July 24, 2006
The Padres Third Base Situation
By
Amanda
Posted at 7:39 pm
According to the story Sellers' Rank Still Thin on courant.com, the Padres may be interested in Rich Aurilia to bolster third base. Boy-oh-boy is that unlikely! Unless they're willing to hand over a solid starting pitcher, I just don't see Jerry Narron giving Richie up. I mean, then who would play third?
The story also says they might be interested in the Pirates' Joe Randa. And here I thought I was being so clever when I said this two days ago.
Don’t ever under (or is it over…) estimate the Pirates’ front office.
So if half of Joe Randa is worth Eddie Guardado, what would half of Rich Aurilia be?
Depends. Which half?
I don’t think they’re going to acquire Aurilia OR Randa, since neither one helped them at all when they were there the last times (Rich in 2004; Joe in ’05).
And this team (the Reds) can’t afford to dump any more offense.
I wouldn’t rule out another deal before the trade deadline, though.
David Ross is eligible to come off the DL, and guess who’s supposed to pitch tonight for the Reds? Yep, Bronson Arroyo, who’s had Ross as his personal catcher since spring training.
So, Ross figures to come off the DL in time for the game. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Joe “Giant Sucking Sound (GSS) ” Mays get designated for assignment to make room for Ross on the 25-man. Then somebody (maybe LaRue?) gets traded for a fifth starter to replace GSS…or gets traded for a PTBNL and they bring up someone such as Germano or Dumatrait from the minors.
Hopefully not Homer Bailey, though. In forty years as a sports fan I have never, not even once, written to any club official of any pro sports team to express displeasure with a move. But if the Reds rush Bailey to the majors at age 20 with one effective pitch, I will definitely be sending someone an e-mail to rip them a new sphincter for risking Bailey’s career by doing so.
And then I expect you’ll get an e-mail sent back telling you to figure out what the hell you’re talking about before you complain. Bailey already has a pair of extremely good pitches in his 94-97 MPH moving fastball and his ridiculous hammer curve, and by almost all accounts his change is an average pitch and could develop into something better fairly soon. I don’t want Bailey up either, but he certainly has more than one effective pitch, and in fact he has about two and a half more than anyone else the Reds have been throwing out as a 5th starter this year.
Here’s Homer Bailey himself, as quoted in the Cinci Enquirer on July 10, admitting that his offspeed stuff is not on par with his heater, and that the Reds’ organization has been in his ear about it:
“They’ve kind of been on me a little about mixing up my pitches. I’ll show anybody my off-speed pitches. That’s fine. It’s my weaker point because my fastball is good, and it always will be that way.”
And now here’s his manager in Chattanooga, Jayhawk Owens, quoted on the same July 10 date in the Cinci Post:
“I believe that we’re on the right track with this kid, not rushing him. In my level he’s able to go to his fastball to get out of trouble. Major league level, he may not be able to do that so much. He really needs to tweak his off-speed stuff, especially his changeup.”
So, either both Jayhawk Owens and Homer Bailey (as well as myself) don’t know what we’re talking about, or you don’t.
Brian Anderson, Rocky Coppinger, Jeff D’Amico, Sterling Hitchcock, Jason Jacome, Ryan Wagner, Marty Janzen, Jose Lima, Albie Lopez, Pat Mahomes, Salomon Torres, Bob Wolcott…the list of young pitchers whose careers have been derailed by being rushed to the majors before they were ready goes on and on. Kip Wells. Zack Greinke. Joey Devine. Change that to “altered” instead of derailed and you can even add Jason Isringhausen to the list.
If you’d quit wasting bandwidth on spewing venomous comments at the other participants here (like the time you called me an idiot in another thread, which I also let slide) – which impresses nobody by the way – I’m sure you’d be able to learn the lesson that baseball history teaches us here, which is that neither Homer Bailey, nor any other 20-year old in AA ball, has any business being in the major leagues this year. Not until spending most of next season in AAA will he MAYBE be ready for a September 2007 callup…then a shot at a slot in the rotation in spring training in 2008.
I already said I don’t want Homer up at any point this year, simply because it wouldn’t really help the team that much. That said, pretty much every scout is in agreement that his stuff is major-league quality right now. Bailey’s not going to say he’s major league ready and should be called up because he’d look very much like an asshole and no good would come from it. Jayhawk Owens isn’t going to say the organization is wrong for not calling him up because that would also serve no good to anyone. You’ll have to pardon me for trusting unbiased sources who don’t benefit either way from what they say about Homer over people who would likely be hurt in some fashion by saying that he should be called up. Scouts support that he’s pretty much major league ready and the numbers support that, at the very least, he should be in AAA right now.
Now, if you’d quit wasting bandwith on spewing idiocy all over the place, I wouldn’t need to waste bandwith on calling you an idiot for doing so.
While I am inclined to believe that anyone who thinks half a season of stats from the low minors proves a 20-year old pitcher is ready for the majors has no business judging anyone else’s mental capacity, I think I’m just going to take the high road here and agree to disagree with you, before this turns into a flame war. RHM doesn’t need that going on in here.
Let’s just watch and see what action is taken on the matter by the only scout whose opinion really matters here anyway – that being Wayne Krivsky. I have ten pictures of The Cherry Tree Murderer that say Bailey won’t sniff The Show until next season.
HMZ
And yet that’s not the issue at all. I’ve said multiple times that I don’t want him up right now and I don’t think he will be up right now, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be an upgrade for this team.