Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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This trade is kinda weird at first glance. Do you really want the Rangers' rejects?
Well, maybe. Justin Duchscherer worked out OK.
But I think this trade makes more sense if you look at the last two trades as one trade. Then you get this:
Brad Halsey = John Rheinecker (finesse lefty), only two years younger.
Juan Dominguez = Juan Cruz (hard-throwing righty with control issues), only two years younger.
Freddie Bynum = the price to add two years to the careers of two of their pitchers.
So they essentially traded Freddie Bynum for four player years. It's not sexy, but I guess it has value.
I thought about it a bit more after the Halsey trade.
Now I'm sure of it after the Dominquez trade:
Beane is positioning himself when he trades/doesn't resign Zito.
They might have the same first name and they might be hard-throwing Dominican righties, but Cruz's control issues are more profound than Dominguez's (4.56 v. 2.89 BB/9 in the majors; 3.96 v. 2.60 BB/9 in the minors), and Dominguez isn't nearly the strikeout king that Cruz is (8.45 v. 5.69 K/9 in the majors; 9.46 v. 8.13 K/9 in the minors).
I thought Cruz could really contribute in the majors. I don't think Dominguez is anything better than a fill-in.
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