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I don't know about "big", but that's my initial reaction too.
Looks like a win for the Twins to me too, but we'll have to see. This could be one of those trades were each guy rides the pine for the next 4 years.
Hardy is in his arb years so if the Twins decide he's not worth playing, they'll just non-tender him next off season. The problem with this trade from the Brewers end is that Carlos Gomez is terrible.
Sure. He could break out and become a poor man's Brett Gardner.
(I don't know why I'm being so hard on Gomez. I guess I just don't get this trade at all.)
EDIT: Count Barlett and Ortiz in the group of non-achievers, and then let me know how the first couple years of Delmon Young went. As I think about this more, he might be next.
There was a good piece on Hardy in THT I think maybe last month, that took a hard look at his numbers, IIRC, his contact rate really dipped, and obviously his power numbers tanked. I tend to think he has a fragile self-esteem, and I think Escobar's presence didn't help him personally.
As a Brewers fan, I don't think it is an obvious Twins win.
He's going to cost them at least $5M for next season, and they've already got a suitable in-house replacement. This isn't so much selling low, as clearing cash to address the actual needs of the team.
Don't be so hard on yourself:
Gardner: .270/.345/.379 in 284 PA, with 26/5 SB/CS
Gomez: .229/.287/.337 in 349 PA, with 14/7 SB/CS
Carlos Gomez will never hit enough to be anything other than a 5th outfielder/pinch-runner/late-inning defensive replacement.
That's pretty damn low-down. What a scummy thing to do.
Gomez: .229/.287/.337 in 349 PA, with 14/7 SB/CS
Yeah. Maybe Hardy is done as a good MLBer, but there are teams desperate for shortstops so I don't know why all they could get was Gomez. It's very possible I'm overrating Hardy. I probably am. But jeez, the Royals are trotting out Yuniesky Betancourt and the Giants are debating whether they want to punish their pitchers with Renteria or punish them with Juan Uribe. The Jays might lose Scutaro. If nothing else, Hardy is an excellent defender.
I really hope they don't. He's been a huge part of the defense the last couple years, and losing him (to go with the defensive downgrades at 3B and RF) will only encourage Halladay to get out of town.
I thought this was a done deal.
I love Scutaro but the Jays will have to pony up and hope someone else doesn't pony up. Have the Sawx been attached to any Scooter rumors? He seems like their kind of guy with his position flexibility.
Twins trade their worst young CF (out of Span, Morales, Hicks, Revere and Gomez) and get a SS, something they don't have anywhere in their organization. They can replace Carlos Gomez' production for the next 2 seasons cheaply off the waiver wire. They will either keep Hardy 2 years and get draft picks when he leaves as a type "A" free agent or sign him long-term. Whatever Hardy's self esteem problems are I don't think he'll be intimidated by Trevor Plouffe.
Punto will stay put at 2B or (hopefully) be a true utility player next season.
I thought for sure the Twins would have to give up pitching (Perkins) for Hardy. Now they can use pitching in another deal altogether.
Have you seen what the Sox trotted out at SS this year? He doesn't need to have positional flexibility to be of interest to them.
Looking at the gamelogs, it appears that Hardy was hitting .229/.300/.367 when he got sent down and he proceeded to bat .254/.284/.451 in AAA. I'm sure the "exactly 20 days to get another year of control" played into the decision, but it also looks like the Brewers would have a pretty simple case of simply pointing out to the arbitrator that Hardy simply didn't deserve to be in the majors at that point.
I actually kind of like this trade from the Brewers' perspective (full disclosure: I'm a Cubs fan. I mean this sincerely, but my view could be being colored by my fandom here). Gomez is the kind of guy that I think makes a lot of sense for the Brewers to pursue. He's potentially got a big upside (okay, this is probably where my analysis falls apart here, but certainly there was a time when Gomez was viewed as having a big upside and he'll still be only 24 next season) and even as an offensive sinkhole, I think his defense should help the Brewers' pitching staff, which probably needs all the help on defense that it can get.
I suspect the reason more wasn't made of it is that there was a pretty compelling case to send him to the minors, he was horrible this year.
