KillerBee7
06-13-2008, 06:44 PM
The guy was/is never a great hitter but he is one of the best defensive catchers ever. He could have easily retired & look where we would be. Humberto Quintero would be our starter since JR Towles has failed so far. I don't think JR is a lost cause & he could turn out to be a decent catcher but we also drafted a catcher so that has to say something.
Westlake
06-13-2008, 07:06 PM
I don't think he's one of the best defensive catchers ever, considering he's not even the best of his era (that would be Pudge Rodriguez). If he retired, the Astros really wouldn't be THAT much different at this point. Towles and Ausmus both have been incredibly awful at the plate. I like Brad, but I really don't think he's much of a difference maker on this year's club.
Castro being taken at #10 was a pretty bad move. Smoak would have been a great pick. A friend of mine wrote about it a few days ago on his blog...
"The thing I don’t like about the Castro pick is you have supposedly your catcher of now and the future at the big league level in J.R. Towles, who’s only 24, you have a high school catcher you drafted in the first round in 2006 (Max Sapp) and now Castro, who’s 20. You also wasted a second rounder on high school catcher Ralph Henriquez in 2005, who was traded last year So, for those of you counting at home, that’s two first rounders and one second rounder on catchers in the last four years. Ridiculous."
http://blog.crawfordstreet.com/2008/06/06/draft-day.aspx