Pineda would not have brought us Montero 18 months ago. Cliff Lee was necessary. Both players proved they are who we thought they were, so the value of both went up. That's the nature of prospects.
Also, I'm not sure I understand the fuss about catcher defense.
Didn't we learn ANYthing from the Angels and their Mike Napoi disaster? "He doesn't catch like Mathis, he's just a DH." The Rangers didn't think so, and look who got rewarded?
Also, can I mention that Miguel "passed ball" Olivo is our backstop? He's led the league in PBs 4 times and almost did it again last year. He's a lock for 10 PBs and 50 WPs a year, and has thrown out 28% of runners 2 of the last 3 years.
Oh, and also he's the worst offensive catcher in the league, so there's that.
Napoli was better behind the dish than Olivo last year on defense, and was about 4 batters better than him on offense (more? The gap is Grand Canyon large).
Let him catch 60 games and DH 90 and we'll see where he's at. I'm fine with Montero and Jaso sharing catching duties going forward. Have I mentioned that Jaso's a lefty so we can let Montero play all the time and have him catch when tough lefty starters are opposing us to keep Jaso's contributions high?
Dump Olivo and go with that pairing.
Oh...and KEEP SMOAK. Not that I'm all that concerned about it. For Fielder we might have moved Smoak. If Fielder somehow changes his might we still could.
But Smoak was and is the jewel of the Cliff Lee deal, and was our most-valuable hitter the first two months of last season.
Jack is gonna want him to show he can be the man, and that Jack didn't make a mistake picking him over Montero the first time.
I still think the world of Smoak. What's better than Smoak or Montero? Smoak AND Montero to add to Ackley. If Carp is the hitter he was last year going forward, I'm feeling much better about this offense.
It sucks that it cost us Pineda to get there, but you play with the cards you're dealt, and Jack IMO has finally righted the offensive ship, with a boatload of pitching prospects still in house.
Since Prince didn't want our mega-millions, that's about the best I could hope to do. I wanted Alex Gordon (for whom Pineda would probably have been necessary) but he's about to get expensive - Montero is cheap. Now we can take Sandy's approach and wait-and-see which holes to plug without being crushed in an offensive black hole in the meantime.
It was the price we had to pay. Jack had the stones to pay it, now we'll see how it works out.
~G
Add new comment
1