While the deal does not seem to make much sense on the surface, isn't Hardy already at 4 or 5 million per year? That's a lot for a guy who may not have anything to offer. Still, it seems like they could have done better than this.
At which point he can be non-tendered...
From this year? Yeah, probably. However, given his defence and OBP, he'd still be a good bet, even if he fell back to his 2008 performance level. Besides, the Jays have no one else available in-house to take over the SS role, unless they decide to piss off Hill and move him back there again, at which point they suddenly have to address a hole at 2B.
Given the options, I'd rather the Jays overpay a bit for Scutaro than just end up with an absolute sinkhole at the position.
I assume they don't plan on sending Gomez to the minors after hitting .229 .287 .337 last year. They would probably win a legal battle but I think it's pretty clear FA-status was their real intent there.
I assumed that's what you meant. My point was that if Hardy hits poorly this year, he can be non-tendered and will still be a free agent. If he hits well, he's stuck with a moderately priced one year deal for 2011. The Brewers basically tacked on a team option year. There's no upside for Hardy, only downside.
As bad as he was last year, that would have still been an upgrade for the Twins, who were paying Punto $4 million to be worse offensively and defensively. OC was making $4 million as well, to be worse defensively but surprisingly better offensively. Mediocre shortstop play is expensive. Hardy's downside is as a mediocre shortstop....which is a big improvement for the Twins and a lot of teams.
I think he's worth a late first rounder for the Sawx, especially as they are aggressive with signability picks in later rounds.
-- MWE
Just to back this up, there are a number of arbitration cases (first related one I can think of was the Padres decision to release Juan Bonilla) where the arbitrators have made it pretty clear that they're not interested in second-guessing management on "good enough" decisions.
In other words any semi-plausible explanation about the decision to send Hardy down would have been good enough.
Which is why no grievance was filed.
The only time you have a realistic chance of winning is a situation like Bob Horner (where an arbitrator would laugh at the notion that the player was being sent down for on-field reasons)
But.
Span isn't a great centerfielder (Gomez was). Delmon, Cuddyer and Kubel are all born DHes. With Young-Span-Cuddyer out there every day (hopefully never, ever Kubel) and without even any obvious late-inning replacements available, that will be easily the worst defensive outfield in the major leagues. The Twins have a bunch of flyball pitchers. This is just not a good thing.
I don't know what the Brewers would have wanted in terms of minor leaguers or pitchers, but I hope Billy exhausted all his reasonable options there first. Gomez is going to be a bigger loss than people realize. If they demanded Gomez, I'd have held off and gone after a 2B and/or 3B instead (Nick Punto should be starting for this team, despite what people seem to think, and his best fit seems to be SS), maybe revisited if nothing else was working out.
But, again, it's a good deal overall. Happy to have Hardy. I'm just not looking forward to all the lazy-fly-ball doubles.
What do the advanced metrics say on Cuddyer in right? I never got the impression that he's a bad defender. He's definitely got a good arm.
Why?
That said, I think the Brewers could have done better.
I think there's a pretty good chance he's going Blauser.
Gomez may be 24 - and certainly didn't look much/at all better than Hardy, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the best the Brewers could do.
I like this trade for the Twins, too, but the idea that Hardy will be a type A free agent in a couple of years is . . . well, it's not out of the question, but I'd put something less than even money on it.
Well, thanks for asking!
http://www.thedailysomething.com/2009-articles/october/nick-punto-the-underappreciated-tiny-superhero.html
The defense will take a step back, but they're not going to be easily the worst in the league. Cuddyer is around average. Span will be below average in CF, but not abysmal. Young is below average too, but also not abysmal. Target Field will have much less foul ground in the outfield than the Metrodome....Cuddyer and Young will be able to take a few steps towards center to help cover up everyone's limited range. As #53 says, add a backup CF as a defensive replacement, slide Span over when needed, and they will be just fine...just like they were this year.
I agree with your assessment -- he generally seems adequate out there. He's the one guy I watch on a regular basis where I just can't make myself agree with what UZR says.
