Big market mentality versus small market mentality (not that Detroit is a small market):
Exhibit A: Joba has a lot of talent, is 24 and it’s silly to give up on him.
Exhibit B: Joba has a lot of talent. His value will never be higher (actually, it’s at its lowest, but there’s value there). We should trade him and get what we can, because we may not resign him/need to recoup on an investment.
Not official yet, but it looks like Oswalt is preparing to waive his no-trade clause and join the Phillies.
Only one win shy of Joe Niekro’s all-time Astro record for career wins.
Dear baseball: we don’t know what the fuck.
Sincerely,
Phillies
The last few times Oswalt has pitched he hasn’t looked very good. I wonder if age is starting to catch him? Not everybody gets to be Nolan Ryan. Maybe the stress of playing for a crappy team and not getting any run support are what’s been doing him in lately.
Sad, but necessary for the Astros; Oswalt is brittle enough that it’s hard to believe he’d still be worth anything by the time they got good again.
Oswalt’s always been a bit injury-prone, even when he was in the minors. Not a guy I’d expect a really long career out of.
He gets nicked up a bit on occasion, but he also has had at least 30 starts every year since 2003 and is on pace to do it again. There aren’t a whole lots of guys you can say that about. He has talked about retiring early before, so it wouldn’t surprise me, but I don’t really think he is any more at risk of a career ending injury than anyone else on the mound.
As a Met fan who loves Oswalt this trade makes me very sad.
Super rookie Strasburg hits the 15 day DL. That takes some fun out of the season.
I like the trade.
If the rumors I heard are true they are giving up Happ and two prospects and getting Oswalt and 12 million; I like the trade. The prospects might turn out to be great, but they aren’t the true blue guaranteed type guys. Happ, while he had a nice season for himself last year, is not a great pitcher. He got really lucky last year, and I don’t forsee that luck holding up. (By luck I mean statistical anomalies like the ability to get guys out after getting into trouble. Having a lower than average batting average on balls in play. The kind of thing that pitchers don’t seem to have a whole lot of control over.)
I am a Phillies fan who was extremely sad that Cliff Lee was traded and I thought it was dumb at the time, and I still don’t think it was the right move. But, I understood it. Yet, I don’t think this trade makes the Lee deal look any worse. Sure, they wouldn’t have had to make it if Lee were here. But, in their minds they had to trade Lee or they would wind up with next to nothing after the season was over. So, yeah, I would have preferred to have had Lee and Halliday for the entire year. But, the two Roys for the rest of this year and next year is not a bad compromise. Especially since the Astros are throwing in a bunch of cash.
Just another fireballer who’ll blow his arm out early?
Yes, being a Nats fan, but having lived in Chicago for more than 15 years, I know that ‘rookie pitcher on DL’ is double-speak for ‘his career is over, and we’re probably amputating his arm right now or maybe he’s dead or something.’
Actually, the fact that the Nationals are being extra careful with him suggests precisely the opposite.
But every time they do something, saying ‘nothing’s going on,’ I have this funny feeling they’re not telling us everything.
Except that it’s only been a dozen or so starts for him, and it’s happening already.
His xFIP for July is 3.14. It looks like he’s adapting his tactics as he ages, cutting (or sinking?) a fastball and using a changeup almost twice as much as he ever has. I think little Roy will age fairly well.
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
Just another fireballer who’ll blow his arm out early?
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If the Nats don’t rectify his terrible follow through, I think the question going forward is, “How good will Strasburg be after his shoulder reconstruction?”
Nolan Ryan’s follow through for reference. Notice how low Ryan’s shoulder is comparatively? That extra foot or so equates to extra time for deceleration.
How often do you hear a pitcher missing a start because he couldn’t get loose? If it wasn’t Strasberg he wouldn’t have missed a start.
Toronto trades Brett Wallace to the Astros for Anthony Gose.
This is one of those Jay moves that further convinces me that the team has no long term plan beyond “how we’ll be next Tuesday.” They got an outfield prospect, Michael Taylor, in the Halladay deal, and traded him to get Wallace. Now they trade away Wallace to get an outfield prospect.
In going from Taylor to Wallace to Gose, they go from an outfield prospect who’s probably ready for the majors now to a first base prospect who’s possibly ready for the majors now to an outfield prospect who might be ready for the majors in four years - and this on a team that needs a first baseman or a corner outfielder NEXT YEAR.
Gose is by all accounts physically talented but in A ball he’s striking out once a game and has been caught stealing 27 times, so apparently he cannot read a curveball or a pitcher’s move. He’s a long way from the majors. Looking at this strategically, it’s basically trading Michael Taylor for Anthony Gose. That makes no sense at all.
I wonder if that means Lind plays first next year, with an outfield of Snider, Wells and Bautista. Or Bautista plays third, with Lind, Wells and Snider in the outfield and Brian Dopirak at first, and perhaps Encarnacion the DH.
Andy Marte is now pitching in the 9th for Cleveland. It took 6 Indian Pitchers to get through the first 8 and well over 200 innings.
Yanks are winning 11-1 BTW.
Padres traded for Miguel Tejada today.
If Tejada plays short, he’s something of an improvement over Everth Cabrera, but acquiring a guy who’s OPSing .670 this year isn’t exactly the way forward for a team that really needs offense. Hell, Jerry Hairston is hitting almost exactly as well as Tejada this year, and Hairston’s probably a better defensive player (and Cabrera’s definitely better).
Playing Tejada at third only makes sense when San Diego lines up against left-handed pitching. Current 3B Chase Headley is hitting better than Tejada overall (OPS .723), and is hitting pretty well against right-handers (.303/.349/.442). Headley’s had real problems against lefties (.195/.265/.244), to the extent that i wonder whether he should bat left-handed, even against southpaws, rather than switch-hitting.
I like Tejada. I liked him when i used to watch him play in Baltimore, and i like his upbeat attitude and the way he pushes his team-mates. And San Diego really didn’t have to give up anything of real value to get him. But i’m really not sure that this is a trade they needed to make in order to hold onto their lead in the West. I hope Tejada proves me wrong.