Give Ivan Rodriguez and his agent credit. They landed in the one situation where Rodriguez, at the age of 37, has a chance to get significant time behind the plate for a team that desperately needed a catcher.
Rodriguez has not backed off his stance that he is not a backup and that limited the interest in just about every other team. Rodriguez is a Hall of Fame catcher, no doubt about that, but his On Base Percentage has been under .300 for two of the past three years.
He never had much patience as a batter, but what little he had is totally gone. Who can forget that the last four years, he has walked only 69 times in over 2000 plate appearances. That boggles the mind a little bit. Especially considering that in two of those years, he combined for just 20 walks in 1000+ plate appearances. Wow!
But a diminished Pudge is far better than anything the Astros already had. J. R. Towles might be a nice guy, but he's batted .188 in 180+ at bats. The other contender they had batted .234 last year. If Pudge can bat .270 and push is OBP over .300 at least, it will be a significant upgrade and he's still not a bad defensive catcher.
There has been some hints that pitchers in Detroit and New York did not enjoy throwing to him behind the plate. The Fan isn't sure what that is all about, but it's not like the guy has never done this before.
The bottom line is that Rodriguez is no longer a starter quality catcher. But he's better than anything the Astros had and for that, Pudge will get one more year to perhaps put a bookend on his HOF career back in the state of Texas where he should be comfortable.
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