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Rumor has Jays looking to sign Torrealba since Barajas is a FA, what's wrong with Barajas. I thought he did a very good job and was productive?

Too much money??

The answer really should be neither, as Torrealba is likely to get at least 2 years/$5m and his late-season numbers looked mighty fluky. Kyle Phillips can put up the same OPS of .680 and play the same **** defense and do it much cheaper.

Both are band-aid solutions.

They are both "okay" but the problem is that if we are going to be stinking it up for the next season or two under the illusion that "we are building with youth" we need a vet catcher with a steady hands to calm down some of the kids when they get lit up.

What is "wrong" with Rod is that letting him go gives you a sandwich round draft pick.

Torrealba is awful, though. And nowhere near as fun to say as Barajas.

Heh, the only way I like this is if it's an attempt to convince Colorado to sign Barajas in a quid pro quo. Swap awful catchers, everyone gets a supplementary round pick, everyone wins.

And again...Kyle flippin' Phillips. His PCL peak translation of .254/.324/.378 isn't pretty, but it's still better than either of them.

cosmostein wrote:They are both "okay" but the problem is that if we are going to be stinking it up for the next season or two under the illusion that "we are building with youth" we need a vet catcher with a steady hands to calm down some of the kids when they get lit up.

I think this is a good argument. It does make some sense to have a vet catcher to pair with a young staff.

Also I know it almost surely won't happen again, but it should be noted that Torrealba had an OBP of .351 in his limited playing time this year, and if he can approach that number in 2010, it'll be a massive improvement over Barajas. That being said Torrealba won't hit 15+ homers. It seems to be a fairly lateral move, but without knowing much about Torrealba's game behind the plate, I'm inclined to lean towards keeping Barajas.

Problem being that Torrealba hasn't been a great OBP guy throughout his career...typically, he ends up between .290-.320, and he exceeded that in 2009 only because his BA/BIP was .347, a full 50 points above his career average. Remove that and he's far worse than Barajas.

Schadenfreude wrote:Heh, the only way I like this is if it's an attempt to convince Colorado to sign Barajas in a quid pro quo. Swap awful catchers, everyone gets a supplementary round pick, everyone wins.

And again...Kyle flippin' Phillips. His PCL peak translation of .254/.324/.378 isn't pretty, but it's still better than either of them.

To be fair, I recall hearing Phillips is a poor defender at the position. Or at least to be fair to Rod, because I don't think Torrealba is particularly good behind the plate either.

Schadenfreude wrote:Problem being that Torrealba hasn't been a great OBP guy throughout his career...typically, he ends up between .290-.320, and he exceeded that in 2009 only because his BA/BIP was .347, a full 50 points above his career average. Remove that and he's far worse than Barajas.

Sure I've seen the stats, but even he he doesn't get on base at a .350 clip he's still basically guaranteed to have a significantly better OBP. Like, way better. Barajas' was .258 this year. That's shockingly bad.

As a matter of fact I'm changing my opinion. Just about anyone would be better than Barajas offensively.

Modern_epic wrote:
To be fair, I recall hearing Phillips is a poor defender at the position. Or at least to be fair to Rod, because I don't think Torrealba is particularly good behind the plate either.

Yeah, Phillips fairly well sucks defensively and offensively. But so does Torrealba, the difference being that Torrealba is several years older, will make five times as much and will want to get paid over two years. I'd rather throw Phillips to the wolves and pray that Arencibia figures things out.

Yeah, my mind just keeps coming back to the question of how bad is Snyder's back? If Arizona really was willing to eat some of that deal, Snyder's back must be awful, right? Right GM who just massively overpaid the PMoD? That's why you didn't pull the trigger?

Modern_epic wrote:Yeah, my mind just keeps coming back to the question of how bad is Snyder's back? If Arizona really was willing to eat some of that deal, Snyder's back must be awful, right? Right GM who just massively overpaid the PMoD? That's why you didn't pull the trigger?

On the bright side, he appointed Sal Fasano as the head coach in Lansing, which earns him a free pass for the next month as far as I'm concerned.

If he grows Sal's mustache I'll give him a months free pass.