Rauch and Wolf Dealt

The D-backs acquired right-hander Jon Rauch from the Washington Nationals for second baseman Emilio Bonifacio.

The 29-year-old Rauch took over as closer when Chad Cordero went down and was 4-2 with 17 saves and a 2.98 ERA for Washington. In a six-year career with the White Sox, Expos and Nationals, Rauch is 24-17 with a 3.63 ERA.

Rauch, who made $1.2 million this year, has another year left on his deal at $2 million, and Arizona will also have a club option for 2010 at $2.9 million.

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To land Wolf, the Astros sent minor league righthanded pitcher Chad Reineke to the Padres. By making the trade, the Padres saved $3.7 million.

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I don't know why the Astros are buyers.... and I didn't realize Rauch was closing. Rauch looks like one heck of an acquisition.

2 months ago westbrook Comment 35 comments 0 recs |

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We couldn’t find anything more attractive to send them than Emilio Bonifacio? Hell, I’d send them Brown, Crowe, and Barfield for Rauch.

by afh4 on Jul 22, 2008 7:07 PM EDT 0 recs

No kiddin, seems like an absolute steal for a guy who gives you a ton of phenomenal innings. Moral of the story, we should’ve had the Nationals on speed dial.

by supermarioelia on Jul 22, 2008 7:17 PM EDT up 0 recs

Bowden seems like a difficult GM to deal with. Did he ever trade with the Indians when he was in Cincinnati (maybe Broussard?)? He’s said to often be unreasonable in his trade demands. Maybe he and Shapiro don’t get along that well.

by odradek on Jul 23, 2008 11:32 PM EDT up 0 recs

Well, one theory is that GM’s who think along similar lines in many ways have an easier time getting trades done, just because they speak the same language and don’t have to BS each other. Seems like Shapiro and Melvin were working on a straight leveraged-value deal, rather than trading on one another’s possible misconceptions about how to value a player.

by Jay on Jul 24, 2008 3:53 PM EDT up 0 recs

I would guess that trades outside of a team’s division are not evenly distributed: that Shapiro has his favorite trading partners (Bavasi, Minaya and O’Dowd?), others he never deals with (Cashman; have the Indians ever traded with Arizona?), others who might be expected to be better trading partners (Beane? Huntington?). Personalities must figure into it, and Krisvky and Bowden seem to shy away from the Indians.

by odradek on Jul 24, 2008 4:23 PM EDT up 0 recs

Krivsky got fired, you know. He only made a handful of deals, one of which was with the Indians. Huntington has yet to make a major league deal with the Indians, and I don’t believe Beane has made one since acquiring Rincon in 2002. He wasn’t willing to give us anything of value for Goleski, anyway, and he wasn’t buying what we were selling for Haren.

by Jay on Jul 24, 2008 9:41 PM EDT up 0 recs

Hello Andrew,

Looking at their stats a bit more, Brown alone might have been enough – granted, he’s one year older than Bonifacio, but Brown had two stellar years the past two seasons, not to mention that Brown certainly has more power than Bonifacio (who has virtually no power – 1 HR in the PCL, 367 ABs) and better plate discipline.

Unless Bonifacio is a stud with the glove, I don’t see where this guy has that much value – he looks more like a utility guy to me. Brown has the chance to be a poor man’s Mark Grace at 1B and is only one year older.

Throw in a minor prospect (other than the two you mentioned, as I think both are a level above “minor” prospect) and you’d think that would have been more than enough to match Bonifacio’s value.

This Beyond the Box Score thread seems to be thinking along the same lines – an “incomplete” 2B. In my biased opinion, Brown is more valuable than that, despite his poorer-than-expected season at AAA (which partly might be attributable to not being 100% after knee surgery).

Certainly, Rauch’s value is higher because of the remaining years on his contract – I think if the Indians had traded for him, it would be a “huh” (to the national commentators) in the sense that it would have been unusual for a team out of postseason contention making a trade for a piece that would be very valuable to a contender this season, but I think it would have been a shrewd move on Shapiro’s part to add a quality reliever for the next two seasons when we hope to be back contending again.

Just my 2 cents.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jul 22, 2008 8:11 PM EDT up 0 recs

Brown has the chance to be a poor man’s Mark Grace at 1B and is only one year older.

This is incredibly, ridiculously, optimistically untrue. When Grace was 24 he OPS+ 119 in the majors.

Brown is 25 and is OPSing .731 in AAA. With no plate discipline. I’d wager that’s probably about an OPS+ of 100. From a guy with no real defensive reputation.

We’ll be lucky if he can stick in the majors at all as some kind of bizarre bench player.

by afh4 on Jul 22, 2008 8:20 PM EDT up 0 recs

A poor man’s Mark Grace is another way of saying a guy that lacks power, but isn’t very good at hitting either. So in that sense, I agree with indiansfan

by Roger Dorn on Jul 22, 2008 10:55 PM EDT up 0 recs

So what? A worse Matt Murton?

by afh4 on Jul 23, 2008 1:00 AM EDT up 0 recs

A guy I don’t care about

by Roger Dorn on Jul 23, 2008 8:17 AM EDT up 0 recs

Plus, you know, apparently Brown is one year older than Mark Grace. Seems a little late to think he’s gonna break out.

