Hi. Very nice blog. I\’ve been reading your other entries all day long..lol….

I’d rather have the guy that hits home runs and hits for average.

Obviously if the choice is between one guy that sucks AND doesn’t move runners along and another guy that doesn’t suck nearly as much and also moves runners along, I’ll take the guy that doesn’t suck as much. But if the guy that sucked is the guy that moves runners along (hits around the mendoza line, doesn’t hit home runs, but doesn’t K and makes productive outs when possible), and the guy that doesn’t suck doesn’t move runners along, I’d still rather have the guy that doesn’t suck.

As far as Casey being a nice guy, I doubt you are going to find a nicer guy in all of baseball. I’ve lived in Cincinnati for 10 years now and the guy is still just about everyones favorite player in town. His nickname was/is “The Mayor” and as far as I can tell the reason is most people thought he could have run for mayor of cincinnati and won without any trouble.

“They asked for Cameron Maybin to be part of packages of players. I said I wouldn’t trade Cameron Maybin straight up for Alfonso Soriano, so we were never close.”

Love it!!!!

Admittedly if I was hearing this from the typical announcer I’d chalk it up to opinion based in little fact. But considering the source – baseballamerica.com I feel a lot better about it:

http://www.baseballamerica.com.....62080.html

You might find this article interesting as well:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06067/666719-63.stm

I’ve always thought Casey was supposed to be a very good fielder. I can’t claim to have seen him very much in person because he plays in the NL, but it seems that way according to what I’ve read. I know Shelton has improved his fielding, but I think worries about a defensive lapse are the least of our concerns.

I was glad to see Dombrowski didn’t do anything rash. I would have liked to see them add another bullpen arm but this falls in line with what I mentioned before – A good defensive LH veteran bat.

Nick

And all I’m saying is would you rather have a guy hitting below the Mendoza line who Ks all the time and doesn’t hit homeruns or someone who doesn’t hit home runs, but hits for average, gets on base, and is more likely to move runners along when making outs?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c.....index.html

Agree with Andrew: The fact that there were no further deals for AL Central or East teams is good news. Yankees will be scary when Sheffield and Matsui return but that’s a ways off. Let’s go grab that #1 seed for the playoffs!

I like the move. He has had some medocure numbers but on a pathetic team. Put him at the #9 slot and make the pitchers pitch to him (vs around him to Granderson) and hopefully you will see a few Polanco at bats with two on and no outs.

I don’t care about the power, if he can get aboard our hitters can get him around.

I like the trade for Casey. Pretty cheap rental price for a decent bat. We all knew that by today there wasn’t going to be any huge deals and I was actually surprised that we made any deal at all. It looks good and even if it doesn’t work out (i.e. Casey doesn’t play any better than Shelton was currently playing) we only gave up a AA prospect.

What really surprised me today was that the White Sox didn’t pick up any pitching help. I really thought they would make a move for long relief or a spot starter. To me that was more shocking than seeing Shelton get demoted.

My $.02.

The improved OBP is a good thing, in fact it’s the main thing Casey brings to the table. He’s got no power and no speed (he might even be slower than Shelton, I’m honestly not sure.).

As I said earlier, historical GDP rates would be nice, because Casey only has 213 AB’s this year. Drawing conclusions about his ability to advance runners (even compared to Shelton) based on GDP data from just this year is premature. Casey averaged 20 DP’s per 162 games prior to this year (and 8 in 59 games this year hasn’t improved that rate). Shelton averages about 16 per 162 games including this year. Some of that may be related to opportunity (Casey has played on some good offensive teams in Cincinnati) but my main point is that I wouldn’t draw any conclusions based on Casey’s 59 game partial season this year.

What does that mean? Last I checked every team was making the same amount of outs over a 9 inning game.

We’ve already pointed out that his OBP is pretty decent and a vast improvement over Shelton’s–which addresses the “too many outs” issue.

The fact that he doesn’t K too often and, as Kurt points out, doesn’t hit into as many double-plays as Shelton, means he will be more prone to move runners along than the man he is replacing.

I think that’s a positive. It’s something winning clubs do.

Furthermore, I don’t know how fair it is to look further back than this season and last season for Casey, as the injuries have zapped him of his power in this time.