Huh?

Baseball trading deadline thread…

This makes zero sense:

The Detroit Tigers acquired first baseman Sean Casey from the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday in exchange for minor-league pitcher Brian Rogers. […]

To make room for Casey, Detroit optioned the contract of first baseman Chris Shelton to Triple-A Toledo.

Even though Shelton’s been slumping, he’s still having a better season than Casey, who is pretty much a singles hitter.

Shelton: .277/.343/.476

Casey: .296/.377/.406

Sure, you’ll get better OBP with Casey, but jeebus that slugging percentage is weak sauce for a first baseman.

More updates as I hear about more trades.

Another thing: I hear that the Astros might deal Roy Oswalt for Miguel Tejada. Miggy’s a great player and all, but are they nuts? If you’ve got a choice between a star shortstop and a bonafide ace pitcher, you should always take the pitcher.

 

Comments: 27

 
 
 

Actually Bradrocket,

Between a stud position player and a ‘regular’ ace like Oswalt, you should take the position player. Oswalt’s a good pitcher, but he’s no Pedro. There are only a handful of pitchers who have the impact that a player like Tejada has.

Can’t believe that Casey trade though. It’s baffling.

 
 

Jay- Oswalt has a career ERA of 3.09, which is outstanding in this day and age. He’s also incredibly durable, pitching more than 230 innings in 3 of the last 4 years. If someone offered him to me for Tejada, I’d take him zero questions asked.

 
 

In the “No Greenies” era, starting pitching will become even more rare. I’m with Brad on this one – a 200+ inning starter is worth pretty much any amount of offense…

mikey

 
 

shelton’s ops by month:

april: 1.186
may: .703
june: .642
july: .730

casey missed alot of time with an injury, but has good career numbers: .371 obp, .460 slg

 
 

Blarg. Cardinals traded Hector Luna for Ronnie Belliard. Not good. Not good at all considering contracts and money etc. But then it’ll get Aaron Miles benched, which is a good thing, it’s just that it’s a pity it took something like this to do it.

 
 

brad, i heard the red sox are going to get roger clemens, andruw jones, … and a pony~!!!11

 
 

I wish the Reds could somehow get Oswalt; he beats them 3-4 times a year, in addition to the other 12-15 wins he’s gonna pick up. Instead, we got Kyle Lohse and Rheal Cormier. Whee.

The Tigers gave up nothing for Casey, whose salary is mostly being paid by Pittsurgh and Cincinnati. Slugging percentage aside, he’ll be more consistently productive than Shelton, whose numbers are inflated by that torrid first month he had. He’s been a wasted lineup spot ever since.

I’m sorry, Orioles fans, that Peter Angelos is a jackass. It’s astonishing that he would turn down an offer of Ervin Santana and Erick Aybar for Tejada.

 
 

As much as I’d like to see what Leo Mazzone could do with Oswalt, I wouldn’t trade Tejada straight up for him. I disagree with you here, Brad.

 
 

Chris- OK, although his OPS did creep up in July. Hardly seems like a reason to send him to AAA.

 
 

I’d rather have Oswalt than Pedro. Am I in a minority?

As for the Tigers, I’d like to think we gave up nothing for Casey, but we gave up some minor-leaguer for Doyle Alexander, too, as I recall…

 
 

The Casey trade seems a bit off to me too, but he’s a significant defensive upgrade from Shelton. Casey has no errors this season to Shelton’s five. And stats don’t really show the value of a good defensive first baseman — being able to dig out errant throws can save you a baserunner or two a game. Guillen leads the league in with 18 errors at short, and Inge has 13 at third.

Now that the Tigers have upped the ante, aren’t the Sox (White) supposed to get Soriano or something?

 
 

Steve,

I was referring to the old Pedro, but now that you bring it up, I’d probably still take Pedro over Oswalt. What, exactly, has Roy Oswalt done that I’ve missed?

 
 

Travis, Lohse is now your problem. And it looks like the Twins got a pretty good prospect. Actually, Lohse was always maddening. He really does have decent stuff, but could never pitch consistently. I hope for the Reds’ sake he just needs a change of scenery.
Steve, I’m with you. I’d rather have Oswalt, though I’d take Pedro if he was still in his prime.
And having watched the Tigers beat the Twins 2 of 3 with Liriano and Santana pitching, I would say why fuck with something that’s going good? However, Shelton did have a key error that allowed the Twins to win the last game of the series.

