I found this horse the other day and I’m not sure if it’s quite dead, so I’m going to beat it some more.
Boyer threw kinda hard in 2007 and was really good. He threw significantly harder in 2008 and wasn’t very good. Now he’s back down to 2007 velocity levels but he’s mixed in the 2008 results. Plenty of people have chronicled the trade and I don’t really care to rehash the positives and negatives of Boyer.
What’s amazing to me, for all the kerfuffle that Perdomo’s claim by the Padres created, no one seems to blinked at the acquisition of Boyer. Whither Matt Scherer? Do the Cardinals believe they’ve acquired a legitimately better arm than the other in house options (Thompson, Scherer, Boggs, etc) represent out of the pen or are they going to wait out the season and make Scherer a casualty of a 40-man roster crunch?
I’m still perplexed by this. If the Cardinals thought Scherer was worth protecting that would seem to imply that they view him as a major league caliber prospect. One has to wonder what the requirements are for him to finally make the major league team amidst a plethora of relievers who can’t seem to record outs.
The trade, in and of itself, does little to excite or disappoint me. What it does do, is further illustrate the poor management of the 40-man roster this offseason. I’m also guessing that the Cardinals are missing this guy right about now.
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Why does a guy that didn’t seem to figure in the Cardinals future plans (Gregorson)
translate into immediate success with the Padres? Just the way it goes or a mistake in evaluation?
I can’t remember if Gregorson was slated for AAA or AA with the Cards this summer,
but it didn’t appear that he would pitch much in St. Louis this season.
I’m not going to defend Scherer over Perdomo, but just because they protected Scherer five months ago doesn’t mean they also have to view him as worthy of a bullpen spot right now.
Maybe they protected him because someone thought there was a good enough chance that he would bounce back and rediscover the velocity/stuff that he had in ’07 and be a major league caliber reliever. Instead, he just got hurt and hasn’t pitched well… so it looks like the gamble hasn’t paid off? If so, it’s a sunk cost and no need to dwell on it every time the team makes a bullpen-related transaction. Just my opinion.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
I am highly disappointed in this trade, for several reasons. First, Crabman played a role that was missing in the major-league roster: right-handed hitter who can play the outfield corner not occupied by Ludwick. Without him, we ain’t got none (if you think Stavinoha satisfies the “hitter” part of this, our definitions differ significantly). Second, while fourth and fifth outfielders are intrinsically fungible commodities who can be flipped to get something useful elsewhere, I think he was a “commodity” worth more than Mo got for him. The fact that Mo was trading from strength doesn’t excuse that. Third, it reduces the organization’s flexibility to make trades of more valuable commodities (i.e. Duncan) to patch bigger holes than a mop-up right-hander.
Fourth, and most significant, experience has taught — and I cheerfully accept Wainwright as as a counterexample — that when Atlanta offers you a deal involving castoff pitchers, you should walk, not run, in the opposite direction. You WILL get taken to the cleaners on such a deal 90% of the time, with Waino being one of the very few that panned out. Sacrificing someone as useful as BB to learn this lesson strikes me as profoundly mistaken.
I sure hope I’m wrong.
Grunt–you are correct, as is az. this trade is nothing more than the continual gambling that betting on 36 with a dollar is the winning play. the ball will eventually land on 36, but you will likely go broke first.
Alex:
I’m not really sure how you can say that Scherer “hasn’t pitched well this year,” when his ERA is 0.00 and he’s holding runners to a .167 average.
@ Red … but 5 BB in 4.2 innings … and 5.78 runners allowed/9. Granted this is being based off of 4.2 IP so plenty of time to improve, hopefully.
oops … i meant runs, not runners
Yeah, I’ll stand by saying Scherer hasn’t pitched well. ERA for relievers isn’t important; walking nearly as many batters as he K’s isn’t going to work in the long run. Also, I haven’t heard anything regarding his stuff returning to 2007 form and I think we would have heard something by now if that was the case. It *is* still early and I’m willing to give Scherer at least a few months to show that the gamble has paid off. It’s just looking doubtful right now.
My main point was that there might have been a good reason to protect him that doesn’t necessarily mean he should be ready to help the major league bullpen right away.