Sic Transit Gloria Juando

Matt Bruce

Avid readers of this column know that I am a Ranger fan. That allegience may strike you as strange, especially since I write for a website that is based in Seattle. Throughout New England, there are colleges and offices full of Red Sox fans and Yankee fans who view each other's teams with seething hatred.

The Lone Star state and Pacific Northwest are too far apart for that to happen, and I like the Mariners anyway. (It's like rooting for a college team, then rooting for the all the conference rivals in bowl games and "March madness.") That said, allow me to gloat a bit about the big trade news this week, though not in the way you might think.

At the same time that Mariner fans mourn the potential loss of their biggest stars, Ranger fans like me celebrate the fact that Bob Melvin got rid of the team's most overrated player and took Tigers GM Randy Smith to the cleaners in the process. Everybody knows about the MVP races in which voters let their infatuation with RBI interfere with their ability to judge talent. I've already dissed Juan Gonzalez in this forum before. Suffice it to say that Juando not only started to believe he was as good as his RBI totals, but also put the accumulation of RBI ahead of the accumulation of wins.

The last time Texas had a player like that, the Rangers practically gave Jose Canseco to Boston. In return they got Otis Nixon, who was already in decline, as well as a third-base prospect named Luis Ortiz who turned out to have all the staying power of Craig Worthington or Gary Scott. Nearly five years later, we have a nine-player deal to digest.

Let's put Greg Zaun and Bill Haselman off to one side, as both are backup catchers with little to distinguish one from the other. Then match up Danny Patterson with Justin Thompson and compare Juando to Gabe Kapler. If those pairs turn out to be even, then Detroit essentially gave Texas two fine young pitchers and Frank Catalanotto.

Danny Patterson was once a fine relief pitcher. In 1997 he came out of nowhere to give up just 70 hits and 23 walks in 71 innings, good enough for 10 wins. In 1998 his hits and walks allowed stayed about the same, but his ERA went up a full point, mainly because his gopher count went from 3 to 11. He had surgery in the off-season and was sent to AAA early in 1999.

Thompson had elbow surgery in 1997, and his ERA has gone up by a full point a year since then, even as his peripheral stats changed very little. Either Patterson or Thompson could regain lost velocity. Patterson has a chance to become a really good setup man again. Thompson, who is left-handed, has a chance to become an ace.

You may know Gabe Kapler from his bodybuilding photo-ops, or for falling short of expectation for all those roto hounds who salivated over him on draft day. Like any numbers junkie, I am wary of "tools" players. Even beyond his reputation, though, Kapler puts up good numbers in the categories that matter. He drew 42 walks in 416 at-bats, which is at least respectable for a 23-year-old rookie. He also had 44 extra-base hits, including 18 home runs. Kapler obviously is not as good as Juan Gonzalez now, but if Texas were a self-pitying "small market" club then a one-for-one deal would not have batted many eyes.

The difference between Thompson and Patterson already seems to make up for the difference between Kapler and Gonzalez. Now we get to Catalanotto. At least one person at Baseball Prospectus seems to think Catalanotto is something special. I'm open to the possibility that there are a half-dozen guys in AAA like Catalanotto, but every single one of them would be a better option for 2000 than Mark McLemore.

That leaves Francisco Cordero, who posted 27 saves for AA Jacksonville in 1999, and Alan Webb, a 19-year-old lefty who had an average season in the Jacksonville rotation last year. Keep in mind that "average" can mean considerably more than that for a teenaged southpaw just two stops away from The Show. As far as I can tell, the Rangers got the Tigers' two best pitching prospects for nothing. I don't understand it, but then sometimes Christmas is hard to understand.

Maybe you think I'm even happier about the potential departure of Ken Griffey, Jr., from the AL West. Instead I feel some pity and some anger. The fans of Seattle deserve a better fate than this -- I remember well the excitement of the 1995 season, when the Kingdome went from a mausoleum to a happening place. I feared the Kingdome in 1996, especially the September that Seattle went from ten games back to one game back in a span of ten days. This was the team that looked like it would become what the Yankees actually did become.

Now I can only offer condolence. Unfortunately, the Mariners' slide was unsurprising as far back as the Heathcliff Slocumb trade. It's easy to respect superstars from afar (especially marketable, photogenic ones) and not look down deep enough to see that, say, Russ Davis needs help and David Segui was never an appropriate first baseman.

I don't want the AL West to become the AL Central, because it's hard to say exactly how much the Indians' lack of in-season pressure hurt it the playoffs. The problem is that now neither the Mariners nor the Angels deserve to win, not the way either team is run. If one of them does overachieve, fans nationwide might react with horror, much the way that people wanted the Braves to die before the World Series, before they had a chance to lay down during it. At least the A's look like a fun team...

about the author

Matt Bruce collects ballpark "collectors' cups," but only the ones with just the logo of the concessionaire. He'll trade you two Ogdens for a SportService at mb@strikethree.com.