Around the Horn

Looking a mlbtraderumors.com this morning, a few things caught my eye.

The Mets released both Wily Mo Pena and Javier Valentin from their AAA farm team the Buffalo Bison.  Neither was playing particularly badly.  Pena was hitting .276 with a .710 OPS, and Valentin was hitting .260 with a .775.

I have to think that both will be picked up quickly by other major league organizations.  Pena has substantial major league experience (and success) and is still only 27 this year.  He has a lot of holes in his game, but teams are always looking for right-handed power hitters.

Valentin is 33 this year, but he is a back-up catcher with a career .712 major league OPS.  This kind of player is useful to have at the AAA level in case one your major league catchers gets hurt, since catchers get hurt more often than any other position player.  Valentin has been injured of late, so he may have to get healthy before another team picks him up.

Another interesting tid-bit: Columbia Pictures has dropped the movie version of “Moneyball” to be directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Brad Pitt that was to beginning filming next Monday.

I can’t say that I’m really excited about a movie version of “Moneyball”.  First, it doesn’t really strike me as a particularly interesting movie subject.

More importantly, movies have a way of dramatically over-simplifying complicated issues.  “Moneyball” got enough flack when it first came out from baseball people who didn’t read the book and based their criticisms on incredibly over-simplified versions of what the book was about.

I can’t help but think that a movie version of “Moneyball” will boil down to Billy Beane/Brad Pitt = genius, everyone else in baseball = idiot.  I can’t see that doing much for the debate on the ideas that Billy Beane and Theo Epstein have championed and have had a great deal of success with.

Sure doesn’t seem like a lot of teams are interested in Pedro Martinez for the pro-rated $5M he’s seeking.  The reports I’ve seen all seem to focus on the teams who have decided they aren’t interested, rather than identifying teams that have a strong interest.

Eric Wedge’s days as Indians’ manager may be numbered.  Here’s an article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  One thing you can say for Wedge, he had a good run with the Indians in a job that’s generally none too stable.

The Pirates have reportedly promoted 2008 No. 2-in-the-Draft Pedro Alvarez to AA Altoona.  Alvarez was hitting .247 with 14 HRs and an .827 OPS at A+ Lynchburg.

Meanwhile, the Giants have still not promoted 2008 No. 5 pick Buster Posey to AA Connecticut.  Posey is hitting .328 with 11 HR’s and a .970 OPS at A+ San Jose.

Even taking into account that the California League is probably a better hitters’ league than the Carolina League, it seems clear to me that Posey was hitting better at the A+ level than Alvarez.  Even assuming that Posey needs to improve his defense at catcher, I don’t see why he can’t do that at AA, if his bat is ready.

If Posey’s defense isn’t great by the time his bat is ready for the majors, I don’t really see that as a problem.  When Benji Molina leaves after this season, the Giants can play Pablo Sandoval at catcher and Posey at 1B if Posey’s defense at catcher isn’t where it needs to be.