Prepping for the Weekend

I assume this will be quite the weekend for trades at this site. Sunday (the deadline) I should be home all day, or atleast until the deadline ends, so I will try to keep up to the minute analysis of any deals that occur here.

We got a start on the weekend of trades. By the way, this is where you want to go instead of Rumor Central at ESPN.com. On to the deals!

Colorado sends Shawn Chacon to the Yankees in exchange for prospects Ramon Ramirez and Edwardo Sierra. Dan Scotto already covered the prospects in the deal, so I'll focus on Chacon.

I'm confused to be honest. His DERA, which is meant to be defense independent, is low. Even lower than his ERA. His peripherals are awful (although the ones involving hits and homeruns should improve in New York) and his BABIP is very low. Coors increases BABIP by a substantial amount, so you have to considers Chacon's BABIP to be even lower than it stands. The odd thing is Shawn Chacon of all people looks like he might have the ability to control hits on balls in play a little bit. Ignoring the .314 BABIP, where he was closing, Chacon's BABIP's for his major league career read .275, .261, .276, and .272. Consider again that Coors raises BABIP by simply existing, and we have ourselves someone lowering the batting average of balls in play against him at an extreme rate consistently. I'll admit I'm not familiar with Chacon's pitch selection, but I'm sure as hell going to find out if what he throws has anything to do with it. If this is true, imagine how good Chacon would be if he could actually strike people out and not walk as many as he struck out? Patient teams might still eat him up in the AL, rare ability to control the rate of hits on balls in play or not.

In another deal, the Padres acquired Dave Ross from the Pirates in exchange for minor leaguer J.J. Furmaniak. Why Dave Ross? I'll show you why:

Make sure you look closely at the name on the back of that catcher. Thanks to jbox at Gaslamp Ball for letting me swipe a Padres picture in desperation from his site without him knowing, and allowing me to thank him in advance and link up to him because I have to run to work and can't wait around, and sorry.

As far as Ross goes, let's take a look at his NRAA.

I do not think the fielding is for real, considering he put up a Rate2 of 98 last year, but if he can find a halfway point between those (or even play league average) he'll have some value to the Pads, who are in desperate need of a catcher after Ramon Hernandez elected to have surgery, putting him out til September most likely. I'll be back to update trades maybe tonight or tomorrow, depending on how busy the day goes in baseball. Would any readers be kind enough to e-mail me to notify me of any trades? I'd appreciate it greatly.