Ambiorix, we hardly knew ye.
And now, someone else, alot of people actually, can work on learning how to spell your name, 'cause we're done with it.
Your unique name is gone now, sacrificed to the fates as the bizarre Minaya-Moore challenge trade rivalry heats up. We all remember where we were when we heard the Gotay-Keppinger trade news. Now, this. All part of the master plan to get older I guess.
According to ESPN, its a done deal.
Links
Bannister at ESPN.
Bannister at Baseball-Reference
Bannister at the Baseball Cube
In a weird way, this reminds me of the fabled/loathed Howell-Gathright trade. Like Howell, Burgos is somebody else's baby ($1 Jackson Browne royalties fund) and Dayton has no emotional or professional stock in seeing him become something interesting. Bannister, like Gathright, may not mean much in the long-term, but is something of a known quality.
Now granted, I don't fully buy either premise of the Gathright-Bannister comparision: Gathright is a known bad quality that arguably made the Royals worse the second he appeared. Moreover, I don't think he has any upside, but... lots of people do. Fair enough. I do think Bannister's a potential innings guy who may not be horrible. Maybe.
Really, it comes down to innings. Best case scenario, Burgos goes insane and posts a 2.80 ERA in 60 innings with the Mets someday. I'll take the roughly equal chance that Bannister posts a 5.00 ERA in 180 innings.
Plus, he's Floyd Bannister's son. So he and Buddy should hit it off on the whole legacy thang...
Stepping away from my insane ramblings, his player comment in the 2005 Baseball Prospectus was:
Floyd's son is a command guy who throws a four-pitch assortment for strikes and has the usual adjectives?savvy, gutsy, etc.?floating around him. It's all air until he proves he can get older hitters out, and his stint at Double-A wasn't encouraging. He could eventually be a back-end starter, but the development path is going to be long. Bannister is one of two scions who played at St. Lucie last year; first baseman Brett Harper hits a bit like his dad, the Twins' catcher, did.Interestingly, before this last season, PECOTA predicted that 2007 would be his career year, when, at the age of 26 he would post a 6-7 record with a 4.55 ERA in 106 innings.
Heading into 2006 his top comparables were: Dan Murray, Don Aase, Dickie Noles, Justin Miller and Bobby Rodgers. However further down the list Tomo Ohka and Kelvim Escobar show up. And at least you've heard of them.
What do you think?
Original Diary on Burgos by "All Shook Down" here.
As for Burgos... well, he carried a cumulative ERA of 6.53 or higher around for nearly two months last season, and finished with a 5.52 ERA. Now, supposedly he has good stuff, and he is young (pitchers stay young until their about 37 apparently, by the way) being 22 so maybe the Mets have hope. I don't think I'll miss him much, although I also don't blame him for his failures, considering the Royals basically promoted him straight from A-ball back in 2005 (ok, he did throw 12 innings at AA).