Yesterday
afternoon it was announced that the Yankees and Tigers agreed on a
trade that would send reliever Kyle Farnsworth to Detroit and catcher
Ivan Rodriguez to New York.

This trade is essentially even and both teams benefited from this
deal.  The Yankees really needed a catcher and the Tigers really needed
a pitcher in the bullpen.

However, in the minds of Yankees fans, they were the clear winner. 
This is so because not only were the Yankees able to acquire a great
catcher, but also were able to get rid of the much despised Kyle
Farnsworth.

Over the last three seasons, Farnsworth has been one of the most hated
men in New York.  On July 28 Farnsworth gave up 2 runs against the
Baltimore Orioles, his last appearance with the Yankees.  Before then,
he hadn’t given up a run since June 22 and in that time has lowered his
ERA from 4.24 to 3.65.  However, Yankees fans don’t care about that. 
He has blown too many games over the years and has caused too many
problems.

Farnsworth is a good pitcher, but simply has not done well for the
Yankees.  Farnsworth joined the Yankees in 2006 and since then has been
one of the hardest throwers.  But one thing he just couldn’t seem to
fix was his location.  You can throw the ball 100 MPH all you want, if
you can’t paint the corners and leave pitches right down the middle,
you’re going to get hit.

Farnsworth will be playing for the Tigers for the second time in his
career.  He played with them for a half of a season in 2005 and did
very well.  In 46 games, he pitched 42.2 innings, surrendered only 29
hits, 11 earned runs, 20 walks, and struck out 55 batters with a 2.32
ERA.  Hopefully for the Tigers and especially for Farnsworth, he will
play just like he did three seasons ago.

The other person in the trade, Ivan Rodriguez has said he would love to
play for the Yankees, now he has gotten the honor.  However, it appears
that his career with the Yankees will come to an end after this
season.  Rodriguez is a free agent at the end of the season and
Yankees’ long time catcher Jorge Posada will have recovered from his
surgery and will be ready to go opening day of 2009.

Rodriguez has a career batting average over .300, has 13 Gold Gloves,
and is a 14 time All-Star.  And although he is 36 years old and his
offensive numbers have deteriorated over the years, he is still one of
the best catchers in the game.  Because of this, Rodriguez would expect
a pretty big contract.

Signing Rodriguez to a big contract is not a financially rational
decision the Yankees would make.  There’s no need to sign Rodriguez to
a big contract when they can have Jose Molina for much less money and
who is a fine backup catcher with one of the highest rates of throwing
out base runners.  Not only that, it would be an insult to Rodriguez
and his great career to be signed as a backup.  For these reasons
alone, Rodriguez will not be wearing Yankee pinstripes next season.

All in all, both teams will benefit from this trade as they each got
what they needed.  However, in the Yankees case, this could be one of
the few times in the history of baseball where a team could lose a key
part of their bullpen without getting another pitcher in return and
fans would be happy about it.