing.
I'm wondering that myself. Patterson and Britton are both on the 40 man roster, but if they move Jorge to the 60 day DL, they have another spot don't they? I don't see anyone that really deserves to be added over those two though, maybe Strickland because he has experience? Maybe Aceves as insurance for Kennedy? I'm betting Patterson since they hate Britton. And then when Bruney is ready, he pushes Patterson down again.
You can say that calling games doesn't mean much, but really we just can't measure it. Those aren't the same thing.
I'm not convinced Tek calls a good game. There are plenty of Sox fans who criticize his game calling. Certainly enough for me to not consider it a given that he calls a great enough game to make up for not being able to throw or hit (for the time being).
My point here is that, in trying to compare the two, there really is no way to weight this. There are those who say that Pudge did a great job with young staffs in Florida and Detroit. There are those who say that Varitek is a great receiver. There is really no evidence to support one over the other. If you want to say that Varitek is so much better than IRod at this, that it makes up for everything else, fine, but as there is no hard evidence to support that, I would just call it a wash.
Any reasonable projection would include his performance from last year as well as this one
Projection systems are a lot of fun, but they are not the end-all and be-all of player analysis. If somebody is doing very badly, and looks very badly, and plays a position where sudden declines are common, I don't know that I would take much comfort in a projection system.
This bad, for this long?
This is ridiculous. When an old player plays terrible and looks terrible doing it there is nothing "magical" about suggesting that they might have lost their skills. I bet you thought signing Andruw Jones was a good idea.
His college (USC) rep was as a "plays above his tools" guy. Hes a 2b/3b whose having a nice, but not great, low-A year. 280/350/450, roughly 40 Ks and 40 BBs in 340 ABs. 7 steals, 1 caught. Good gap power numbers.
Maybe a utility man someday but he might also be close to as good as he'll ever be right now.
His homerun / flyball rate is awful, which leads to an awful FIP, since FIP assumes that homerun / flyball rate is entirely skill. THT has his HR / FB rate at 21.5%, Fangraphs at 20%. His K and BB rates are decent.
That homerun / flyball rate is a career high, and pretty much out of line with his career average of 12.3%
For comparison's sake, his worst 49-game stretch last season was .215/.349/.316, and his worst 49-game stretch of 2006 was .225/.304/.390.
Both of those stretches are better than his overall 2008 numbers.
In the end. Pudge can't possibly be a downgrade From Molina without some serious natural or man made disastor. while hoping that Inge would be the starting C is a bit risky, and what El Farnsy will give the Tigers is basically up in the air. he might go on another 05 esque run, or suck, or just continuing his usually decent, occasionally horrible and often frustrating trick.
From a total prespective, it would appear that the Yankees are more likely to gain more wins from this than the Tigers, which is a serious problem considering that the Yankees are 4.5 games ahead of the Tigers in the WC. unless the Tigers figure they end up winning the division (which isn't entirely impossible if Carlos Quineten has another one of his yearly 30 day DL stint again.) but this seems like a meh move for the Tigers while a obvious upgrade for the Yankees.
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