But the metrics are very, very not good. FanGraphs isn't loading for me right now (I'm pretty sure his 2009 was worse than this shows), but his plus/minus runs "saved" the last four years has been -16, -13, -5 and -9.
If you don't think Delmon Young is "abysmal," we've been watching different Minnesota Twins teams for the last two years. I think they need to find a new word below "abysmal" for Delmon's D.
That bad, huh? Yikes.
Jarrod Washburn will be signing at some point. I'd bet on that and also on Melvin being just as surprised when that doesn't work out as he was by the Suppan fiasco.
That's what I was thinking, too. Apparently they're interested in Lackey, which would obviously be much better than Washburn. Nevertheless, I think Doug's gonna have plenty of free time in the next couple of years to go hunting with Ned Yost.
http://www.thedailysomething.com/2009-articles/october/nick-punto-the-underappreciated-tiny-superhero.html
Thanks, but I don't buy it. He's got a .294 career wOBA. He needs to be an excellent SS (+10) to be averagish. More realistically, I think he's a 1.0 WAR type player.
I think he a great first guy off the bench to cover 2B/3B/SS, and injury fill in starter at any of those positions. But if he's your starter, you need to be looking for an upgrade.
Now FanGraphs is back. UZR actually thinks that Cuddyer used to be almost OK and has gotten worse, whereas plus/minus says he was horrible and has gotten a little better. -4.6, -4.6, -5.6, -16.9. But the -5.6 was accomplished in only 58 games, so that's not a good sign.
I agree with Bill P that the Twins OF defense is a problem but Gomez hardly played last year so it's not a new problem.
Re. Gomez, people always said, he's young. Of course he is the same age as Delmon Young about whom no one ever seemed to say, he's young. But I think this shows some intelligence on the Twins part. Trade Gomez. Keep Young. Time will show this to be the correct choice. I mean, Player A: A glove, D bat. Player B: B bat, D glove. On balance I'll take the bat.
Still you don't trade either one unless Hardy can play SS every day. So I'm with the "time will tell" crowd.
Career UZR/150 at short: 18.1 (I'm not arguing he'd give you that as a full-time player, but +10 is obviously not out of the question). And the wOBA is dragged down by his horrible, injury-plagued year in 2007 and to a lesser extent by his bad-luck BABIP year in '09.
If you're the Yankees, you look to upgrade. If you're the Twins and you have three enormous holes on your infield, Punto should be used to fill one of them.
If you're the Yankees, you look to upgrade. If you're the Twins and you have three enormous holes on your infield, Punto should be used to fill one of them.
But isn't he more valuable as a supersub, where his production is probably a good bit better than the near replacement level you usually get from backup IFs, than as a probably below average starter?
That career wOBA, and he's 32. I'm guessing he is what he is.
Well, Young is bad, and closer to abysmal than Span. But I still think there a bunch of others out there that are as bad or worse. If he was an .800 OPS player, no one would complain about his defense. And as I said, I think he'll look better at Target Field than in the Metrodome.
--Twins fan
You can't convince me that an excellent defensive shortstop who regularly puts up a better-than-average OBP is likely to be a below average starter without a lot of bad luck. He's just not. And he only has more value as a supersub if you can afford to acquire three different guys who are even better at 2B, 3B and SS. I can't see that happening. They'd almost certainly be better off pooling their money into two of those positions and let Punto fill the other.
I don't see how it's even possible to think that. 2009 is the only year in his entire career when his wOBA has been particularly close to that career .294 number. 2007, in which he was one of the worst players in the majors, represents 20% of his career PA at a .260 wOBA. In 2006 and 2008, he was a well above average player overall and had a .324 wOBA both years. In 2009, he hit essentially the same way he did in 2006 and 2008 in terms of the "batted ball profile," but he was hitting it right at 'em, and his BABIP dropped by more than 50 points from those other two years. He may or may not be a lot of things, but there's not a lot of evidence to suggest that he's anything like the player his career averages show.
Hey - I do that too! I just rarely post links anymore...
Wasn't there a Harvey/Dave_Cameron brouhaha over Hardy a little while back?
