Defence21 wrote:I'm being sincere here, and not at all smug or sarcastic -- but I must really know less than I thought I knew about baseball. All I've read says he's an average to good defensive catcher who is capable, but not great at throwing out baserunners; is good at blocking pitches; and expands the strike zone with his catching style better than most. By my estimation, that is an improvement over Barajas and Mckenry. His offense has been in a steady and sharp decline for years, which puts him at or near the subpar level of Barajas. I just don't get how this guy is good enough to be the second or third highest paid player on the team -- by a large margin -- based on what I see. Again, I'm not trying to be a know-it-all, but rather, trying to understand.
This is what happens when a team like the pirates is forced to fill a need in the FA market...it sucks, but it's just the way it is right now. they aren't going to fork over a prospect for a marginal improvement over martin which would be somebody like Arrencibia from toronto or one of the Reds catchers (Hanigan) i think. It's not a position were teams have depth to move and there simply wasn't anyone available on the FA market.
It's a draft and development issue, which is I guess what DK is hinting at when he points to the bigger picture. They screwed up somewhere with Sanchez because he should be ML ready by now, atleast defensively...but his career was derailed by injury, i'm not sure what the criticism "your long term plan was for the most ML ready catcher in the '09 draft to be ready by now and he's not" I feel like it's just these people are saying...I'm mad and I don't know why!
