Bet he was pretty surprised to be headed to Seattle. |
Ah, nothing like a shitty trade to get the creative blogging juices flowing.
Ah, yes. The trade at hand. Today, for no apparent reason, the Mariners said 'you know what, we need more hitting. Nelson Cruz, Logan Morrison, Kyle Seager and Brad Miller are great hitters, but I can't take that kind of security. We need a crap one to balance out the good ones.' So, out of the goddamned blue, they politely asked Arizona to hand over Mark Trumbo, whose last great numbers came in Week One of the 2014 season, in exchange for Welington Castillo and a couple prospects.
There are several things wrong with this trade. I'm gonna go over all of them.
1. Yes, I understand that Trumbo is no longer the high ticket item he was, but if Arizona wanted to get rid of him, they could have just DFA'd him, instead of jumpstarting the trade season inexplicably in the beginning of June. This was just an incredibly random, and public way, of getting rid of the guy that could have been done a bit more discretely.
2. The main guy that Arizona is getting is Welington Castillo, who, just last season, was the premier catcher for the Cubs. So, the deal was that Arizona was giving up a big hitter and getting a catcher. Now, you would think that the D-Backs would need a catcher. However, that is not the case. The D-Backs, so far this season, have had FOUR people play catcher. FOUR OF THEM. Two are on the DL, and those two are Tuffy Goseswisch and Gerald Laird. The other two are Jordan Pacheco, who's their starter right now, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who is their backup.
It's worth noting that they just signed Saltalamacchia literally mid-last month. And he's played three games in their system. So now, the D-Backs have Castillo, who can definitely play catcher, Pacheco, who can definitely play catcher, and Salty, who, as we're being led to believe at this point, can definitely play catcher.
Okay, Count von Count. How many healthy, perfectly fine catchers does that leave us?
THREE! THREE CATCHERS! AH-AH-AH!
And how many will that make once Tuffy Gosewisch comes back?
FOUR! FOUR CATCHERS! AH-AH-AH!
(Thanks, Count.)
Okay, anyway, back to the list.
3. Also, you would think that, if the Mariners are so eager to give Castillo to a team that already has two healthy catchers, and one other catcher that could eventually come back and start, then they're perfectly fine as far as catchers are concerned. NOPE. NOT AT ALL. Their starting catcher, Mike Zunino, while not doing too badly in terms of hitting homers, is batting below the Mendoza line. And he's started almost all of the Mariners' games. This is because the M's don't have many other options behind the plate.
They have Jesus Sucre floating around on their roster, but they demoted him a little while ago, assumedly when they got Castillo, and when they do bring him back up, he's still not gonna be too spectacular, as before his demotion, he was batting terribly, only getting one hit in six games, and striking out four times.
So, let's examine the facts here. A team with an unreliable starter and a slightly-more reliable backup catcher trades said backup to a team that already has three reliable catchers, two of which are healthy. So, now one team has one catcher that they can't really deal with, and the other team has three catchers, FOUR when Gosewisch returns from the DL, that are definitely overcrowding the playing field. Keep in mind, Welington Castillo was in Chicago earlier this year, with Miguel Montero and David Ross. He is now very familiar with overcrowding.
4. There is no heir apparent in the Mariners' system, other than Jesus Sucre. The only catchers floating around in that system are A.) In the deep recesses of the minors, and B.) Not hitting for jack shit. So it's not like there's another catcher coming in on the horizon. It's not like they're clearing things for a big trade.
5. The D-Backs threw Vidal Nuno into this trade as well. Nuno hasn't had decent numbers since he was with the Yankees. The Mariners are just gonna be getting Hector Noesi again, and LORD KNOWS how well he turned out.
6. The Mariners now have an outfielder/DH type, and nowhere to put him. All three outfielders are hitting well enough to keep their spots, and Seth Smith is a good enough DH that he's definitely sticking around. And they're sure as hell not gonna move him back to the infield. So...now they're screwed, because they have a guy who can hit, but doesn't always, and can't put him anywhere defensively, and then they have to mull over whether they wanna swap out Seth Smith with Trumbo every once and a while.
So there. Six reasons why this trade is nonsensical. And they're six good reasons, too. I mean, maybe this trade is gonna end up doing something for those prospects that Seattle threw in, but...as for Trumbo and Castillo, they really don't need to be on these new teams. It's maddening.
Good news is it makes for good blog material.
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