Toby Hall was one of my favorite Devil Rays for a while. The catcher never did catch fire like a lot of people thought he would but when he was traded along with Mark Hendrickson for a young catch named Dioner Navarro, I thought the Devil Rays had gotten the short end of the stick in yet another trade (the Devil Rays also got mediocre relief pitcher Jae Weong Seo). I started changing my mind as Mark Hendrickson struggled and while Dioner Navarro didn’t light it up, I saw some of the good things that the catcher brought to the table (namely 20 walks vs. only 33 strikeouts in limited time).
I really warmed up to Navarro when I read this. It seems Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA has a mini breakout planned for Navarro. While .269/.344/.410 (mean weighted average) isn’t anything to write home about, it’s not too shabby for a catcher. I especially like his breakout rate (65%) and improve rate (85%). Good stuff and there’s always the chance that he comes out closer to his 75 percentile (.286/.360/.447 and a 4.1 WARP). Maybe we didn’t get hosed on this deal after all.
January 28th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
In the long-run, we’d never look to get hosed in the deal.
1. Only Hendrickson remains on the Dodgers from any of the LA/TB trades.
2. Hendrickson is one of few AL pitchers, surprisingly not from Oakland, to get worse when moved from the AL to NL.
3. Jae Seo may not exactly be lighting it up, but we got a 22 year old catcher who is major-league ready and has a chip on his shoulder(traded by 3 teams and replaced in LA because he was injured) and unheralded OF prospect Justin Ruggiano.
4. We got rid of horrible hitting Toby Hall, who topped out in AAA.
February 8th, 2007 at 4:25 am
Seo is and always has been a starting pitcher, not a reliever, and although at the time of the trade Hendrickson had been pitching well and Seo poorly, their histories indicated that Seo was the better pitcher-and younger. Navarro has always had good plate discipline and at his age has shown promise that Hall long ago ceased to provide. And as a bonus, acquiring Ruggiano, not considered a top prospect, but with power and plate discipline as well (a clear priority for the new Rays management), was a nice addition to the system. That trade was a steal for the Rays from the start.