DMIT - Sweet Sixteen

Hated the deal. After pods and Anderson signed. It just blocked younger players. I am so happy he is gone

I’m right there with you. I totally voted Buck. He likely would have been cheaper than Kendall too, which makes it even worse.

you’re right about the old-school GM’s mistrust of young catchers. In fact, there’s no franchise that has trusted young catchers less than the San Francisco Giants and their old-school GM, Brian Sabean. In the aughts they

 - signed Benito Santiago and kept him for three years, ages 36-38 (2001-2003)
 - took a risk on trading for a relatively young catcher, A.J. Pierzynski, when he was age 27 (but that worked out very badly for them) (2004)
 - reverted to form by signing Mike Matheny for two years, ages 34 and 35 (2005-2006)

(After Santiago they could have done just as well with Yorvit Torrealba, who came up with the Giants and had been the backup to Santiago, Pierzynski, and Matheny. But they never gave Torrealba the chance to win the job.)

 - would have preferred to play Todd Greene at age 35 when Matheny became unavailable to play after a series of concussions (but could not play Greene often, thanks to Prince Fielder’s NFL-worthy hit at home plate) (2006)
 - signed Bengie Molina for three years when he was 32 and already glacial (2007-2009)
 - re-signed Bengie Molina at age 35 rather than allow Posey to compete for the catching job in Spring Training (2010)
 - converted Posey to first base when they brought him up, after he had proved that that his bat was too good to stay in AAA, and kept Molina behind the plate.

Finally, only after Posey had already been in the majors for a month mostly playing first base, while Molina had been playing very badly behind the plate and hitting poorly, did they allow Posey to become the regular catcher. Even then they were giving Eli Whiteside a couple of starts a week. If Posey had had a bad week behind the plate to start with, I would guess he would have been sent back to first base or even back to Fresno, and the Giants would have played Whiteside and whoever they could pick up from the scrap heap. But fortunately for the Giants and their fans Posey was good enough to stick, right away.

So there you go: with an old-school GM it took someone as good as Buster Posey to overcome concerted resistance and win the regular catching job while still young. It’s not likely to happen again soon. Gritty catchers of the future, welcome to the Kansas City Royals.

It was the number of PA he got, that was the problem.

….and if Gload was pitted against Howell/Gathright, I’d agree. Heck, Moore was new at the time of the Gathright trade, and I was completely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But Gload is up against Nunez/Jacobs, and that was one dumb trade. And, while it was, indeed, a waste of money, to lock up a slaphitting 1B, Jacobs was a 1B who couldn’t even play 1B. And we gave up talent (admittedly, just a reliever) in the process. That would be a close call right there, but I also think it was obvious at the time (to everyone but Moore) that Jacobs’ only asset (“power”) was a mirage from the start.

I’m sorry, but I just can’t vote against the Jacobs trade.

It’s like if I wanted to buy a car in 2012. And I found the right car and the guy was willing to sell it in 2012, but instead I just give him the money now and hope he doesn’t drive it off a cliff between now and then.

The impact of giving Gload a million dollars to suck was not as bad as signing Guillen, but in terms of pure incompetence, the Gload extension looks so bad

You ‘n’ me both.

There was a lot of hate for both.