Your dearly beloved contributing author assumes you've already read this and this from Sox Machine and Life In the Cell respectively. If you haven't, stop sucking at life.
What Did We Get?
A left handed platoon bat. The interesting stuff isn't in proving he can't handle LHP anymore. That's known. So what else is there? For one, there's BP's weighted mean projection against RHP:
And, of course, I checked out the pitch f/x data. A fun little spreadsheet can be found here. The critical thing to note is that the tool data only runs up until May 28. To see how he did during this stretch, I checked out baseball musings. Bottom line: .280/.364/.417. From the pitch f/x data, we see the same. Aside from struggling with changeups (he'll fit right in!), he took walks and RHP generally did their best to pitch around him. The biggest problem was the lack of power. He's rebounded pretty well. Since May 29, he's posted a .245/.386/.509 line against RHP. He rarely whiffed on fastballs, which leads me to believe it was just a rough patch power wise. No peripherals were out of place. In other words, the BP projection looks good.
What Did We Lose?
Choose Your Own GOB related caption!
- We lost more than we'll never know.
- TAKE THIS PILL AND LOVE US AGAIN.
- Oh I see what you did there.
Brandon McCarthy proves to be the gift that keeps on giving. Thanks to Brandon and Aaron Cunningham, we had enough "prospects" to make this deal happen. Gone forever from our waking Sox lives are Nick Magic and Danny Richar. The former is a demi-god around these parts. His random good starts will be missed. His relief skills will not. In summary:
Crime:Our Chances To Win::The Bat Signal:Nick Masset
As for Danny Richar, I had pretty much given up on his chances of being very good or even average. He had some pop, decent wheels but for the life of him could not hit enough line drives to bring those secondary skills into play. Add to that a relatively meh defensive reputation and he might have found himself labeled The Second Best Second Baseman In Charlotte if someone had cared enough to do so. Chris Getz is less toolsy, but he can actually hit. Gimme some of that!
The Million Dollar Question
Where's Griffey going to play? Eventually, it should and must be first base. He does nothing well in the field at this point, serving as a serious hindrance even in right. A possible alternative would be to move Quentin to RF. Q has the arm and the range for it. As long as his instincts and ball-routes don't impede his natural talents, this probably works for me. But seriously, Mr. Junior Sir, why the hell do you care where you're playing? This is the best team you've been on in a long time and you're back in the Real League. You win this side of things, the whole "World Series" bit comes a lot easier.
Whatever the case, this is imminently solvable. If any of the parties in question care about winning more than they care about anything else, Griffey will end up where he should. The responses I've seen so far to the trade have been a little baffling and a little shrill. Let's keep in mind who we're dealing with. This is the Kenny and Ozzie show. For all the circus feel of the place, the one thing that neither them will put up with is insurrection from the proletariat. Jon Rauch? Sean Tracey? Hell, Frank Effin' Thomas lost out to Kenny and Ozzie. You perform, however defined by those two, or you're gone.
So Is This A Good Trade?
Hells yes.