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What To Do About Shortstop
Without additional moves, Ramon Vazquez will be our everyday shortstop. Although he had great range (90) and a good rating at SS (80) he makes a fairly large number of errors (48 Infield Error rating).
We also have 33 year old Damion Easley on the roster but while his Infield Error is 100, his range is just 55, and his Contact rating is just 40. If we're going to sacrifice offense for defense, I'd really rather have elite defense, especially at SS.
With that we start shopping around RP Steve Karsay. He was good for us last year (3.07 FIP) but at age 30 if we're going to really revamp the bullpen, now is the time to trade him, before his stats fall off a cliff. The problem is going to be his 4.2 million dollar salary.
We start shopping him around, retaining 75% of his salary. The Braves seem interested, offering up defensive wizard SS Cesar Izturis, who spent the previous year at AA. While he hit just .242 our scouts think he could hit .270 with his Avoid K's at 80. We start walking back how much of Karsay's salary we retain, and finally arrive at this deal on 12/8:
The Brew Crew trades Steve Karsay (retaining 30%) and 45-rated Single A 2B Issmael Salas to the Braves for SS Cesar Izturis. Izturis becomes the prohibitive front-runner to be the starting SS this year. Just look at those defensive ratings!
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