 
 

We’ve already had a guy just like Lohse for the last month or so: Joe Mays. Blech. Easily the year’s worst Red, with stiff competition from Rick White and the decomposing Tony Womack. Before his last start he warned the team he might not be that sharp, since he’d had six days off since his last start. Oh, brother.

 
 

Fox Sports is now reporting a no go on any Tejada deal.
And the ‘stros are apparently pretty pissed at the O’s owner…

 
 

What are you bitching for? At least your GM isn’t Pat Gillick.

WTF was he thinking with the Abreu-Lidle trade? He couldn’t do better than four prospects?

He’s not only written off 2007 but probably 2008 as well. And just last year they were eliminated from the wild-card race on the last day of the season.

 
 

the Tigers wanted Casey because they needed a left handed hitter, preferably someone with some pop in his bat. They could get him and not give up much (though you never know, like the above Doyle Alexander commenter pointed out). Shelton will be back soon – he just needs to find his swing again.

 
 

You take an everyday player over a pitcher any day of the week, that shouldn’t be rocket science.

 
 

Bravo, Omar Minaya. That’s a pretty neat trick to turn Xavier Nady into Roberto Hernandez and Scott Linebrink, two of the best setup men in the game. That should offset the loss of Duaner Sanchez, and more.

 
 

King Kaufman breaks down the Abreu-Lidle trade. I agree with him: it’s not as bad as it appears at first glance. Mostly a salary dump, so let’s see what “Stand Pat” (that cracks me up) can do with $20 million or so next year.

 
 

I feel sorry for Shelton & hope he’s back up soon. He was around for the 100 loss season, right?

In one of the more meaningless deadline trades, the PadPeople took Todd Walker off the Cubs’ hands for a bag of bats. I know Walker hits where ever he goes, but he’s a stealth clubhouse cancer, too. he’s like the plague. But it would’ve been nice if the Cubs got something for his dour self.

Kenny Williams was telling the Chgo media he’s not dealing, but w/ the way they’re tanking that seems unlikely. Not sure who the Nats want for Soriano, tho.

 
 

Damn. Maddux to the Dodgers. Man I hate the Dodgers.

 
 

Meanwhile, Sabean? He decides he’ll stand pat. Stand fucking PAT! Let’s see, got a 42 year old cripple in left getting 18 mil. Got a 40 year old cripple in right getting 8. Third base is the streakiest, least consistent power hitter since dave kingman. Short? Hey, I LOVE omar, but the dudes almost 40 himself. At second is an ancient, creaky Ray Durham, who never could play defense and now can’t stay healthy. I won’t say anything about Hillenbrand at first, he’s a damnsite better than neikro or sweeny. Had the best catcher in the NL, but he took a few too many foul balls to the facemask, and is probably done forever. In the rotation you got schmidt, morris and wright clogging it up to the point where you’ve got GREAT young starters (Coreia, Hennessy) in the BULLPEN. And a 7 game losing streak working, including going 0 for washington AND 0 for pittsburgh. I’m gonna go try to learn soccer…

mikey

 
 

I’ve gotta come down on the side of keeping the great pitching, if only because the available pool is smaller.

 
 

Todd Walker to the Padres? What? Did Kevin Towers oversleep this morning and miss the deadline?

Excuse me while I go lie down from the excitement….

 
 

Feh.

From the Sox-centric point of view, I’m glad they didn’t overpay and while my initial take was that they should have would/have given up 4 minor leaguers to rent Abreu, it doesn’t make any sense.

Abreu is putting up Nixon (Trot, natch) numbers this year. Decent OBP, next to no power and slightly better RBI production for $10 million more than Trot makes — and now the Yanks are locked into another ginormous contract for a guy who’s not as good as Matsui OR Sheffield. And if you are relying on Cory Lidle to put you over the top, well, that’s blind faith.

The Jason Schmidt rumors were heartening, but the deals that were made aren’t really that good baseball-wide. It’ll be interesting to see how many different ways I’ll be proven wrong.

 
 

its a little after the Sean Casey trade, but it seems they knew what they were doing because Sean had an awesome postseason and Shelton stayed in the dugout, right where he belongs. Oh by the way, in case you cant tell by the email address, I am obsessed with Sean Casey, so maybe I am a little biased.

 
 

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