ESPN.com baseball writer Jerry Crasnick recently wrote an article analyzing, in his mind, the six most impactful trades of this off-season. I was pretty disappointed not to find the Twins' acquisition of Luis Castillo on the list, being that it represents the largest upgrade any team made at a single position this off-season (going from the dreadful combination of Luis Rivas, Brent Abernathy, and Bret Boone to to a Gold Glove winner and one of the league's better top-of-the-lineup hitters). Furthermore, the list was clearly slanted towards big market teams, as five of the six trades listed involved a New York team, Boston, or Chicago. It seems to me that if you're going write an article intended to inform people about trades, you should be listing transactions that might have slipped under the radar to some extent; people have already heard plenty about the Carlos Delgado and Jim Thome deals. Finally, I cannot possibly grasp how the White Sox' acquisition of Javier Vazquez would rank higher than the Castillo move on such a list.
I was so distraught by this glaring omission that I wrote Mr. Crasnick an e-mail. He was nice enough to write back, and while he didn't exactly refute my claims, he did mention that, for what it's worth, he will be writing a Twins-related article early next week. So I guess we have that to look forward to.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
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I agree with your analysis Nick. Looking at the players and teams mentioned on this list, it appears has though he's only trying to appeal to the fans of these big market teams. Nevermind the values that other teams have acquired, and never mind that teams like Boston have pawned off their entire farm systems... What he also fails to mention is guys like Thome and Glaus being huge injury risks, so you have to question how much they will produce in 2006.
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