The Giants need some help at catcher (a bit of an understatement, no?) and they have a plethora of hard throwing, above average relievers. Wouldn't it be nice if they could make a deal to shore up a glaring weakness without creating a new hole to fill?

Well, this scenario seems to have presented itself to the team. From :

According to my sources, the Giants asked about , not . But Texas wanted , and offered no relief on the $3.25 million Torrealba would make next season.

The sticking point for the Giants was the $3.25 million he is owed next season, but should it have been? Let's take a closer look.

I have used my handy dandy trade evaluator to compare to expected values of both players and this is what I got:

Yorvit Torrealba
Year	Sal (M)	WAR	Val (M)	Net (M)
2011	$3.0	1.0	$4.9	$1.9
2012	$3.3	1.0	$4.9	$1.7
Total	$6.3	2.0	$9.8	$3.6

Santiago Casilla
Year	Sal (M)	WAR	Val (M)	Net (M)
2011	$1.3	0.7	$3.6	$2.3
2012	$2.8	0.7	$3.6	$0.7
Total	$4.1	1.4	$7.1	$3.0

They are roughly even in terms of expected value on talent. The one thing I want to point out is Casilla's salary for next year is determined by the arbitration process and this is just an estimate based on him getting 80% of his free agent value. That could change but not so much to make this an unfair trade for either team.

From the Giants perspective, they get a nice upgrade over the Whiteside/Stewart combination that is really only likely to produce at a replacement level for the rest of the season. For what they give up, the drop off from Casillia to, say bringing back , for longman/mop up duty role with everyone else moving up a role is not huge. The bullpen still performed admirably while he was out on the disabled list and I don't see what it couldn't do it again if he were traded.

I understand the Giants wanting to see if Texas will kick in some extra cash. They should try to get the best deal possible, but to be so stubborn and turn down a very reasonable trade that makes the team better is not a smart move. I hope that they keep exploring their options but if they can't get anything better, this is entirely reasonable.

See Also: Splashing Pumpkins - Catcher Options, Bay City Ball - Catcher's Quest

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