SELL OUT! A Symphony in Twenty Parts: George Kottaras Edition

In case you missed parts 1 and 2, wherein we explored the reasons for and against trading Manny Parra and Nyjer Morgan, respectively.

Hi! My name is HANDSOME GEORGE KOTTARAS. And here's why you should trade me!

2012/Career vitals: In 2012, 3τO (that's a tau, by the way; Hashtag GreekJoke) is rocking a preposterous .236/.439/.417 line, thanks to the 26 walks he's drawn in 99 plate appearances. Unfortunately, his power stroke has abandoned him in the last couple months: George hasn't homered in more than two months (his last came on April 13 against Atlanta), and in May and June, he's slugging a Kendell-ian .265, with just three doubles and six singles in 65 plate appearances. FanGraphs pegs him at 1.0 WAR thus far, with the obvious caveat that his defense as a catcher isn't factored into the equation.

For his career, Kottaras goes .241/.344/.402. In 210 MLB games, he's been worth 2.4 fWAR. He is also really, really, incredibly and almost impossibly good looking.

Contract sitch: Did you know that Handsome George is a Super 2? I had no idea. This is his first year of arbitration, and he agreed to a one-year, $700,000 contract before the season, but he's got three years of arbitration remaining because of his Super 2 status.

DEAL ME NOW! A backup catcher, with an excellent eye and (at least a hint of) pop, who comes on the cheap and is under team control for three more years? Make me an offer before I change my mind and hang onto him, guys!

Please don't read this part, opposing GMs: I'm not very good at judging a catcher's defense, but my amateur eyes tell me that Handsome George is easily the worst of the three catchers we've seen in Milwaukee this year. Lucroy is good at the framing pitches thing, and Marty looks like a young Henry Blanco behind the plate, but George is just ... meh. I'm not saying he's Mike Piazza or whatever, but I don't think Kottaras is ever going to be anything but a backup.

Truth is: I don't see how he's that much different than somebody like Mike Rivera: a decent-if-unspectacular hitter who's probably a little overvalued simply because he can play catcher. And why some other team would give up something of value for a player like that, I'm not exactly sure.

Fill in the blank: George Kottaras is worth his weight in: Axe body spray.

Gratuitous note about the History Channel's 7 Signs of the Apocalypse: For some reason, Mrs. Q was watching the History Channel's "All Apocalypse All The Time" programming during the noon feeding of the Infants Q yesterday. (I say "for some reason" because those doomsday shows scare the crap out of m'lady, but she loves to watch them. She's also terrified of aliens, but loves The X-Files. She is a riddle wrapped in an enigma, my precious flower.) Anyway: I caught the tail-end of the program about the end of the Mayan calendar and all that jazz, and stuck around for the beginning of the next program, which was titled 7 Signs of the Apocalypse.

I'm not here to debate the merits of the theories espoused by the seemingly-intelligent guys and gals who appeared on the program. I'd simply like to offer comment on one of them, a bearded fellow who said something along these lines at the beginning of the show:

"Something that everybody -- I don't care if you're an atheist, or a Catholic, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Scientologist -- agrees on, is that the Apocalypse is coming soon."

I have to believe this cat is the worst party guest of all time. You go up to him, and you're all: "Hey, Bob! Been a while. How're things?" And he's like: "They're ending. Soon." And you're not exactly sure if he's joking or not, so you probably chuckle awkwardly and help yourself to another mimosa and hope dude doesn't corner you and talk your ear off about locusts or something.

Why Doug Melvin probably won't trade him: Because you usually don't trade catchers. And because he's worried about severing the symbiotic relationship that Kottaras has with Randy Wolf. Wolf's bad enough as it is; you don't want him moping around the clubhouse in just his jock strap and a Spirit of the Wild T-shirt, quietly singing "Missing" and eating day-old gyros.

How desperate should we be to move him, on the Rubie Q Patented Trade This Slug-O-Meter: I feel good with Marty Maldonado and Jon Lucroy behind the dish (OR DO I? Tease). Let's give George a 9.