Saturday, July 16, 2005 |
A Couple From Chris Kahrl
- I'm not a big Robert Fick fan, even though he's known to be friends with the Angels' Adam Kennedy; the punch he applied in the 2003 offseason to Eric Karros' glove was a cheap shot that, thanks to his un-Yanktitude, more or less escaped national attention shortly after the event. Nonetheless, the Pads have gotten some Wooten-like utility out of the guy:
Now that Eric Young is back and seems to be taking on most of the playing time at second, the bench seems pretty well-equipped with useful reserves. Damian Jackson is doing a poor man's Chone Figgins impersonation, flitting between positions and pinch-running. Mark Sweeney is doing good stuff splitting first base with Xavier Nady in Phil Nevin's absence, and with both getting time in the outfield. Ben Johnson probably isn't playing enough to justify his being around, but I suspect he isn't complaining. I guess Geoff Blum gets to tut-tut about how poorly that young Mr. Burroughs is turning out, although that's just not going to be enough to cost Burroughs his job to someone like Blum, not when it will probably be Mark Loretta who gets it as soon as he's back. And then you have Fick, a spare lefty bat with pop.
- On the question of what the A's did with the Rockies:
Let's face it, Kennedy isn't the new John Tudor, and Witasick is your basic bit of a scrap-heaper, good to have when he's going good, and easy to release when he isn't. Witasick's recent two good months are nice, but they don't erase that his career has one good full season in it (2002). He's filler. So really, the question is whether or not O'Dowd got value for the Legend of Joe Kennedy.
Say what you want about the A's farm system, if Beane can use those weak spare parts to get usable pitchers -- remember, Kennedy was had for a prospect that likely wouldn't have made the Angels' top 10, and maybe not their top 25, and a mediocre corner outfielder -- this is a good deal for the A's, and less so for the Rocks. Just as golf shouldn't be played on the moon, neither should baseball be played at altitude.I guess I'm slightly more interested in the decision to get Quintanilla in the deal, since he's at a point where he still has some promise. However, he's also a guy who played at the University of Texas, so he's supposed to be a prospect, and when you hit .296/.350/.398 in the Texas League, you're not really living up to blue-chip billing. As our own Clay Davenport noted after the deal, Quintanilla has a "total projected future DT line is on the order of .275/.320/.400, for a .250 Equivalent Average. His projected line for this year is about the same, .247. He'll hit for a decent average, but he looks to be below average at drawing walks, below average in power, and he hasn't demonstrated any base-stealing aptitude. As a shortstop, he racked up -10 fielding runs in 163 games." Speculation that Quintanilla would need to move off of short started as soon as he was drafted, so perhaps if he really learns to pick it at second, you're looking at the new Jim Gantner. Now, that isn't without value. Heck, it's better than getting worked up about Aaron Miles. But is getting that and an adequate outfield regular enough for the Kennedy and a scrapheap reliever? I'm inclined to say that it is, it just isn't the sort of deal that fixes a broken franchise.
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