Skin Blues wrote:Opportunity cost. Sure, you can keep them both really cheap, but you could also have d'Arnaud take over as the full-time catcher at the end of the season and get a nice haul for Arencibia. Or vice-versa. So we lose out on whatever coudl be in that haul. However, you'd have to think Arencibia's relationship with Larwie and Romero will make it harder for AA to pull the trigger on a deal to send JPA out of town.
Well during that season you do, but unless platooning them destroys their value you don't lose the value as the deal just happens a year later. And to be clear, I don't think that's how it'll go nor do I think it'd be AA's favourite route, but who'se going to be the long-term C is a hard question to answer now and there are a lot of ways it could remain a hard question to answer a year from now. Especially if every GM assumes one has to go and tries to the leftover on the cheap, then AA could just say let's use the year to be sure and help D'Arnaud adjust. Giving him a year with 2 pitchers and part-time duty to learn the hardest position in baseball probably wouldn't hinder his development.