Orioles - Acquired Meredith
Baltimore Orioles - Acquired P Cla Meredith from the San Diego Padres for 1B-OF Oscar Salazar
Oscar Salazar has been absolutely killing the balling the last couple of years (a 316/371/512 is a tremendous line for Norfolk), but his unimpressive minor league career in his 20s have scared some teams off. At some point, though, you have to give a chance to a guy who has hit like Salazar has this season in the majors and the minors.
The main problem is that Salazar isn’t in the best situation in San Diego. A lot of the media seems to be treating Salazar as if he’s a true utility player, but he really isn’t at this point of his career. Salazar was a middle infielder years ago, but at this point, he’s best used as a 1B-OF type, preferable the cold corner. If the Padres really think that Salazar will help some weak middle infield depth, then, well, I hope they signed Sid Fernandez out of retirement and told him to hang his pitches high.
The evidence is beginning to mount, however, that Salazar really can hit now and I hope he gets his chance, whether it’s in San Diego.
While I like Cla Meredith, I like Sean Gallagher more and the Padres have now essentially traded Meredith for Gallagher and 2 throw-ins and still have a shortish right-handed slugger with defensive issues. And at a lower salary to boot. The team’s still hopeless in that the ownership mess has left them some serious capitalization issues, but this is still a quality move from a tactical standpoint.
I wish the Orioles had given Salazar more of a chance, but I do like watching Meredith pitch. The O’s have a rich history of sidearmers that I love and while a single reliever won’t save the O’s pitching staff, Meredith and his ridiculous sinker will actually make me feel like there’s a reason Cesar Izturis is on the team.
2009 ZIPS Projection - Oscar Salazar
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AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
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Year-to-Date 231 30 76 12 1 12 42 13 30 0 .329 .363 .545
Rest-of-Year 217 29 61 12 1 7 32 14 34 2 .279 .321 .443
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2009 ZIPS Projection - Cla Meredith
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Year-to-Date 4 2 35 0 36.7 47 17 1 13 20 4.17
Rest-of-Year 2 2 34 0 35.0 41 17 3 11 18 4.37
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Total 6 4 69 0 71.7 88 34 4 24 38 4.27
Year-to-date totals include minor-league translations, if applicable.
Dan Szymborski
Posted: July 20, 2009 at 03:54 AM |
57 comment(s)
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1. AROM Posted: July 20, 2009 at 12:21 PM (#3259697)I didn't think they'd get anything for Salazar, so this is a solid move IMO.
I don't see how this move helps the Padres. I think Salazer can be a decent hitter, but as a fulltime player he's only suited to 1b or DH.
Does this end any chance of a Felix Pie trade? I'd love to see the Royals take a flyer on him.
His real name is Olise Claiborne Meredith III.
Whether this exonerates his parents or not is left open.
Is that his mother's maiden name or something?
EDIT: I see we can now edit our comments in the Transaction Oracle. Good!
He's pretty much turned out to be a ROOGY, right? (Though this year he doesn't even appear to be that much.)
The Salazar trade solves the Orioles self-imposed roster crunch of only being allowed to carry 4 bench players (a side effect of a 12-man pitching staff). I still don't understand why the decision was between Pie and Salazar - Pie is the only bench player who can play CF, while Salazar is pretty redundant to Wigginton.
There aren't any players looming in the minors or DL that will create another bench crunch, unless Lou Montanez comes back way ahead of schedule. That said, I'm sure Pie is available for trade, but there is no pressure to move him now, so MacPhail would want a high-upside talent in return.
I have a co-worker whose wife had a new customer at work. The customer's paperwork had her name listed as Le-a. So my co-worker's wife addressed her as "Lee-ay".
The customer replied, "It's Ledasha, #####!"
A real charmer, that one.
It's pretty irrelevant to the Orioles; the identity of the seventh reliever in the pen matters only to fantasy leagues with very deep rosters. What's he going to pitch, 30 innings for the Os this year? (Innings which could be easily eaten up by a 6-man bullpen, but that's a dead horse.)
WASPiest name ever!
What I don't understand is why, if he's going to go by a diminunitive of his middle name, he can't just spell it "Clay". It's not like Bob or Joe are actually part of the names they shorten.
I always felt that Chase Utley was a pretty WASPy name.
Madison Bumgarner has not yet arrived, and he has already lost hope of having the girliest name in MLB.
The scourge of naming people Madison must come to an end. Boys and girls. It's a terrible name. And I hate everybody who has it!
Same here! He brought this spelling upon himself.
The customer replied, "It's Ledasha, #####!"
Urban legend.
Perhaps, but Jacoby McCabe Ellsbury is right there alongside him.
No. The Padres traded Kottaras for David Wells at the end on '06. Meredith and (somebody else) was traded for Veal Parm after somebody else couldn't catch the knuckler.
Chase Headley.
Actually, Justin Upton would be a good one, if he was white.
Yeah, because standard English orthography is so phonetic.
And here's the Snopes entry on "Le-a".
1998 called, they want their most popular baby name back!
Heh, sorry.
Hebrew names are still hot, with the top 5 all being from Hebrew and former also-ran names like Isaac and Caleb breaking comfortably into the top 50.
On the other hand, I have some serious issues with the parents of the 208 Jaggers, 213 Lyrics, and the 320 Aces born last year. I'm not sure I want to live in a world in which there are 3 times as many Brodys as Jeffreys.
Sweden had 252 Neos last year.
I do the same. Dwyane Wade is great to say phonetically.
######' Cong.
Sean is the correct way to spell this name.
I always thought "Sean Bean" was a funny name. It seems like it should either be pronounced "Seen Bean" or "Shawn Bawn". Imagine my disappointment when I found out that his parents foresaw that difficulty and actually named him "Shaun". He just uses "Sean" professionally because he thought it was memorable (and funny).
According to the intertubes, the correct way to spell this name is ???????.
Siobhan, Niambh, Maebh, and a bunch of last names (Keough for one), most of which have been further anglicized.
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