I agree, Rizzo has a slow(er) bat. Smoak's isn't brilliantly fast either, but he's a huge guy who makes good contact, has a good eye (better than we've seen so far in the bigs) and he can ride a ball out of any part of Safeco even in the cold, which is impressive.
I don't like Rizzo as much as I like Smoak.
Carp still scares me though as a pure run producer, and Catricala is riding a 50 foot wave of coincidence right now that needs to pan out. I like Carp to be Eric Hinske or Austin Kearns, but I don't yet like him to be Jayson Werth. If he's got that power and can keep it, then screw Rizzo, Carp is JUST fine.
I'm still worried about what happens to Carp when he struggles, but he hasn't really struggled in 2 years. He's tinkered with his game, but that's not the same thing.
If you believe in Carp and Smoak (and/or Catricala for LF/DH) then Rizzo has no place on your club. He doesn't have the eye that Smoak could have and Carp is already doing what you'd want Rizzo to do.
I would take Carp + Paxton over Rizzo, so in that sense yeah it's a waste to deal for Rizzo.
Fielder, he ain't. Though if the Cubs want to believe he could be, by all means please take him and leave The Prince to us.
The interesting question to me: If you can buy off the Cubs with a back-room deal to give them Smoak + for Garza if it lands you Fielder, do you do that?
I desperately want to keep Smoak, but even I don't know how he would react to being the starting DH and backup 1B while Carp takes LF and Prince is on first.
We know Carp is comfortable at DH if we get a LF we like. I dunno about Smoak.
I choose to believe it would all work out to keep all those bats. :)
~G
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