METS ACQUIRE LO DUCA; ERIC IS SAD

the other pitcher better suck!

I really don't like this trade.  It's the first move that I really dislike that Omar has made since he took over.

Lo Duca isn't a worthwhile acquisition for all the reasons you list above.  I would have been able to accept a Molina or Hernandez signing, even if I would have disliked it.  Instead, Minaya got an old, overpaid, defensively mediocre, offensively overrated good guy to catch, and he gave the Marlins our best (signed) pitching prospect for the second time in the past couple weeks.  Oh, but at least we got a great leader.  Cause we really need one at every position.

LoDuca is a cool guy and everything, and he hails from the same borough as I do, so I don't want to rip on him, but for $6-6.5 million a year, he gives you worse defense than Castro and basically comparable offense  (I am cherry-picking, but LoDuca 2005 OPS - .714, Castro 2005 OPS .756).  Also, LoDuca has a career history of collapsing offensively in the second half (career post-break OPS - .687.  As you say, Paul is an upgrade over Mikey P. in the throwing-arm department, but is basically mediocre or worse defensively.  

I was against aquiring Molina or Hernandez for cash, but at least then they could have said they were paying top dollar, yes, but to get an above-average player on both sides of the ball.  

Hopefully Castro can get enough at bats to keep Paul fresh so that doesn't happen this year, but I can't say I like this trade.  Hernandez was looking pretty good, and if they do spin LoDuca for Vasquez, they'll probably include still another prospect.  I'd have rather seen them trade Benson and search for bullpen help elsewhere.

And remember the last Dodger catcher we got through Florida worked out pretty well for the team.

Piazza was 30 and already one of the few best hitting catchers of all time. Lo Duca is 34 and isn't even one of the few best hitting catchers in the league.

Far too many players w/o track records have one good year and never approach it again. Are you talking about Castro or Lo Duca? It seems to me that comment describes both of them.

A couple things some people above are forgetting here:

Ramon Castro's hitting stats at the Major League level have been artificially depressed due to circumstances beyond his control.  He didn't compile a .222 career batting average as a starter in Florida.  Hell, he didn't even compile it as a backup.  He hit .222 AS A THIRD STRING CATCHER.  He probably played three times a month. It's not that he wasn't good enough; it's just that his managers were stupid enough to waste a roster spot on a third catcher.  His minor league numbers, while not extraordinary, suggest that he's perfectly capable of producing as he did for the Mets last season.

Second, it's far too early to say that Hernandez won't become anything just because he got lit up in the FSL.  His K rate went down, which caused his hit rate to increase.  However, his HR and BB rate stayed the same, which is a very good sign.  He probably just needs to make an adjustment or two and he'll be fine.  He's still a pretty good pitching prospect and was certainly the team's best with Petit gone.

Third, Lo Duca's offensive reputation, as Eric demonstrates is based entirely on his first season in the league.  He doesn't hit terribly well, he doesn't play great defense, he's 34, and he's not durable.  And Willie won't be able to spell him at first base as the Dodgers did.  And let's face it, Lo Duca is famous for wearing down in the second half.  Which I'm sure will go over big in New York.

i pretty much with everyone here, i don't see loduca being that big a difference maker where you give a legit pitching prospect to get him, this has jeff wilpon written all over it

You can't judge players by who's ahead of them on the depth chart.  It's not the way we evaluate talent.  Oh, and Mike Redmond's a career .287 hitter with an on base percentage of nearly .350.  Oh, and the Marlins traded him to the Twins because they thought Ramon Castro was good enough to handle the starting catching duties.

That's when said 100 at bats of .135 batting average happened.  A good possible reason why: the rape charge.  Might have been a distraction.  And 100 at bats ain't considered a large sample size by anyone.  Certainly not compared to the 209 at bats he got this year.

Apparently batting average is the be-all-end-all again.  Thank God.  If only we could get rid of this pesky science fad too, we'd be right as rain.

That will probably never end between the moneyball/sabermetrics people and the old guard/makeup people.  

But the real question isn't whether LoDuca is better than Castro, right?  It's whether he is better by enough to:

1.  merit the extra roughly 6 million he is making a season
   
2.  merit the loss of a prospect, Gaby Hernandez (who, true, is just a prospect, but a prospect is a significant and valuable commodity in the baseball market).
   
3.  merit the opportunity cost of not being able to use that money and that prospect for another player.

Maybe LoDuca is, all things considered, a better player than Castro.  But I'd suggest that he's not better by enough to merit the trade, the salary, and the opportunity cost. (Just yesterday, there was an article about the Mets (and I can't remember the source) stating that for the Mets to make a big move now, they'll have to first clear salary.  That could hurt their chances to upgrade the rotation or the bullpen (I hope it doesn't.)  One of the central tenets to Moneyball, if I recall, is that you don't pay a lot or give a lot for name players who don't produce at levels far beyond replacement level - because you're essentially paying for the name.  

Also, I cherry pick stats too, you almost have to, but if you're going to pick out one stat, it's more accurate to use OPS than batting average, which is a misleading statistic that doesn't translate into real-world value to team the way that OPS does.  

My mistake.  But the Marlins did choose to start Castro at the start of the 2004 season over Redmond.  So clearly, in the eyes of the Marlins front office, Castro was ahead of Redmond on the depth chart.

the marlins have had 2 nono in 12 years and we haven't had any, wtf?