Late last evening after the Rangers game was over, the word came down at the Regency street with the Chicago Cubs for one time first round pick Geovany Soto. He was treated for AA Frisco pitcher Jacob Brigham. Brigham is not a name it’s going to light the world on fire, I’m not entirely sure why the Cubs would want him. It’s probably more a case of wanting to get rid of Soto and had to get something back for him so they took this guy.
Yorvit Torrealba was designated for assignment to make room for Soto on our roster. Soto will be immediately installed on our major-league roster. A few years ago when he was a first round pick, I really liked the guy. He helped me out on several fantasy baseball teams, and since fantasy baseball doesn’t take into account defensive stats and play it was because of his bat. That something is definitely disappeared lately. At the moment he’s batting under the Mendoza line for the 2012 season. Torrealba was batting better than that, so it’s obviously not an offensive upgrade.
From what I knew about Soto prior to his trade, he’s still a decent catcher. He doesn’t seem to hit well anymore so you will be immediately installed in the number nine position in the lineup. Torrealba was not a bad defensive catcher either, so the only reason I can think that we made this trade is because both Torrealba and Napoli were scheduled to be free agents at the end of the season. Soto is under contract for next year, although he will be arbitration eligible. We also do not have hardly anything in the pipeline catcher wise, and of available catchers there was not a lot out there for a trade. Not unless you are going to call Jason Kendall out of retirement :-)
Since the trade, seen a few Colorado Rockies fans hoping that they would pick up YT off the wire. Is still pretty loved up there in Colorado and I’m not sure what their catching situation is but he could end up there again.
File this trade under “eh”. Feels like a lateral move. We might need to draft some sort of stud catcher next year.
Geovanny’s bat is still pretty quick. And, he has considerably more power than Yorvit.
6 HR | 16 RBI | 28 R | 208 PA | .204/.287/.354/.558 Geovanny Soto . (.5 WAR)
3 HR | 12 RBI | 16 R | 182 PA | .236/.302/.342/.578 Yorvit Torrealba (-.1 WAR)
Soto has more power and is a much better baserunner. His injuries have hampered him a lot. If he can get well, he may be the second coming of Mike Napoli 2011. Or not.
But, he has a lot more potential than Yorvit ever will or ever has.