Doc and some of you guys may remember Dan Pastorini, who used to play QB for the Houston Oilers (when there was such a thing), years ago. Played for the Raiders and other teams, too. Threw 103 TD in his career vs. 160+ Ints, back when stuff like that happened to decent QB's.
Pastorini was a sort of mad bomber, in the Daryl Lamonica mold. Remember Lamonica? Danny Boy had a dang good burner of a WR in Houston named Kenny Burroughs. Pastorini, not known as a cerebral QB, loved to chuck it long to Burroughs. Some writer in Sports illustrated once said that Pastorini would look over the field at the line of scrimmage say to himself, "I can't read this defense. I'll just throw it long to Kenny!"
I suppose you can call that a calculated-confident roll of the dice.
DiPoto just made one. This is a Billy Beane move. I imagine that there are some GM's going, "Say whaaaaaaaat??"
I don't know whether to drop my coffee cup or high five the screen. Goodness knows I love Billy Beane so maybe I should just smile and admire the DiPoto huevos.
Basically we just traded Walker AND Marte for Segura (considering that the other guys are: A. Not THAT interesting. B. We had some of them already. C. You could have got them for Deej Peterson). What was it Eliza Doolittle said? "C'mon Segura, move 'yer bloomin' arse!"
But here's what is easy to be confident in in Segura:
1. His glove doesn't go away in Safeco. Is 4.48 RF is better than Cozart's and WAY better than Marte's piddley 4.09. Over 140 starts, he may get to 50 more GB's than Marte.
2. He hits RHP better than LHP (.724 vs. .689 for his career: .900 vs. .763 in '16)
3. He's played in two hitters' parks in Chase Field and Miller Park, but he's hit as well on the road for his career as he has at home: (.717 vs. .714 and .841 vs. .892 last year). He's not band-box made.
4. He's hit 1 or 2 his whole career.
5. He steals a base. Bunches of them.
6. Figure on 40+ XB hits. Maybe 50+.and 50+ is the magic number. SS's who do that are really really special. 50+ is Top-of-his-Game Jeter territory. You've got to get close to 80 to get into Garciaparra territory, however.
There is much to like here.
However, despite the tragedy, you have to say he's been inconsistent and the homer surge may be temporary. But lots of players learn to become poachers after a few years and pick their pitch to ride. Oh, btw...he goes away in two years. Although were I DiPoto, I would look to extend a couple of years right now. Pay him the $11M up front. We don't have anybody in the wings, really, anyway. You rolled the dice, so pay him to keep him for 4.
And you may have noticed that we have a (possible) hole in our rotation now. There must be another move to come. I like Miranda more than Karns (Begging Doc's forgiveness....but I have a soft-spot for screwy Cuban LH'ers. Always liked Tiant and The Old Man and the Sea, too) but not quite as much as Walker. Either of those guys may be as reliable as Walker over the next 4 seasons, but Walker is going to have a #3 in the Cy vote season soon. Maybe just the one...but it would be nice to have that.
So here we go. I think there is another rotation move that DiPoto must make. It is going to be an excitinig ride.
Our GM just told his inner-Beane to take over for a bit and make this call. (Mixing metaphors) He just went all Pastorini on us and said, "I can't read this! I'm just going to chuck it long to Segura!"
Go team.
Moe