First, good luck to Oscar and here's hoping he gets more playing time on the west coast than he did here. Salazar should have been taking at bats from Aubrey Huff and (especially) Melvin Mora, two players who are not going to be back with the club anyway. Instead he rotted on the bench and was brilliant in his limited opportunities at the plate.
Anyhoo...
Andy MacPhail gives this quote from Roch's blog:
Meredith, 26, is a submarine-stylist who was described by Andy MacPhail, president of baseball operations, as a "poor man's Chad Bradford."
"He gets a lot of ground balls and can pitch every other day," MacPhail said. "The ground ball ratio becomes more important later in the summer in our ballpark."
Well, he does get a lot of grounders. Even this year when he seems to be off his game he is inducing grounders at a 62.2% clip. And I like submariners too. But is he anything like Chad Bradford, even a poor man's version?Bradford has only given up more than 1 home run in a season twice. He gave up 5 his rookie season and gave up 3 in 2008. All but one season was in the American League. Cla "Who stole my Y?" Meredith gave up 6 in each of the last two seasons pitching in an extreme pitcher's park in San Diego against inferior National League hitters. (To be fair he has only given up one homer this season...)
Now the disturbing splits:
W L ERA K BB HR OPS
Cla - Home 2009 2 1 2.89 12 4 1 .707
Cla - Away 2009 2 1 5.50 8 10 0 .790
Meredith takes full advantage of his home park. Is OPACY a hitter's park or a pitcher's park? How does this one look to play out?
More:
W L ERA K BB HR OPS
Cla - Interleague 2009 0 1 5.68 1 2 0 .613
Cla - Interlegue Career 0 4 5.25 14 7 3 .845
Great. AL batters hammer him too.
So he's best when he's facing NL hitters at his home park which just happens to be an extreme pitcher's park.
Maybe Rick Kranitz sees something is Meredith's delivery he thinks he can work with. Maybe MacPhail thinks that AL batters haven't seen much of Meredith so he can have some success his first time through the league and the O's can flip him in the offseason.
But I don't think so. I think the O's made a move out of desperation and don't have to guts to release the shell of Melvin Mora that is our current third baseman. This trade is as epic a fail as you can make when you trade away a bench player.
Keith Law: I wouldn't say done, but it's very bad news for Baltimore. Shoulder problems often lead to long-term velocity loss, and he can't afford that.