Monday, January 09, 2006

the korey trade

sometimes reasonable rumors do actually become real trades -- and this was one of those! bells tolled around the north side as long-deplored, much-maligned and often-mocked korey patterson was moved to baltimore today for two kids named nate spears and carlos perez.

perez is a 24-year-old lefty starter in the single-a south atlantic league, and he isn't doing very well even there -- pitching included for the sake of the comment, "we also got some pitching", in our estimation. spears is 21, a former 5th-rounder and playing short at single-a. if his output seems unspectacular... well, consider that he at least is not a spectacular failure.

color me impressed anyway. jim hendry took a terrible risk when he offered patterson a contract at the arbitration deadline; when grissom signed, he made clear to everyone that almost any offer would do. hendry could very easily have had to have packaged patterson along with the majority of his salary. i've heard not a whisper of money heading to maryland -- making the net effect of hendry's decision the acquisition of a someday-maybe shortstop and a slightly larger dent in baltimore's salary outlay. bully for them. (this page's sympathies are extended to oriole fans everywhere, of course.)

some commenters here have forecast some possibility of korey's rejuvenation in other climes, under other management. it is perhaps beyond even this page's capacity for irony that it could be so, so let us say this: korey was never, is not now and in all likelihood will never be a major-league-caliber baseball player. we wish him no ill, but each of us are bound by our nature even as we are free in our will. whatever his quicksilver "potential" may have counted for at any point in the past, and whatever fate we would hope for a nice kid from kennesaw, that much is inescapable. this writer hopes for korey not that he impossibly finds a hall of fame career, but that he merely finds peace.

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