Jason and the Argue-Nots

Seems like everytime I go visit my parents, Dave Littlefield dismantles the Pittsburgh Pirates. Folks, if you want to know what to get me for Christmas (er, Hanukkah) this year, it's really easy: make the bleeding stop! I spent 12 hours pacing nervously in O'Hare airport on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, wondering if I should just resign myself to camping out there over the entire weekend a la Tom Hanks. Heard the Jason Kendall-to-Oakland rumors swirling all week (with Mark Mulder possibly coming in return, yeah right!) and then -- boom! -- cracked open the paper on Saturday morning to read all about the twin salary dump the teams orchestrated.

If you scroll down a few posts to early November, you'll see that I feel pretty strongly about Kendall. Mark Redman was a decent catch -- in light on Kris Benson's $8 million contract with the Mets, he'll provide similar production with no illusions of being anything other than a #4-5 starter. His lone season in the NL was his best (Florida, 2003), so his numbers should roll back a little in the less hitting-friendly league. And if the Bucs can trade for Prentice Redman and get an endorsement from Red Man Chewing Tobacco, they'll have a monopoly on all the major league Redmen. Arthur Rhodes, the other guy involved in the deal, was a major dud for Oakland last season -- though the Pittsburgh front office knows they're dealing from a position of strength in terms of the bullpen, and they'll try to spin him for some hitting (one rumor has him being flipped to L.A. for Milton Bradley, yeah right!) or, more likely, release him during Spring Training. So no thanks there.

In short, they made out as best as they could. Just like the Brian Giles deal, which, given some distance to reflect, turned out amazingly for the Pirates. You won't see the same kind of returns here, because of the strict major league talent ratio. Oakland obviously felt than Rhodes and Redman have nowhere to go but down, and no surprise that the Pirates felt the same way about Kendall. Last time out, I took the high road discussing Kendall -- trying to get into Billy Beane's head to figure out Kendall's present-day value as an OBP and defensive threat. Right here and now, he seems like an awfully good fit for the A's.

And present value is what you think of when the wounds are still raw. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Ed Cook slammed the deal in a front-page piece the morning after, and who could blame him? It's painful anytime a player with a modicum of talent gets shipped out of town. My esteemed colleague One Man Band pretty much encapsulates my feelings on the trade: bad deal, leaves the Pirates vulnerable at catcher, doesn't really provide the financial flexibility that you'd assume, and the Pirates won't do anything with the few million dollars in savings except pad the war chest. Totally on the mark!

Cook's colleague at the PG, The Stats Geek, took another tack and tried to calm nerves by weighing Kendall's injury history and future durability against the examples of Johnny Bench and the major drop-off in service time most catchers experience after age 30. Of the top 20 catchers who caught the most games up through age 30, only 2 rank in the top 20 of games caught after 30. Offensive production is a corollary to health behind the plate, too Johnny Bench caught 539 games from ages 27-30 and 415 from 31-34; his OPS dipped from .836 to .794 in the same interval. How about Carlton Fisk? 522 games from 27-30 and 453 from 31-34 with an OPS slide from .853 to .761. Mike Piazza? 592 games from 27-30, 438 (541 games total -- he also played a lot of first base in '04) from 31-34 with a huge OPS slide.

Folks like Gary Carter and Roy Campanella held up pretty well, of course, but Kendall has already caught 1252 games through age 30 and the major drop-off begins after 1300 games. I still think he has a lot of life left in him; save his gruesome injury in '99, he's been very durable. And he has three years left on his contract, not coincidentally the age 31-34 period discussed above. Can Kendall catch a lot of games in that interval and hit for a high average? History says no for catchers with an extreme workload. Kendall has only caught 442 games over the least three seasons, though; he'll have no problem equaling that production.