It was on this day in 1973 that Cardinals infielder Joe Torre hit for the cycle in a 15-4 rout of the Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium. The future Yankees manager would complete the feat by hitting a single with two outs in the ninth inning. Torre would go on to play in the All-Star Game for the ninth and final time a few weeks later. Let's check in on the latest news and headlines out of the National League Central…
- The Astros have benefited greatly from buying low on shortstop Jed Lowrie as he's found his groove with Houston after injuries plagued his time with the Red Sox, writes Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. New general manager Jeff Luhnow made the trade to get Lowrie upon being hired by the Astros and in his mind, he's acquired a player who can be one of the top five shortstops in the league on an annual basis.
- Doug Padilla of ESPNChicago.com expects the Cubs to add Jorge Soler to the team's 40-man roster upon his official signing after designating Randy Wells for assignment on Wednesday. Soler has until July 1 at 11:59 p.m. to sign the deal with Chicago or he stands to lose approximately $27MM as any international deal signed after that date can only be for a maximum of $2.9MM.
- The Cardinals are nearing their draft pool bonus cap and don't want to put themselves in a position where they lose a 2013 draft pick as two players remain unsigned, says Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Cherrington traded away 2 young starters in Reddick and Lowrie, looks like a bad move at this point.
It looked like a bad move at the time, too.
Lowrie is a bit more understandable with the injuries he had to go through. Reddick was generally inexcusable in my opinion. But hey, I’m also not a multi-millionaire executive. I just question how “hard” some of these decisions execs make really are.
They both look bad in hindsight, but I think they were both reasonable trades given the information they had at the time. They had given Lowrie every opportunity to take over the SS job and he could never make it all happen (and he could never stay on the field), and Reddick actually appeared to be a sell high at the time; he had always had a major problem with plate discipline and it looked like he would never be patient enough for his plus raw power to actually play up in games, and the stats he put up last year in Boston appeared to be unsustainable based on his peripheral stats.
Not to mention Kalish was still seen as the better overall talent for RF and any other OF position who has the power potential + a far better glove potential should he make it all the way back from his various injuries.
Beane, more than likely would have wanted Kalish over Reddick had he been healthy.
Career .438 minor league slugging Ryan Kalish?
Which peripherals? He was a 24 year old walking at a 6.8% clip, striking out at an 18% clip with a .177 ISO. It doesn’t exactly scream “major plate discipline problem”.
He had stuck out 26.4% of the time and walked 2.4% of the time prior to last year, so that reasonable discipline came out of nowhere, but he was also still swinging at more pitches out of the zone, and swinging more in general than the rest of the league, so he was seen as a hacker.
And yes, Kalish was seen as the better player (by a pretty good margin). Kalish had better defense, stole a lot more bases, hit for better average, walked more, struck out less; literally the only thing Reddick was thought to do better was hit for power (and there were questions about whether or not Reddick would hit enough for his power to actually play any better then Kalish’s).
…. In 125 PA. Split over 2 seasons.
In the minors he was at 7.7% BB, 16%K, pretty much exactly where he was in 2011. So we’ve got 125 plate appearances where you’ve drawn a conclusion from and 591 major league plate appearances [or just 278 if you want to leave 2012 out of it] and 791 AAA plate appearances that I’m drawing a conclusion from.
And judging from what I’ve seen of Kalish so far in the Sox games I’ve watched, I’m not sure where he picked up his superior defensive reputation. Has looked below average in CF.
EDIT: Kalish had 18.3% K rate in minors, so he did not strike out less than Reddick. 21.5% rate in the show. Not sure where you got this information.
Yes, 125 plate appearances, and they stabilize at 100. Minor league K and BB rates aren’t terribly predictive. And I got that about Kalish’s defense from scouts who have seen him play for years.
And plate discipline is a about a lot more than just K rate.
… Right. “Scouts”.
You’re the one who said Kalish strikes out less — he doesn’t. Ryan Kalish hits for a better average — sure, .283 in the minors to Reddick’s .278.
And if minor league numbers aren’t predictive, you probably shouldn’t be saying Kalish walks more either, because so far he’s walking less than Reddick at the big league level. And that’s in 212 PA, so I guess the rate’s “stabilized”, eh?
I like Reddick a lot. He might have a bright future!!
It was a bad move in hindsight. Obviously if Melancon and Bailey can put up a lot of zeros from now till the end of the season it will be ok though. Houston and Oakland clearly won those trades. I expected Reddick to take a step forward although many had doubts. Lowrie has totally surprised me though, lets see if he can stay in the field.
Its still a bad move anyway you cut it. They gave away young cost controlled hitting for two middle relievers.
Pretty much this. I don’t know if Reddick was out of options or anything, but they were trading Scutaro anyway so moving Lowrie when he had shown he could hit when healthy never made much sense to me, considering pretty much all of his injuries were of the freak variety.
