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.

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.

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.