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Lookout Landing

Wladimir Balentien Traded to Cincinnati for Robert Manuel

According, so far, only to Ed Price. Hopefully this gets confirmed elsewhere soon. Divish confirms.

Robert Manuel

A 25-year-old right handed reliever who runs great strikeout-to-walk ratios. More later, I do not want to take space away from Jeff's trade piece below.

0 recs  |  44 comments

Comments

Like it a lot

Surprised we got value back for Wlad.

12:102 uBB/K ratio last year between three levels

and he’s held his own at AAA last year

Looks promising

The day is saved!

Seriously, though, nice to see we got something useful for Wlad.

Better trade of the day.

Could be a good reliever.

Finally we trade Balentien for a relief arm

Two years too late

Don't make me cry about 07 all over again
Say hello to tomorrow's Baker column
Wow, that is very cool.
Drayer confirms
Manual is a no-stuff guy

Fastball is 85-87, lives off his change-up.

Bleh.

Z is good at his job.

/Kenny Mayne

I hope Bavasi was among those in the Reds' FO pushing for Wlad's services.
Anyone else having trouble loading Fangraphs?

I’m trying to look at Manuel and it’s taking longer to load than USSM. Same crowd I guess.

USSM readers may/may not have crashed it
It's down.
Basic summary

5% BB, 30% K%, 30% GB% as he climbed through the ladder last year. Strike throwing and bat missing extreme flyballer. Those guys are almost always command guys with good change-ups and no fastball.

Pitch F/x confirms. Fastest pitch this year is 87.4, fastball averages 85, throws about 50% change-ups.

So he's a worse Jason Vargas?
Right-handed Jason Vargas with no potential to move into the rotation

Not exactly a premium player.

Our best bet is that he’s the next Mark DiFelice.

Right handed Moran?
Right. A worse Jason Vargas.

Weirdly, not sure how good the MLBAM pitch ID is but average speeds on his pitches (in 2009 MLB only):

FA: 85.6 (n=30)
CH: 81.2 (n=28)
SL: 79.4 (n=20)

I would have expected to see a bigger difference in FA v CH speeds for someone who lives off his change.

Any idea if the slider is real?

Havent seen him yet

I’ll get around to watching video of one of his appearances on MLB.tv later tonight.

I think Conor's seen him though
I'm watching him right now and it is every bit as spellbinding as you'd think it is
I am picturing a man of mysterious but intriguing ethnic roots

with a knowing smile and blue bedroom eyes.

Oh my god his fastball
Robert Manuel's "fastball?"
His slider is real
ly good?

Please say yes.

No
Apparently the scouting report in the Prospect Handbook is spot on so I'll write that up when I go home
BA said he had the best control in the system, for whatever that's worth

He better.

Please say yes.
It doesn't break much
Yay!
His change looks like his fastball
I guess that's good?
What a stud!
Maybe he has a deceptive delivery

To compensate for his horribly average repertoire.

Sounds like a young version of the old Jamie Moyer
So we're getting him only to flip him to Tampa Bay?

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