Well, in any event, they can enjoy watching Carl Crawford for the next 6 years instead of Reddick.
until this year, reddick had terrible plate discipline. he’s rectified that to a significant degree, something that you could not predict from looking at his numbers in his years in the sox organization. if he doesn’t fix that, he struggles with major OBP issues.
even as the HR rate regresses (he’s hit HRs at a far slower pace over the last few weeks) and he hit a few slumps, he’s still been able to take walks at a decent clip. he still strikes out too much, but his BB rates make it passable.
he’s not going to be an elite power threat going forward. however, he doesn’t need to be in order to be an above average starting RF.
He struck out at a lesser rate last year when he was hitting .280.
OBP issues or not [not sure a ~.320 OBP is really an issue if you’re hitting for average, some power, but then I’m not really tied by the nuts to moneyball thinking] the guy put up a .784 OPS last year as a 24 year old. That’s better than the OPS Carl Crawford has posted in 5 of his 10 major league seasons and higher than his career OPS overall. Better defense, too.
andrew bailey, middle reliever
Andrew Bailey is a 2-time All-Star, 2009 AL ROY, one of the better closers in baseball over the last three years, and still arb-eligible. He was acquired to be the closer in Boston, and would be if not for a freak thumb injury. It seems dismissive and inaccurate to describe him as a “middle reliever.”
Eh.. I mean, outside of his rookie year he’s thrown 49 and 41 innings. Somebody needs to go to the all-star game representing Oakland.
He’s good, he’s an interesting player, they needed a closer because Papelbon was leaving. I get it, I guess.
Andrew Bailey is not that good and had injury problems leading up to the trade. He’s not an ” elite closer” which is just a ridiculous term slapped on a middle reliever. Bailey at the very most pitches 80 innings for the Red Sox. Reddick plays in 140 plus for the A’s and impacts the game far greater than Bailey. No reliever is worth young cost controlled hitting talent. Closers are basically glorified middle relievers with a special named slapped on them.
Yeah except it wasn’t always as cut in dry as it is now in hindsight. Lowrie was on and off the DL all the time and never did much except for down the stretch he hit well a season or two ago. Reddick had that one streak last year, but was otherwise not panning out. Its not as if their wasn’t sufficient reason to deal them. If they had been the way most A’s fans expected (People were saying Reddick was a platoon guy), and Lowrie had got hurt that all changes. But again hindsight.
Astros should keep Lowrie. I’ve been seeing some rumors floating around that Detroit may want to trade for him, move him to 2B. The guy is 28, and he’ll probably still be good if and when Houston is good again — something that will be more easily achieved with a legit 15-25 HR bat in the lineup at an up the middle position.
Anyone who saw the success of Lowrie is kidding themselves. As far as Reddick goes, I’m not terribly concerned with that trade either. Maybe the Red Sox did not get anything, but at the time of these trades, there was little room for Reddick in the outfield and the Red Sox needed a SS that they could count on not being injured. Given those situations, the Red Sox made out with two decent relievers (so they thought).
Maybe the Sox sold low, but I don’t disagree with them selling at all.
“Anyone who saw the success of Lowrie is kidding themselves.”
lolwut
The guy had a perfectly league average .732 OPS through 920 PA in Boston, and that’s including 76 PA of total garbage in 2009.
Lowrie was always seen as a well above average offensive SS, what was in question was his ability to play SS defensively and his ability to stay healthy.
yeah i remember how psyched everyone in this thread was about reddick and lowrie when they were on the red sox. “man, those guys are legit!” you all said
you are all so painfully transparent
Really? You have the comments everyone in this particular thread at this particular moment made regarding Jed Lowrie and Josh Reddick archived?
Oh, wait, no you don’t. You’re simply ascribing general notions cobbled together from your collective memory and assigning them to present company.
right. we call that “generalizing” when we’re not trying to sound annoying
if you can produce anything close to a comment from back then where you so much as intimated reddick & lowrie were likely to become top-shelf performers, i’ll eat my hat
in reality, most everyone here had only negative things to say about those players when they were in boston. most oakland fans weren’t even glad to be getting reddick; i was the one cheering them up
it’s one thing to change your mind (not you specifically) and it’s another altogether to pretend you called something all along. if it was common knowledge that this performance from lowrie & reddick was probable, multiple teams would have outbid houston & oakland for their services
Massachusetts-based A’s fan here. Initial impression was that it was essentially banking on bailey to get hurt during the 2012 season by the a’s, thus tanking his deadline and future trade value (missing half the season three years in a row is bad).
and no, i was not initially a reddick fan because his plate discipline was terrible before this year. of course, i said the same about mark trumbo, and they’re both making me eat crow.
most of the media and analyst-types thought the deal was lopsided… in the red sox’ favor.
the a’s and the red sox both took plenty of risk in this trade.
Hitterish players are the new undervalued commodity.
I would love to see Jorge Soler not sign in time. That would be the funniest thing this decade if his agent screwed this up and didn’t get the contract signed by July 2.
I agree, like maybe he gets lost somewhere and doesn’t have a phone or ends up doing something stupid and misses his deadline by minutes.
Wouldn’t the Cardinals need to sign their last two top 10 picks in order to maximize their draft dollar pool? or am I not understanding how this new system works.