Stacking: A quick and useless analysis of the additions to the 40-man and a weird trade.

Sorry I'm late to the party. Everybody has it covered. I love Leury Garcia, perhaps more than anyone outside of the Garcia family, but I can't recall a single conversation (with scouts, prospect dorks, actual writers, etc) indicating he'd be ready for a MLB role in 2013. Still chases offspeed, and doesn't control the zone particularly well. Big league pitchers, right now, wouldn't have much trouble getting him off-balance. You'll love him, but prolly not 'til later. He’s wildly fast and a good baserunner. His arm is crazy strong for a dude his size, and my oh my, his first step when the ball is hit his way is numbingly quick. He is, like so many of his size before him, full of swagger. I think his ability is driven by his moxie and vice versa. Also, not sure whether or not he has signed off on me calling him "Jiminy Cricket" though I've been doing it for a while now. Soooo, Jiminy Cricket it is!

Joe Ortiz throws with his left hand from a deceptive delivery. If I could make my kid have any description in the universe, it might be that one. The stuff isn’t overpowering and you probably already know he's not exactly an intimidating mound presence. To a left-handed hitter, Joe's 92 mph slicing fastball looks like it's 97mph in part because it leaves his hand behind the hitter’s back. He turned 22 in August and he’s pitched at every level in the organization while averaging about one strikeout per inning. He eats lefties like a rescue mutt eats a pillow. He’s like a quietly smug, but funny, little computer programmer who knows his skill set is not only rare, but will also always be in demand. Hopefully we are all granted a loud, bases juiced standoff between 5’7” 175lb Joe Ortiz and not-so-175lb Prince Fielder. Oh, please, baseball gods, please. Anyway, enjoy your $38 million, 12-year career, Joe.

As for the trade, as noted (Thanks unlikelyfanatic), I've written a bunch about Aggie Loux. I also got to see Brigham pitch a rather unfortunate number of times. Not "unfortunate" because he isn't good, I just wanted to see someone else sometimes. Brigham seemed to be on the bump every time poor Jason Cole was on the mic doin' the TV broadcast too. I think he may have pitched every 3^rd day. Look, metaphorically speaking this is a trade of a 2006 Chevy Tahoe for a 2005 Chevy Suburban. Both solid, not a big difference between them, and neither of them are going to get you a stage win at LeMans. I have no idea about the subtext of this trade. I’ve read all the speculation and nearly all the theories have validity to me. Regardless, gun to my head, I’m goin’ with Brigham. Not because that’s who Texas ended up with, I like Loux as a BORP, but because if you’ve got to buy on potential, I’m takin’ Brigham’s. I primarily came to this conclusion thanks to one mitigating factor- bullpen juice. I’ve only seen Jake start, and he’ll get his fair share of swinging K’s with his current stuff. He’ll also give up some monstrous long balls with his current stuff. If either of these guys are going to have distinguished big league careers, the stuff is going to have to improve and I’m completely guessing, out of the pen, over the next couple of years, Jake could add 2-4 mph to his low-mid 90’s fastball. That’d do the trick. But as you can see we’re stacking hypotheticals on top of stacks of hypotheticals (Jason Garrett-style), that should tell you all you need to know about this situation.

As always, enjoy baseball! Love Ya!