Give me a break. Goldman is really reaching on this one. “I think Joe Mauer was available–yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket!”

In his criticism of Molina, Goldman fails to mention his tremendous success throwing out base-stealers as well as his great work behind the plate.

If this lineup couldn’t carry a Jose Molina, they didn’t deserve to win.

Its ridiculous to blame Cashman for the fact that Molina has gotten so many starts even after Pudge was acquired, since it was Mussina and Pettitte who took exactly one start to decide that they couldn’t throw to Pudge and insist that Molina catch them.

He’s not totally wrong but I would argue that acquiring Luis Ayala to replace Billy Wagner is a lot easier than acquiring Pudge Rodriguez to replace Jose Molina for the simple reasons that (1) Pudge likely wasn’t available before the trade deadline since the Tigers were picked as playoff favorites in preseason and (2) it only cost the Mets a player to be named later for a pitcher that was on a go-nowhere team.

Could Cashman have done more? Sure, anytime you lose, you have to figure that something, ANYTHING, might’ve been done differently. But Goldman’s point is a bit disingenuous since the construction of the two trades are not at all symmetrical.