Castillo vs. Gotay

Meh.


It's hard to get too excited about this one either way. Basically, the Mets trade a bag of magic beans to the Twins for one of their better offensive players. Castillo at this point, though, isn't the player he was with the Marlins. His knees are shot, taking away his speed, he steals bases at barely a break-even pace, when he even does that anymore, and he has zero pop. Should he even be playing everyday? Is he any better than Gotay? How many damn second basemen do we want on this team?


Anyway, here are their numbers for 2007. Blah. I suspect that Gotay is playing a bit above his head right now -- the relatively small number of AB's he's gotten could mean that his .379 OBP is a fluke. Likewise, Castillo is probably better than his 2007 numbers indicate.


This is probably a wash. Gotay has more power than Castillo (which is easy, because he has none) but Castillo is probably a better OBP candidate, based on career rates. Castillo also probably has the edge in 2B defense, but not by a whole lot at this point -- creaky knees have taken away some of Luis' range.


On the other hand, it's not a bad trade for a two-month rental. Neither of the AA douchebags the Twins got is going anywhere.*



* PS, Twins fans: your season is over. This was a white flag trade to save the Twins the remainder of Castillo's $5.75 million salary. Sorry.