El Duque / Jorge Julio Trade

I've meant to say something about the Mets trading Jorge Julio to Arizona for Orlando Hernandez. Most people think this is a good trade for both teams. I'm not so sure.

El Duque didn't seem to take to Bank One Ballpark - oops I mean Chase Field - where he had a 8.16 ERA but Hernandez was solid on the road with a 2.65 road ERA. You've probably heard that from others already - but what most people don't mention is that the decent road ERA is based only on 3 games.

What bothers me is why the Diamondbacks would give up so quickly on Hernandez? Its not like Arizona has a ton of available starters. Right now their 3 and 4 starters (Claudio Vargas and Juan Cruz) are a combined 6-5 with a combined 5.23 ERA (the average ERA for a NL starter is 4.48 so far this year). They need a starter more than a reliever. Why jump off the El Duque bandwagon so quickly?

It also bothers me that lefties are hitting a whopping .376 against him this year (lefties have always hit him well though - hitting .273 against him in his career). Ryan Howard and Chipper Jones (a switch hitter) are probably already licking their chops.

What this trade also means is that the Mets basically traded Kris Benson for Orlando Hernandez and that the Diamondbacks traded Javier Vazquez for Jorge Julio. Neither of those trades look good for the Mets or Diamondbacks.