I kid, indiansfan. No offense.

"Lotta heart in Cleveland." - Ian Hunter

by Denver Tribe Fan on Jul 23, 2008 12:20 PM EDT up 0 recs

Agreed. As far as I can see, he’s basically just really fast. This would’ve been a frigging awesome move for us to make. Basically a Masa-type deal, except, you know, Rauch is better. If we don’t trade Casey I’m going to explode on something.

by supermarioelia on Jul 22, 2008 9:04 PM EDT up 0 recs

Another team?

by NickFantana on Jul 22, 2008 10:05 PM EDT up 0 recs

Living in the DC area, I try hard to care about the Nats, but Jim Bowden makes it well nigh impossible.

by ken from alexandria on Jul 22, 2008 8:55 PM EDT 0 recs

So true. It’s every bit as hard to give a crap about the Orioles.

-Erik

by drerikbrady on Jul 23, 2008 8:58 AM EDT up 0 recs

I bet you love that Guzman extension, though…

by APV on Jul 23, 2008 11:23 AM EDT up 0 recs

The Guzman extension can actually be justified, I think, under the circumstances. It’s everything else that drives me nuts, starting with the fact that they’re carrying four catchers at the moment.

And yeah, Erik, I know what you mean about watching the Angel-O’s, but I prefer their announcers, especially Palmer.

by ken from alexandria on Jul 23, 2008 7:03 PM EDT up 0 recs

I stopped caring about the Os crew when they ran Miller out of town for being critical of the club. Say what you will about Joe Morgan, but Miller was a good radio guy. I used to love day games when commuting from DC to Alexandria back in the day.

by FredOx on Jul 23, 2008 11:52 PM EDT up 0 recs

Yeah, Miller was great fun.

by ken from alexandria on Jul 24, 2008 8:51 AM EDT up 0 recs

The internet buzz, for whatever it’s worth, seems to be picking up with Blake.

by APV on Jul 23, 2008 7:41 AM EDT 0 recs

MLB TRADE RUMORS DID NOTH… ah, screw it.

by JulioBernazard on Jul 23, 2008 8:38 AM EDT up 0 recs

Can you imagine if these deals didn’t go through? westbrook would be the boy who cried Rauch.

by fleerdon on Jul 23, 2008 9:10 AM EDT 0 recs

Richard Justice on the Wolf deal:

If Drayton McLane keeps watching his Astros, he may finally see them for what they actually are instead of what he’d like them to be.
He’s stubborn, not stupid. He’ll eventually understand that his franchise is broken.
It didn’t get broken overnight, and it’s not going to be fixed overnight. Patience isn’t his strong point, but it’s the only way out of this mess.
He’s not there yet. When he allowed Ed Wade to trade for Randy Wolf on Tuesday afternoon, it was a signal he’s still living in a fantasy world.

Sounds about right. The Astros have about as much chance of catching the Cubs as the Indians do of catching the White Sox, and need to look for Matt LaPortas and not Randy Wolfs.

by FredOx on Jul 23, 2008 10:03 AM EDT 0 recs

I keep trying to tell you guys … now that Bavasi is gone, Wade is the runaway worst GM in the game.

by Jay on Jul 23, 2008 10:41 AM EDT up 0 recs

Blake for Berkman!

by APV on Jul 23, 2008 10:56 AM EDT up 0 recs

Blake for Hunter Pence!

Free Andy Marte!

Pronk Needs You

by woodsmeister on Jul 23, 2008 1:40 PM EDT up 0 recs

so is there anything to shapiro wanting to set the market when he has a deal to make? where he didn’t want harden or blanton to move before he acted and affect his negotiations. or is it simply that he wanted to maximize value as it related to the calendar, not with respect to other things going on around the league (teams falling out, other trades).... i don’t know if that rambling makes sense. just wondering outloud.

by Brick. on Jul 23, 2008 11:03 AM EDT 0 recs

I’m not sure if I’m answering your question, but with CC I think Shapiro just wanted LaPorta and knew he had a window that the deal had to be done by.

Steel Nick

by nickjs21 on Jul 23, 2008 11:07 AM EDT up 0 recs

Well, I don’t know if he went into negotiations targeting LaPorta, but it was pretty clear after initial shopping that LaPorta was the best player available. During the ESPN Monday night Brewers/Cardinals game, they had Doug Melvin in the booth and Mark Shapiro on the phone talking about the trade. There apparently was a basic framework for the trade during the whole process, with LaPorta being the centerpiece. It was a pretty interesting interview, as you don’t often get two GMs talking about a trade together.

by Ryan on Jul 23, 2008 12:21 PM EDT up 0 recs

as you don’t often get two GMs talking about a trade together.

yeah, usually it’s one GM, one giraffe.

by Brick. on Jul 23, 2008 12:22 PM EDT up 0 recs

A giraffe would be a better GM than Ed Wade.

by FredOx on Jul 23, 2008 12:46 PM EDT up 0 recs

i think there was some. “if we don’t make this before we can get two pre-allstar starts out of CC, LaPorta comes of the table” or something like that…

by Brick. on Jul 23, 2008 12:23 PM EDT up 0 recs