I have seen the post on Peter Gammon's blog that supposedly the Giants would like to trade Lowry for the Yankees Melky Cabrera. If the Giants want to trade Lowry and that is all the Giants can get for Lowry, then I would rather we wait until Lowry's value goes up, because it will.
The odd thing is that Gammon's said that the Yankees would turn down that offer. I'm not sure why. Lowry is a potential #2 starter and the Yankees have been in a huge need for starters. They were so bad off that they committed $46M for unknown Kei Igawa (who I said would not do as well here as other thought, same for Dice-K too, and thus far I've been right, though it will be years before one or the other side can say they did the right thing or not).
Of course, they can use young position players as well, but normally price is not an object for them, so they can buy another player if they want. Cabrera came up as a CF and it it there that he would have the most value, but right now we have Dave Roberts playing there, though if the Giants foresee not resigning Bonds for 2008, then Roberts could shift back to LF, where he was very good defensively, but poor offensively for a LF, though obviously a plus in SB.
Melky is young - 22 - and perhaps power can develop but right now he has low teens potential in homers and SB, nice but not that good, certainly not good enough for a potential #2 starter like Lowry. He also don't walk that much, so his main value is if he can hit for .300 and he does make good, though not great, contact, not striking out that much. Seems to me that Freddie Lewis can do that if given the chance in CF, a mid-700 OPS, low teens homers, but he probably can be a plus stealer and get 20+ for us.
Plus, what would it do for us now? It would weaken the rotation, by replacing Lowry with Ortiz or perhaps Sanchez, but then Cabrera would be the 4th OF, replacing Linden. I don't think that Cabrera will do that much better than Linden during this season, certainly not enough to warrant losing Lowry. He may be better in the future as he is only 22, but that is not worth a pitcher who can be a #2 if he is back to how he used to be and who has cost certainty with his low contract. We should be getting a lot more than Melky for Lowry, else we should just keep Lowry.
It's not surprising that the Yankees wouldn't want to make that trade. I wouldn't make that trade either. IF the Giants could get Cabreara for Lowry, it would be a steal. The Yankees are not that dumb.
ReplyDeleteWrong Cabrera Boof, the good one plays on the Marlins ;)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you OGC, I basically have the same feelings on Melky. I think Cabrera's swing is punchy and compact, good for average, but I don't think he'll ever hit for power.
I didn't so much agree with this one:
"He also don't walk that much"
Last year in 130 games he had 56 walks to 59 strike outs, thats not too bad, is it?
That comment wasn't directed to last year's numbers, which, as you note, is very good, but rather to his career numbers, at each step in the minors, he walked around 6-8%, 2006 was the first time he ever broke 8%. In fact, in the minors in 2006, he was still at 7-8%, somehow he punched it up to 10% in the majors in 2006. However, thus far in 2007? 8%.
ReplyDeleteStill, you make the very good point that his BB/K ratio is excellent, so his walks are not low in regards to that ratio, which is more important to hitting ability than just BB%. I should have noticed that and noted that.
However, and more to the point of this post (and I know you agree with the point but I just want to emphasize it again), it doesn't matter how good a hitter he is, the Giants need a long term answer to power and we don't really have any good answers in the minors at the moment, so if we are going to trade from our surplus of starting pitching - which is tenuous at best, look at the Yankees travails with starting pitching - then we better get someone with more power than Melky Cabrera and someone who could come in and start for us, not someone who would make a good backup right now.
If the Yankees don't want to trade him for Lowry, great, that's all I want to hear. They can keep him, he's nice but he doesn't improve our offense in a great way.
Unless we get some good young power hitter for our surplus starters, I would rather keep everyone and just dominate teams with our pitching, that is a strength of our team, but if we trade one away, it greatly weakens it, in my opinion.
A little note from chat with BA's Jim Callis. Someone asked him about the trade rumor, Lowry for Cabrera and his answer was that it is more difficult to find a Lowry than it is to find a Cabrera.
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