After months of Ed Wade vehemently denying any talks with Ivan Rodriguez or his agent, Scott Boras, the Astros have signed Rodriguez to a  one year, 1.5 million dollar deal (with a possible extra $1.5M in bonuses). As recently as this Friday, Astros’ official beat writer Alysson Footer announced that Wade and the Astros were “not pursuing [Rodriguez].” Things sure changed quickly, and pending a physical anticipated to take place after the World Baseball Classic, Pudge will be in Astros camp and preparing for the start of the regular season.

First lets analyze the player at hand. Pudge has averaged a .301 avg  along with 21 HR and 87 RBI’s over the course of his career along with incredible work behind the plate that has earned him 7 gold gloves. Of course, at 37 years old and with multiple injuries over the past few years the Astros are not acquiring a player that is nearly as good as those statistics show. Still, Pudge is nonetheless a solid player at this stage of his career. He managed a .276 average last year backed up by .281 the previous year, so while he might not be the All-Star catcher he once was he still has considerably noteworthy offensive ability. However, the most notable drop off has been his power production; Rodriguez has been unable to muster 15 home runs since 2004 and has not reached 70 RBI’s in the same timeframe. Similarly, his defense has suffered as well, though he is still a component catcher behind the plate. Most notably his arm has deteriorated. His CS% of .325 is remarkably low compared to his .380 over his career. Still, that number is respectable.

Ed Wade has been very adamant throughout the off-season and into spring training that he had no interest in signing Ian Rodriguez and that he never talked to Pudge himself or his agent, Scott Boras. While Wade very well could have been lying, let’s assume he simply had a change of heart and try to figure out what made him change his mind. The departure of Brad Ausmus left a glaring hole at catcher, as he has been the undisputable starting catcher since 2001.  At this time last year the obvious answer would have been to hand off the duties to top prospect J.R. Towles. Towles had progressed greatly in the minor leagues in 2007 and followed that up with a fantastic September when he was called up, posting a .375 average in his 14 games. 2008 didn’t go so well, however, and after 54 games of horrendous hitting was sent back down to AAA for good. He is not showing any signs of a comeback this year either, as he is struggling at the plate this spring and, as far as I can tell, never going to get a chance with Houston.  Wade’s 2nd youth option has been just as erratic. Lou Palmisano was picked in the Rule 5 Entry Draft from the Brewers this offseason, and was supposed to be a top competitor for a catching position. We were told that injuries were “the only thing in his way” to becoming a good catcher in the MLB, and that these injuries were now “long gone.” While Palmisano has apparently impressed Cecil Cooper and his staff defensively, offensively he’s been, similar to Towles, atrocious. Toby Hall was brought in as a veteran presence who would compete for the job. Hall has had both starting and backup experience in the major leagues, and was certainly a competitor for a spot on the roster; that is, until he injured his shoulder badly enough to require surgery, at which point the Astros nullified his contract. Humberto Quintero was the favorite for the Houston starting catching job, and perhaps still is. Year-by-year he has gradually been given a larger workload by Houston, but he has failed to show any reason for anyone to believe he can be a full-time starting catcher, both in terms of endurance and ability. As of now, at 28 years old, Quintero has played no more than 59 games in a season, and his career .230 average is hardly reassuring either. There’s no question he would need, at the very least, a platoon catcher, and neither Towles nor Palmisano has shown any reason to warrant such a role. This is where Pudge fits in. While he is not the athlete he once was, we can absolutely pencil him in for, at the very least, 80 games this season. He is probably an upgrade over anyone in the Astros organization, and will certainly provide both a veteran presence along with a quality player. It seems that not one of Wade’s options has panned out thus far into the year, and he needed to go out and find an alternative. At only one year for under 2 million there is certainly very little risk involved. Who knows how beaten up Pudge will be this year, but one this is for certain; he can’t possibly be worse than any of our other options.

By: Adam Herman on Mar 17th, 2009
Tagged as: Astros News

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