Another Bonehead Move By an NL West Team

Just days after the Diamondbacks gave away Dan Haren for nothing of consequence, the Dodgers became the second NL West team to pull a head-scratching move, acquiring outfielder Scott Podsednik for two solid prospects.

My full analysis of the trade can be found here, but for those of you who don’t have the patience for 1,211 words about a medium-importance trade, I’ll excerpt the important part:

"The Dodgers…have three Triple-A outfielders who are all mashing the ball in Jay Gibbons (.339/.364/.593), Trent Oeltjen (.317/.372/.540), and Michael Restovich (.296/.365/.509). If they wanted more of a defense/contact type, there’s also Jamie Hoffmann (.315/.372/.435).The ZiPS rest-of-season projections call for Podsednik to hit .294/.344/.394 the rest of the way–a .738 OPS. I know the Triple-A Albuquerque park inflates numbers, but I really doubt that none of those four outfielders could at least approach that production. Sure, maybe the Triple-A guy they would choose would put up a .700 OPS or so, giving the Dodgers .5 wins instead of .8. You really think those .3 wins are worth two solid prospects? Really?If the Dodgers’ AAA team was devoid of good-hitting outfielders, and/or the team had a nice big budget, I could actually OK this deal from their side. But Frank McCourt is broke and the team has four replacements who could at least be almost as good as Podsednik just sitting there. Those four replacements are all cheaper, under team control for longer, and, most important, are just a callup away. You don’t have to trade your best catching prospect and a live arm to get them.Apparently, this logic is lost on Ned Colletti and the Dodgers."

So, um, yeah, that’s two teams in the Padres’ division that have shown signs they have no clue what they’re doing. Then again, everyone should have figured out the Dodgers were clueless back on June 10, so maybe this isn’t news.

All I can say (beyond those 1,211 words) is: The Padres should be very thankful for what division they’re in, and let’s hope they aren’t the third NL West team to do something stupid this week. I’ll be picking apart every trade that goes down between now and the deadline for Call to the Pen, so I’ll be right on top of whatever moves the Padres choose to make–I’ll link that up to here if and when it happens.