Before the ‘07 draft, Baseball America listed Cusick as one of the five best pure hitters in the draft. They rated him as the 29th best prospect in our system.

what do we get in return?

LaTroy Hawkins had been designated for assignment by the Yankees.

only thing i might have liked would have been if LaTroy were signed for 2009, but he’s not. he was DFA’d by the Yankees on Saturday, so they obviously were ready to give up on him and his 5.71 ERA. i’ll confess to knowing nothing about Cusick, but the mere fact that he’s only 22 means to me that he’s not somebody the Astros should be unloading for a half season rental of a 35-year old journeyman reliever.

don’t like it one bit.

Yankees report says they gave up Hawkins and cash considerations for Cusick.

Ed Wade is quoted as saying Astros tried to sign Hawkins over the winter (same story we got on why Astros wanted Randy Wolf).

It’s so stupid you can’t even spell the word right when refering to this trade!

He does have a high ERA (5.71) but that is due to a bad start. His ERA has been (generally) declining ever since. For the month of July, his ERA is 4.05. Wade claims Hawkins has been working on his stuff so he’s getting better. He also hasn’t given up many home runs, which is a good thing for the Astros. He’s given up 3 this year in 41 innings. Another positive, is he kills right handers. They are batting only .227 against him and his ERA against them is only 2.42. As a double bonus, he’s given up no home runs against right handed batters. His WHIP? Only 0.96. He’s only given up 3 unintentional walks to right handers.

The downside to all this is that he’s terrible against left handers this year. Everything good I just had to say about his ability to pitch to right handers. Well, it’s exactly opposite for left handers.

Hawkin’s role to me is simple. Use him only when facing consecutive right handers in an inning. Or use him to get a big right hander out. I don’t know what his career splits look like, but this is what he’s done this year and I like to play trends. So that’s what I’d do with him.

I’m not saying that the Astros can’t find some use for Hawkins in the pen, as entropic said. But why give up anything for him? Hawkins’ quotes indicate that he is ecstatic anyone wanted him. While I appreciate the fact he is happy to come to Houston, it also makes you wonder if he wouldn’t be signable after the waiver period ended. Perhaps some other teams were trying to trade for him…who knows. I’ll have to trust the Astros’ organization’s judgement on Cusick, I guess. At his level, the odds of becoming a ML player may be low. But if he becomes a good major league player (these things happen all the time), Astros’ fans will be unhappy and Wade will have ‘splainin’ to do.

Would you rather have LaTroy Hawkins or Chad Paronto in the bullpen?

P.S. – Some Chronicle staffer said Astros were interested in David Weathers. I shivered.