An interesting question that I want the readers take on before I tackle it as a possible article.
Roger Clemens said he will not return in 2006 to the Houston Astros, unless Brad Ausmus is resigned to be the starting catcher. Now we all know that Ausmus is not a positive numbers contributor to the Astros, but lets entertain the thought (which is entirely plausible) that he calls a good enough game that he brings up the value of Astros pitchers. There are other catchers who can do this (Jason Varitek for one) but that is an added bonus to his value, not his only value. So the question of the day for the readers: Is keeping Ausmus as the catcher worth the lineup problems if you can retain the services of Roger Clemens for another year, and do you think he is worthy of keeping if he hits .257/.348/.312 but improves the starters? Part Two: If Clemens would stay anyway, but his and other Astros starters effectiveness was reduced somewhat by having Catcher X instead of Ausmus calling the game, which situation would you rather have?
I'll do a writeup on this to assign some numbers to this argument later, possibly tomorrow or Monday.