Again, I totally understand. Is it worth the trade-off defensively? Why did they trade away a perfectly good catcher plus an ok minor league arm for Hank Conger? Who are these other catchers that should be playing for the Stros? Where are these offensive-tolerable catchers who can also actually play catcher at a high level? These are my questions. I don't think I'm "overblowing" anything, but maybe I am. I've read the game threads the last couple of days, so I may have a difficult time differentiating between "knowledgeable people" and "GARMites".
I think its just your usual gut reaction when people question Castro (its clear he's a favorite)... but even you have to admit that he's sinking to a new depth at the plate, and if his defense is not the difference maker it once was (he's probably about league average right now), its worth exploring if his bat doesn't can't even reach AA or AAA levels of acceptance. Those 3 pitches that were just basically down the middle that he struggled to make any sort of contact on, is a microcosm of his overall struggles. They aren't even trying to deceive him much at the plate anymore... just throwing it down the middle and daring him to do something with it.
Uh, no. I don't give a crap about him outside of comparing him to the other options. I know you thought I was "biased" against the other guy last year, but sorry, I'm just biased against terrible defense behind the plate. I can tolerate a certain level of horrific hitting at C given that the rest of the team is built to win around it (see: Matheny, Mike, Cardinals).