The Houston Astros traded RHP Felipe Paulino to the Colorado Rockies for SS/2B Clint Barmes. This is a strange trade. I have to say I was surprised when I saw it. The trade makes some sense for the Astros in that they needed to upgrade their middle infield, and Barmes is an upgrade for them at a relatively inexpensive $$$ value. The part I don't like for the Astros is giving up Paulino, a pitcher with great looking stuff and better peripheral stats than ERA who just hasn't seemed to be able to put it all together. Maybe Paulino never gets it together, but SP's with 95 MPH fastballs don't grow on trees. If he ever does get it together, he has top of the rotation stuff. The shortstop market is extremely thin though and I'm pretty sure the asking prices for Marco Scuturo and Jason Bartlett just went up, a lot! For his part, Barmes gets into a situation where he will get a lot more PT and at his favored position, SS. On the other hand, he won't be playing half his games in Coors Field.
Colorado doesn't lose much in that they are stacked at middle IF and Barmes was likely to be non-tendered anyway. Although Paulino has a pretty sweet looking upside, Colorado doesn't seem to be the most likely place in the world for him to put it together, so I'm not sure Colorado really gets anything that's going to help them here.
The biggest winner in all this would seem to be Barmes. The two teams involved come out pretty close to neutral. Paulino would seem to be the biggest loser as I don't see him shaking his underachiever reputation pitching half his games in Coors Field.
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Also, Houston has a relatively sweet hitter's park too, so that will help Barmes keep his stat up with his new team.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised: I was looking in Fielding Bible II at SS because of a question on Jason Barlett and Jose Reyes, and Barmes was actually pretty good with the glove at SS, to the point where he didn't need to produce much offensively to be an average player.
And I totally agree, a pitcher struggling to figure things out most probably will not do it in Coors Field.
Based on these two bits of info, I would say that the Astros came out ahead.
I have to say, I have been thinking of Barmes as a possible fallback option for the Giants if he was non-tendered by Colorado. I've always kind of liked the guy in the sense that I didn't like him on a non-Giants team. He's always seemed like a scrappy kind of player who does damage at inopportune times if you are on the other team.
ReplyDeleteI will say this in defense of the trade from Colorado's standpoint. I have long believed that rather than acquiring pitchers with great breaking balls or ground ball pitchers, the Rockies need to be stockpiling power pitchers, and Paulino certainly fits that bill. Breaking balls don't break as much and sinkers don't sink as much at 5,000 ft elevation. Fastballs go just as fast, or even a tick faster though.
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