Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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If I were Adam Melhuse, I'd be doing more than "grumbling" about being sent to the minors. I'd be pulling a full-fledged Brad Halsey, or worse.
I suppose if you're like Melhuse, and you don't make a major league roster until you're 28 years old, you're grateful for any opportunity to spend time on a 25-man roster, even if you're stuck behind an iron man catcher like Jason Kendall. But Melhuse has talent, and I find it terribly unfair that he's hardly had any chance to see what he can do with it. He's only had one year (2004) where he was given over 200 at-bats; he put up an OPS of .772. For a catcher, that's damn good. Production like that could get you a starting job on probably 10 teams in any given year. The following year, however, Kendall shows up, and ever since, Melhuse has only gotten a handful of at-bats a week. It's hard to keep your timing with that kind of playing time. Maybe Melhuse is washed up now at age 35, but how could anyone tell?
There's something terribly wrong with a system that allows a team to send a 35-year-old man to the minor leagues, without giving him any choice about how to manage his career. The MLBPA needs to do something about this in their next collective bargaining agreement; all minor league options should expire once a player hits a certain age, say 31 or 32. Every player should get at least one shot during his peak free-agent years to avoid falling into the Hall of Could Have Been by mere circumstance.
There are plenty of teams (the Yankees come to mind) that could use a solid backup catcher like Adam Melhuse. He deserves a chance to play, and a chance to cash in on his talent, and the opportunity to find a team willing to give him that chance. He deserves to be a free agent.
Free Adam Melhuse!
Piazza as the backup is not a good plan. In fact, it's such a terrible plan that I have to think there's a 'Plan B' afoot. Hopefully Billy is about to 'surge' some more catchers onto the roster.
Hmm...what about Halsey + Melhuse + Dan Johnson for Cabrera + a minor league arm? That would fill a lot of holes on both teams.
But I don't think the A's trade Johnson unless they get some offense back. The reason I suggested it is that Cabrera and Johnson have similar ZiPS offensive projections:
Cabrera: .295/.355/.445
Johnson: .273/.365/.469
And for comparison:
Thompson: .253/.333/.417
Thompson is 27, like Johnson, so this is as good as he's going to get. Would Thompson be that much better than just leaving Danny Putnam out in CF for two weeks until Swisher and/or Bradley get back? Would he play after June, when Kotsay gets back? I don't think so. The A's don't need Thompson.
if halsey's mri comes back poorly, could he be a PTBNL?
Yankees desperately need SP and RP... and we desperately need someone who can *&^%$^& hit the ball.
I know Billy is all about staying put for the first third of the season and seeing what he has, unfortuantely hamstring injuries linger all season long, kots is coming off of back surgery, he needs to do something NOW!
And btw I was shocked that Melhuse got optioned to AAA... I thought it was a bad move. And reflected poorly on the organization, hopefully he's about to get traded.
And given that two weeks from now Harden and Bradley will be off the DL; I kinda doubt anything will happen at all.
We're just going to have to suffer, just like we do every year around this time.
Whatever. I don't know what the heck I'm talking about. Ignore me.
And it's not like we have murderer's row with Bradley in the lineup, I'd actually settle for misdemeanor's row right now (ok I thought it was clever).
Anyway as for the two week rule, it's been basically since the beginning of the season we've struggled. Second to last in runs scored, dfl in OPS and SLG. Billy has to see this lineup and realize he needs to either A. have a firesale and trade everybody with value and start over B. make a trade for a bat or C. trade who you can, bench the vets and call up any rookies with potential, because what's being fielded isn't getting it done.
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