Baseball Prospectus – Prospectus Today: Notes from the Road
Excerpt from Joe Sheehan on the Cruz and Reitsma trades:
[M]ay have closed the gap between the Braves and the Phillies. The Braves added potentially 400 innings of above-average pitching to their staff–realistically closer to 300, as it’s unlikely we’ll see both Chris Reitsma and Juan Cruz in the rotation all year–but that’s a lot of talent to be handing Leo Mazzone this close to Opening Day.
One Reds fan I know was pretty ticked about his team’s swap of last year’s closer for Jung Bong and Bubba Nelson, but the deal makes sense beyond money concerns… [Y]ou could argue that Reitsma was only the Reds’ fourth-best right-handed reliever. Bong is of roughly the same quality, left-handed, and will be a lot less expensive over the next two years…
The deal between the Braves and Cubs was just a steal… [Cruz] could be either a high-leverage reliever or a very good mid-rotation starter this year, and is the best young strikeout pitcher the Braves have had since Kevin Millwood came up in 1998.
Hopefully that’s little enough of a quote to keep me from getting the dreaded BP Letter.
It would be great if they did, but I very much doubt that Cruz+Reitsma will approach 300 IP this season much less 400. Something would have to go pretty seriously wrong for those guys to get that much work since Bobby won’t trust them right away.
A sign that it’s still the exhibition season so we shouldn’t be concerned with wins and losses, something I heard Angels broadcaster Rory Marcus say on the radio today:
“…and Adam Riggs will pinch hit for Vladimir Guerrero…”
FWIW, Baseball America’s Jim Callis seems to like the deals, too … from the Braves’ standpoint, that is …
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2004/news/story?id=1768352
Are you spamming Paul?
Not too much sence in your comment.
Regards,
Steeveguy
Don’t take it personally, Paul. There are many bad people in the internet. Steeve just suspected you. Not too polite though, I admit.
I admit, I was wrong. Sorry.
Regards,
Steeveguy