What’s interesting about the A’s apparently acquiring Jason Kendall for Mark Redman and Arthur Rhodes is not the Pirates’ end of the deal, which involves getting some face-saving pitching help while getting out from under Kendall’s oversized contract, but rather the A’s being willing to take on salary to get a catcher (replacing the departing Damian Miller) who gets on base. For all the notoriety of the A’s OBP obsession, the team had in recent years been losing ground in that department. Kendall helps turn around that trend (which had gotten a bit better this season).
Good deal for Oakland, in spite of Kendall’s cost, age and lack of power.
3 thoughts on “Kendall Gets Beaned”
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I’m about halfway through “Moneyball” right now, so I feel like I’m inside Billy Beane’s head…reading about the trade is exciting in that sense, and it might result in the emergence of the much-vaunted (in the book) Nick Swishwer!
Of course, the acquisition of Kendall does not suggest that Jeremy Brown is anywhere near ready for big-league prime time, unless there’s a long-range plan to move either Kendall or Brown out from behind the plate.
Jeremy Brown has been watched under a microscope at all the A’s related blogs. He had a good Arizona Fall League season, but he does not appear to be major league ready. The beauty of Beane’s system is that when he lets free agents walk he gets a LOT of draft picks. For every Jeremy Brown, whose career stalls, there is a Nick Swisher and a Joe Blanton and a Houston Street kicking ass and moving up the ladder. All three of those guys will make the A’s roster and contribute in 2005.