Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
Are We Allowed to Boo Him?
My first thought upon seeing that Jason Kendall was traded to the Chicago Cubs was that it was a crying shame that I had used the “He’s Back” post title already. Kendall has gone from being a solid and consistent offensive producer during the first ten or so years of his career to a piece of deadweight this year, and Billy Beane saw this as an opportunity to dump him and get Kurt Suzuki playing time.
The A’s didn’t really get anything in return for Kendall (Rob Bowen and a minor league left-handed relief pitcher), but they probably view the trade more as addition by subtraction. Kendall’s leaving opens up the catcher spot for hot prospect Kurt Suzuki and, possibly, Mike Piazza. The biggest issue for the A’s will be how Suzuki and Piazza handle the young pitching staff, something that Kendall was lauded for. If I had to place a bet right now, I’d guess that they see a slight drop-off in performance for about two weeks, but then return back to normal.
The Cubs, on the other hand, simply wanted a veteran catcher, and Kendall provides that along with a winning attitude and a significant veteran presence in the clubhouse. Kendall is one of those guys who simply wants to win, something we saw in Pittsburgh for years, and may finally receive the chance. Of course, playing for the Cubs means that Kendall must return to PNC Park on a semi-regular basis. Considering that he was one of the players who, along with Brian Giles, reportedly made himself very difficult to approach for younger players, such as Jack Wilson, it would be worth booing him. Probably, if you take out the fact that over much of his time as a Pirate he was one of the most inspiring and important players on the club.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the trade is that Billy Beane agreed not only to kick in cash, but surrendered a potential “sandwich pick” (assuming they offered him arbitration, which there would be about a 70/30 chance that they wouldn’t) by trading Kendall, as the catcher was a first round pick by the Pirates in 1992. This is a thoroughly un-Beane-like manner of going about trades, meaning that he felt it necessary to push Suzuki into the starting lineup immediately. For instance, the A’s had three picks in the Compensation A (first sandwich round) in the 2002, or Moneyball, draft. They took Jeremy Brown, one of the focuses of Michael Lewis’ book, Stephen Obenchain, and Mark Teahen with those picks. Beane loves having these and potentially trading them could be an issue, but the arbitration factor makes the whole situation make more sense, considering that Kendall would probably receive about $6 million in arbitration, which he would be nuts to not accept.
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