By the way, I read the article and agree with a lot of your key reasons: increasing 250 OPS at one position and an end to the Astros paradigm.

Even though I am guilty of not following your first point in some of my arguments, I do agree that it makes more sense to evaluate improvements on a positional basis. In other words, it is Tejada's excess over the average ss, that must be compared to Pence's excess over the average RF; assuming this was a straight up trade, and Pence's stats were major league stats.

The second reason is misunderstood, IMO. Not by you, but by the Astros themselves. I'd argue that it was not the exceptional defense of Everett, or the whatever-they-love-about-Ausmus abilities that made the Astros world series participant last year. It was exceptional pitching. Pure and simple. In fact, I'd argue that if they would have improved the offense at those positions, even at the expense of the defense, they might well be World Champs now. However, the championship would largely still been a result of their pitching, IMO.

Another interesting tidbit regarding the Astro's paradigm. Tejada's minor league OPS was 833. Zobrist's is over 888. I'd agree that Tejada will most likely be a better major leaguer than Zobrist, but I found that interesting. It appears that Zobrist was not a great defensive shortstop, and his impressive offense was not a big enough counterwieght in the mind of the organization. I'd argue that that paradigm still lingers in the organization.