Sunday, November 20, 2005

Beckett/Blalock Trade

SI.com ran a story from the Palm Beach Post that a deal is close to being reached for a Marlins/Rangers blockbuster with Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell going to Texas for Hank Blalock and Texas' 2003 or 2004 top draft pick. I think it's a heck of an interesting trade for both teams. I think if it goes through the perception will be that Texas got the better of the deal, just because it's hard to get a hold of quality young pitching and Beckett has ace makeup when he is on. But really I think the trade could go either way. The key is Lowell. If last year was a fluke and Lowell returns to his level of play from previous years, Texas will likely win. He can replace Blalock and they potentially add an ace. The problem is Lowell looked like a deteriorating player last year, and he's got a big contract. The Rangers were essentially forced to take him. At the point you take on an $8M contract and give up a 25 year old slugger, you need to get quality in return, and Beckett has been often injured and has never put it together for a full season. As such, the deal probably has more downside for the Rangers. As far as the Marlins go, they wanted to dump the Lowell contract for payroll flexibility and Beckett has been a disappointment for much of his career. The problem is the reason they have been able to contend is that young pitching, and now much of it (Pavano, Burnett, Beckett) is gone. Plus, while I love Blalock, he had an offseason last year and he's been playing in a hitter's park. It's not a given he's going to keep rising. I think he will, and acquiring a big time slugger at his low trade value for his years at age 26 and 27 to me makes a lot of sense. It makes Florida more confident to potentially trade away Carlos Delgado, which has been the talk for much of the early offseason.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just discovered your Web site. Good stuff. Touches on basically everything I enjoy (pro wrestling, MMA, pro sports, general entertainment). I'm at work and I think I just powered through all your entries. Heh.

Anyway, a few things:
** I hope the Rangers/Marlins trade goes through. I'm an Angels fan and, though I feel Beckett has tremendous potential, I think it weakens the Rangers because he's yet to prove he can maintain a high level for an entire season. And, power-hitting 3B don't grow on trees (see, Angels trying to replace Troy Glaus).

** I envy you going to an ROH show. I have all of their DVDs up through the end of 2004 and, plan on adding to my collection soon.

** PWG is awesome. I wrote an article for the Long Beach Press-Telegram on WrestleMania 21 weekend, giving All-Star Weekend some publicity. I haven't been to a show in a few months, but can't wait to go again.

** Thanks for the mini-review of the Shawn Michaels book. I'm leaning toward purchasing it.

** I, too, miss Eddy Guerrero.

Keep up the writing. As a journalist, I kinda get burnt our reading other people's work, so, when I enjoy something, I want it to stick around.

5:12 PM  
Blogger Todd Martin said...

Thanks, James. One advantage we have here in SoCal with the indy shows is that the promotions run in a much smaller area, while in the northeast for ROH it's spread out so if you want to see really good wrestling in any given month you may have to drive a lot longer distances. If I were an Angels fan I wouldn't be worried about the Beckett deal. Worst case scenario he adds up to an extra 3-4 tough starts a year. The A's are still the principle threat to keeping Anaheim out of the playoffs the next couple years.

7:14 AM  

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