Braves - Acquired Diaz
Atlanta Braves - Acquired OF Matt Diaz from the Kansas City Royals for P Ricardo Rodriguez
Entertainingly enough, this move was made at the same that the other Ricardo Rodriguez was officially named the PTBNL in the Phillie trade.
Diaz isn’t going to put up the walk totals that statheads drool over, but mediocre-to-bad defense and low walk rate aside, if one can’t get a chance after hitting 371/408/649 and 332/377/571 in the minors, you’re simply sending the message to your organization that how they do at playing baseball is pretty irrelevant. If Ryan Howard or Jason Bay had been Royals, they’d still be in Omaha.
There’s no starting job open for Diaz, but he’s definitely worth a full-time RH 1B/PH/spare OF role with the Braves. This Ricardo Rodriguez isn’t really a prospect.
Thumbs up for Schuerholz, thumbs down for KC. I guess that all-important upgrade from Paul Phillips to Gabor Bako is far more crucial than a player that can hit. All hail the conquering impresario!
2006 ZiPS Projection - Matt Diaz
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AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
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426 65 125 35 3 14 67 22 77 6 .293 .345 .488
Dan Szymborski
Posted: December 20, 2005 at 07:20 PM |
30 comment(s)
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1. prhood Posted: December 20, 2005 at 07:59 PM (#1786646)But if they give a chance to Diaz, how are they going to give a thousand plate appearances to Terrence Long and Emil Brown?
Ah well, it's for the best. With our glut of great-hitting outfielders and impeccable bench, Diaz would have been all but useless.
Or they were too busy talking to Jim Bowden.
He's played center, so I don't see why he couldn't play right.
The Nationals platoon him, but he's put up a .310/.383/.500 line in 50 PAs against lefthanders in his career, so he might not need to be platooned.
They're already stuck trying to move Walker because they insisted on bringing Perez back. Let's please not add another middle infielder to the mix and waste whatever remaining salary room there is in doing it. Couldn't those $23M be better used put toward extending Lee (not to mention Zambrano and Prior)?
This franchise will be the death of me.
Cedeno's a second baseman? Who's the Cubs shortstop?
Japan, last I'd heard.
Eaton trade to Rangers for A. Gonezalez
The Neifinator.
The Neifinator.
Are you kidding?
We all wish he was kidding, but Cub fans have all accepted that Neifi will get at least 400 AB as the starting shortstop. This hasn't been "announced" or anything, but it shall occur.
Looks great for the Padres to me.
And when you consider the ballparks they've pitched in.
Young isn't great, but he's likely to be above-average, unlike Eaton, who's mediocre at best.
I haven't really looked into the Tex/SD trade yet, but my initial reaction is that this is a good deal for the Pads (I believe the Rangers also get Killian).
Fixed.
The Neifinator.
Are you kidding?
It's very unlikely that the Cubs paid him $6M over the next 2 years to sit on the bench.
Everyone in the press seems to think Cedeno and Walker would get the starting nods right now, but I wonder whether they even bothered to watch the team last year. Dusty is so smitten with Neifi he's probably spending his offseason drafting gay marriage legislation in Illinois. Remember (and this can't be emphasized enough) - Dusty said around the ASB last year that Neifi was the Cubs 1st half MVP (despite the fact that Lee was hitting around .375/.450/.725).
If Dusty's back on the bench this year, Neifi will play. It doesn't matter if Hendry tells him to start Cedeno - Dusty's made the point that no one tells him who to play or what to do and no one ever will, and Hendry's shown little interest in standing up to him to push him on some of his more asinine decisions (unless you count the repurposing of Wendell Kim away from the 3rd base coaching job).
The only open question is whether Cedeno, Walker, or Hairston gets most of the PT at second base.
Hopefully he can hit enough to justify it. In his limited MLB time Diaz has mashed southpaws .370 .407 .463 and struggled against right-handers.
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