Quintero / Redding Trade

Houston Astros trade P Tim Redding to the San Diego Padres for C Humberto Quintero.

I looked at this and I said, "Finally! They're looking to make an upgrade!" Brad Ausmus is a disaster for the 'Stros at catcher. He hit .248/.306/.325 last year, which is just abysmal...He's also getting old and is not a great defender. Quintero, in the bigs last year, hit .250/.295/.375 in limited time (which is better than Ausmus), but, more importantly, he has a cannon behind the plate. I've never seen him play, but that's what I've read.

In about half a minor league season in a pitcher's park, he hit for the first time ever, putting up a .318/.347/.471, propelled by a lot of doubles. I personally don't think that Quintero's going to be worth too much in the long run, but I do think that he could produce at least equally to Ausmus and provide some better defense.

The article from MLB.com says that Quintero is going to AAA. So much for that. I guess he could continue to make strides in hitting; if he hits well in the minors this year, his stock rises a great deal.

Tim Redding is more interesting, I think, suffering a major dropoff last year in most categories. I find Redding interesting, though, because his high strikeout rates from the minors haven't translated yet. I don't know why this is the case, but there are some very large differences in a few stats for Redding on his career, minors v. majors:

	Minors	Majors
K/9	10.8	6.43
BB/9	4.45	3.71

Redding's BB figures are intersting; they've actually dropped for him in the bigs. The strikeouts have been lower, though, especially last year, when he struck out just over 5 batters per 9 innings. Redding was not good last year, following up a real nice 2003.

A couple more things:

2003: .82 HR/9
2004: 1.34 HR/9

Redding's homer rate jumped up a lot last year, but the 2003 interests me more. Redding only gave up 16 homers on a full season while pitching in a heavy home-run hitter's park. There's something there....I don't know what happened to him last year. Last set of numbers, DIPS ERA:

2003: 4.15
2004: 5.15

Something went wrong for Redding last year and I don't know what. Moving to Petco Park could be a big help for Tim Redding. Plus, he's still young.

Summing up my thoughts:

1. Quintero would be an upgrade over Ausmus and could be a very solid player, but Quintero's not all that good, IMO.
2. Redding's a nice gamble for the Padres but probably wasn't going to contribute for the Astros.

I guess that makes it a good trade on both sides. I'd give the Padres the higher upside, but this isn't an earthshaking deal.