I’d like to nominate Aaron Boone as the most overrated player in baseball.
People are flipping out, handing the Yanks the pennant, and chastising George Steinbrenner for buying stars. Hello, its Aaron Boone.
His line away from the Great American Bandbox this year: .249/.311/.408. Last year, he hit a spectacular .241/.314/.439.
I’ll easily suggest that going from Ventura to Boone is a downgrade. When you add in that the Yankees gave up a frontline arm in Brandon Claussen and a ton of cash, the only thing the commissioner’s office should be investigating is how to award Brad Kullmen a medal for sticking it to the Yankees.
Thank God for King George, who just saved us from ourselves. I’m glad Aaron Boone will be making outs for the Yankees this october.
The Red Sox just traded Freddy Sanchez to Pittsburgh and got Jeff Suppan and Brandon Lyon back.
The Mariners traded their version of Freddy Sanchez 18 months ago so that Dan Wilson could have an overqualified backup.
Just about 90 minutes left Pat.
I love the trade deadline. Writers on short deadlines, 20 articles looking for a different angle on the same rumors… it produces great gems like this, from Jayson Stark, on Giles to the Yankees, when the Yankees only want Giles (and not Kendall): “But if the Yankees toss names like Nick Johnson and Brandon Claussen into the mix, the Pirates would almost have to pay serious attention.”
If you toss Nick Johnson into any trade, you have to pay serious attention. It’s not like GMs are dozing off with Cashman on speakerphone and then when Cashman, sensing he’s not getting anywhere, says “and I can throw in Nick Johnson” but that’s not quite enough for a GM to pay serious attention, so they drift off to sleep.
Anyway — what’s the difference between taking Rafael Soriano into the playoffs and Francisco Rodriguez (and Soriano being better doesn’t count)? Soriano would be on the playoff roster legally. Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
I’d also like to offer my full endorsement to the IvarDog as Official Safeco Concession Entree. $4.75 isn’t really that steep and it’s mmm-mmm delicious.
Okay, what the heck has gotten into Randy Winn? He now has 6 home runs in July after hitting 2 from April through June.
Rafael Soriano is comparing favorably to what Francisco Rodriguez did last year before the playoffs began. At this point, he’s probably our best reliever, and hopefully the Box learns from Mike Scioscia and allows talent to overrule experience.
Thank God for George Steinbrenner. Aaron Boone just isn’t very good. His numbers are greatly inflated by his home park, and they aren’t overwhelmingly impressive anyways. He’s the new version of David Bell, and Safeco would have sucked the life out of his bat. For all the outrage over the Yankees “buying” Boone, Brandon Claussen is a heck of an arm, and this is a great deal for the Reds.
The city of Detroit has just optioned the Tigers to AAA.
Bret Boone: “Everyone knows we need to make a trade. I don’t need to say anything else.”
Rafael Soriano looked astounding tonight from the stands. I’m so impressed with Rafael Soriano I’ve decided to give him my full endorsement, though I don’t have an official title yet. If they dump Freddy and his problems on someone else (and they should), plug Soriano into the rotation. Or right now, swap roles with the rapidly deteriorating Meche and give Gil some work in long relief and mop-up.
I’m worried about Sanchez. I can babble about tools and their uses all I want, but if Box isn’t going to put Sanchez in tonight, or find someway to work him into the lineup, what’s the point? Why buy a scroll saw for someone who won’t stop playing Madden on the PS2? Not to go after Weaver too much, but Weaver sat around thinking “man, if McLemore was up last inning, and we’re up by 5, I can put Sanchez out there and make this go a little quicker, and if Sanchez has to bet, no big deal.”
The A’s just picked up Jose Guillen for Aaron Harang, Joe Valentine, and a PTBNL. Your move, Pat.
Mariners attendance is off this year by 10%. While this will be used as at some point as an excuse by the team for why they can’t afford to take on payroll, I would like to offer some pre-emptive responses to this.
- The team did not take on payroll when attendence was higher anyway
- The drop is due in part to the team’s failure to make a deal last year
- The drop is due in part to the team’s public comments about not being interested in winning a World Series
- The drop is also due in part to the disappointment of seeing the team come up just short at the end of the year after seeing the team fail to make a move and putting up with those comments
Therefore, I propose that that team needs to make the big deal not only because the team needs it, but because they’re going to continue to see their fan base stay home if they feel the team doesn’t care about winning pennants and titles.
The logic here just doesn’t fit. Because Mark McLemore sucks and Rey Sanchez sucks, we’re just throwing them into the same offensive pool of crap and not recognizing that they are on entirely different levels of suckness.
If the Mariners trade for J.D. Drew and install him in left field, everyone will rejoice about how we’ve upgraded the offense. The difference between Drew and Winn over the rest of the season should be approximately 10 outs.
The difference between McLemore and Sanchez the rest of the year? Approximately 9 outs.
You can argue that Sanchez’s combination of offense/defense at shortstop is more valuable than McLemore’s, and I won’t disagree with you. I’ve said repeatedly that McLemore should never be allowed to play the infield again. I just don’t understand why we categorize all lousy ballplayers into one big group and not recognize that Rey Sanchez is going to hurt this offense every bit as much as J.D. Drew would help it. For a team already having problems scoring runs, that is an issue.
I like the Sanchez pickup. Dude can pick it with the glove, and I think if you’re going to punt offense anyway at short, you might as well not punt defense as well. Sanchez has been a stellar defender in the past, and while age certainly erodes speed and defense the most, I see him as a big defensive upgrade over McLemore, who he’ll replace in Guillen-injury duty.
w/r/t Ugueto v Sanchez at the plate: Ugueto in his minor league career, spent almost entirely in the Gulf Coast League and Florida Something League, hit .246/.280/.306 in 3,066 ABs. Translated to what he might have hit in the majors, that’s, uh, .000/.000/.000. There’s really no evidence at all that he’s capable of hitting a baseball consistently. Now Sanchez sucks, don’t get me wrong, but his career MLB line through 2002 was .273/.309/.334, which is much better than what Ugueto was putting up against low-level competition in the minors.
Here’s another way to look at this, though — the bench consists of tools. The Mariners didn’t have anyone on the bench who was a good defensive replacement at shortstop (or really, at second, either). Sanchez can’t hit, but if nothing else, with Guillen out they can put McLemore-Bloomquist at short with the fly-ball starters and then sub Sanchez in later if you’ve got a ground-ball reliever coming in (though with Box Melvin’s constant reliever swapping, this is less effective than it could be). Or, if you’re Earl Weaver, you start Sanchez for the defense and if you need the slightly-stronger bats in, you can pinch-hit them and punt defense later.
By comparison, Ugueto’s been the team’s backup pinch-runner, and hasn’t offered the team anything they don’t get out of Bloomquist.
Luis Ugueto, 2002: .217/.280/.348
Rey Sanchez, 2003: .207/.240/.236
Calling Sanchez a worse hitter than Ugueto is “insane”?
Honestly, trying to find a worse hitter than Sanchez is nearly impossible. If you only played Jeff Cirillo at home against right-handers and made him bunt on every play, he’d still manage to be a better hitter than Sanchez.
Did we need a backup shortstop? Yes. I’ve been saying that since last winter. Am I glad that Mark McLemore won’t be playing shortstop anymore? Absolutely. And I obviously agree that Kenny Kelly is worthless, and we gave up nothing of value. But I see no reason to believe that Sanchez is better at anything than Luis Ugueto, except be old and veteran-like.