Barry Zito Forever

More on the Kotsay trade

The trade is not official, but if no money changes hands in the deal, then I calculate that the A's save nothing in 2004, $2M in 2005, and commit to an extra $6.5M in 2006.

Here's a chart of the salaries for players that the A's currently have locked up (not counting arbitration-eligible players):

Pos Name                   2004        2005        2006

P   Mulder, Mark      4,400,000   7,250,000   8,500,000*

OF  Kotsay, Mark      6,500,000   6,500,000   6,500,000

P   Zito, Barry       2,900,000   5,000,000   7,000,000*

1B  Hatteberg, Scott  2,300,000   2,350,000   ???*

P   Hudson, Tim       4,550,000   6,000,000

OF  Dye, Jermaine    11,000,000   1,500,000x

3B  Chavez, Eric      5,200,000 

P   Mecir, Jim        3,300,000

Total                40,150,000  28,600,000  22,000,000



x=assumes the A's will buy out option

*=assume the A's will exercise option



Until the trade, the numbers looked like this:



OF Long, Terrence     3,700,000   4,300,000

C  Hernandez, Ramon   2,900,000   4,100,000

Total                40,250,000  30,500,000  15,500,000

(UPDATE: One Primer post says Kotsay gets an extra $1M/year if he's traded; I have not seen any confirmation of that. UPDATE AGAIN: the extra $1M is confirmed, the numbers above have been changed to reflect that.)

I like the trade, if only to get rid of Terrence Long. I'll miss Ramon; he's a solid player. But I do think that his power totals this year were a bit of a fluke, or, if you prefer, a career peak at age 27. I think he's likely to go back to the low teens in the near future. I think the A's traded him when his value is as high as it's ever going to get.

As for Kotsay, I can't say. He seems to me the kind of player you never pay attention to unless he's on your team. I guess I'll have to pay attention to him now. Like Ramon, he seems like a pretty solid player.

The question now becomes, who will play catcher? Adam Melhuse had a great year with the bat, with a .957 OPS. But he's 32, and never really done anything in the majors before, so you have to wonder if he wasn't a bit of a fluke, too. I don't think Jeremy Brown is ready; he seems like he needs another year in the minors. Who else could be available?

I counted seventeen free agent catchers this year. Ramon had a .789 OPS last year, so we'd like someone who could approximate that. Of those free agents, here is the complete list of free agent catchers who had an OPS over .700 in 2003:

Javy Lopez, 1.065.
Ivan Rodriguez, .843.
John Flaherty, .754.
Benito Santiago, .753.
Eddie Perez, .724.

That's it. You can get catchers who can put up an OPS in the .600s for more or less minimum wage; I counted eight of them. You can add Flaherty to that bunch; he didn't get many ABs this year, and he's historically been one of the .600 guys, too. Figure that I-Rod and Lopez will be too expensive, and we're left with Santiago, Perez, or a trade.

[UPDATE: Here's where I originally suggested trading for Ramon Castro. But he's going to stand trial for sexual assault, so never mind.] Yorvit Torreabla (.702 OPS) is available from the Giants, after they acquired Pierzynski.

My preferences, I suppose, is to sign Benito Santiago for a year. Santiago has put up pretty good numbers the past two years (.765 and .753 OPS) playing in a pitcher's park in San Francisco. If he can approximate that in Oakland, the A's can approximate the production they lost with Ramon. Santiago can hold the fort with Melhuse until Jeremy Brown is ready.