Sunday, August 1, 2010

Wheelin' Dealin' and Losin'


With three trades yesterday combined with a 11-1 beating at the hands of the Cardinals,which would you rather read about?
Jeff Clement's long home run (6) scored the only Pirate run as Daniel McCutchen picked up the L and now is 1-5.
Pittsburgh attempts to avoid the sweep this afternoon with Zach Duke (5-9) vs Adam Wainwright (14-6).

A few words on the Pirate deals from yesterday instead of writing about a rear end kicking.

I like the Chris Snyder deal as the Pirates appear to be setting themselves up for a future without Ryan Doumit.
Doumit will likely be moved over the winter or even possibly before the deadline for waiver deals.
Snyder will not hit for a high average,but he should be able to equal Doumit's power numbers and will give the Pirates a strong armed catcher for the first time in years that will make opposing runners think a bit.
Snyder is signed through 2011 and the team will have an option for 2012 of over six million,which will likely be declined as hopefully Tony Sanchez will be ready to take over the tools of ignorance by then.
The best part of bringing in Snyder?
The cost as Arizona sent three million to kick in towards Snyder's salary,sent AAA shortstop Pedro Ciriaco to the team (assigned to Indianapolis) and took three players off the roster that aren't huge losses,if losses at all.
D.J. Carrasco has been decent out of the bullpen,but his types are a dime a dozen and Bobby Crosby along with Ryan Church are additions by subtraction,especially Church,who has been terrible all season.

The swap with the Giants looks to be kinda blah as Javier Lopez has been the best lefty in the pen,but bullpenners are inconsistent from year to year and I don't blame the Buccos for shipping him away.
Righthanded pitcher Joseph Martinez and lefty swinging outfielder John Bowker made up the return and both were assigned to Indianapolis.
Bowker has been hugely productive in AAA and has never truly been given a real chance to play every day.
After Garrett Jones and his success with a similar track record as Bowker, I can see why Bowker had some appeal to Neal Huntington.
Martinez has been up and down between AAA Fresno and San Francisco this season as a reliever,but the Pirate plan on using Martinez as a starter.

The Octavio Dotel deal to the Dodgers is a deal that I like as both players from the Dodgers could be productive players down the road.
Power armed righty James McDonald will be joining the Pirates as a long reliever and should be in the rotation before the season ends.
Outfielder Andrew Lambo was assigned to AA Altoona and could be the steal of all the trades.
Lambo was the Dodgers top prospect entering the 2009 season,but was suspended during that season for drug usage that is reported to be marijuana.
If Lambo is right,this could be a huge pickup for Pittsburgh.
Dotel had pitched well for the most part,but Joel Hanrahan and Evan Meek deserve a chance to move to bigger roles out of the pen and Dotel was only going to block their upward movement.
Jeff Clement and Argenis Diaz were promoted from Indianapolis to fill open spots on the roster.

Overall,I have no problem with any of the deals and all have chances to be winning trades,especially considering the entire picture.
I hope to do a similar piece on the Indians trades over the next few days....

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