I don't want to upstage BillP, but Bat-girl also had some reasons:
The Adventures of Little Nicky Punto
Bat-girl can upstage me any time. I made at least two BG references in the piece I linked to. I try to get in as many as I can. The "Tiny Superhero" one she did, with the pictures, is pretty great. Not Legovision great, but pretty great.
He's got 2500 PA and is 32; he's got to be something like that.
In his seasons with over 350 PA (2005-2009) he's put up wOBAs of .282, .324, .260, .324, and .295.
The corresponding BABIPs have been .296, .338, .257, .337, .281.
The career averages are .294 wOBA and .301 BABIP. I don't see any reason to think Punto has a true talent significantly higher than his career BABIP. He doesn't hit the ball hard (almost no power), has good, but not great speed, and has an averagish LD-rate.
When he's been better than his career averages it has been due to unsustainablly high BABIP, when he's been below, the opposite is likely true.
I'd guess a .295 wOBA is about what he is.
To believe those things, you have to assume that 2007 is part of "what he is." In 2007, his LD% was about 2/3 of his otherwise established rate; he may not hit the ball hard as a general matter, but in 2007, he was barely hitting it at all. That's more than just a fluky BABIP. That's a completely different player than he was in 2006, 2008 and 2009. I believe he's said that he was playing through an injury that entire season, and it really showed.
Other than that, he's been about the same player since 2006, and that's a pretty good one. I don't doubt that his BABIPs were a little high in 2006 and 2008 (.338 and .337), but it seems more than just likely that his true talent is closer to that than than to this year's .281. Even at .310-.320, his wOBA would be well over .300 and, with his defense, he'd be an awfully useful starter.
Yeah, I'm not saying it's the end of the world if they have to start him. Just that it shouldn't be plan A or B. I'd look to get one FA, and one trade to fill 2B, 3B. Beltre and Lopez are pretty good ideas however.
That the trade was straight up is what bothers me given that JJ is a solid defender with a history of some pop in his bat. Melvin should have been able to get Gomez PLUS versus straight up.
I am not too sad at Cameron leaving only because he SO streaky at the plate one has to endure four months out of the year where Cameron is a borderline black hole at the plate. Yes, the defense is still good. But the lows are SO low one can understand the frustration among team leadership.
Doug Melvin continues to erode the talent base versus supplementing a solid core in Fielder, Braun and Gallardo. That's three guys way better than most have as their 'star' level talent and Melvin has managed to turn that into a whole lot of nothing.
Tick tock Doug. Tick tock.......
I agree. I thought for sure that when I got a text saying "Gomez for Hardy," there'd be more to the deal. I was pleasantly surprised.
Really? Can I reverse everything I said in this thread? You can't trade a guy like this. I'm not being snarky, either. Eccentric ballplayers are the best kind.
Carlos Gomez, career vs. Chicago White Sox - .317/.344/.504 in 132 career plate appearances.
As a bonus, Sox fans won't have to hear Ken Harrelson talk about how Gomez is the best player in the American League any more.
Dead serious. Gomez is the most eccentric guy I've ever watched play. I will really, really miss him. He was such a joy because he had so much fun out there.
Perhaps if the Sox run away with the Central, you'll get to hear him credit it to not having to worry about Gomez.
Risking Harveys' ire --
In Melvin's defense, it was hard to predict that virtually all of the Brewers' sort of 2nd tier talent -- Corey Hart, Bill Hall, JJ Hardy, Manny Parra -- would go so completely into the crapper simultaneously (maybe less so for Hall, who fell off a cliff, then just kept falling).
I think Melvin probably figured he had the top tier and the 2nd tier in place - and was just in a position where he would be looking to fill some holes. Instead, everyone outside the big 3 suddenly fell apart and rather than patching holes, he's facing chasms.
I'll take this scenario.
I think the Metrodome and/or playing next to very good centerfielders screws up Minnesota RF fielding stats.
I think it's the wall in RF more than the good cf. The league has lots of good CF that don't distort numbers like this, but short fence/tall wall parks (lf in BOS, RF in MIN) seem to corrupt the ZR and UZR numbers more than they should. It screws up the "arm rating" studies that occasionally pop up around the net too.
I am not too sad at Cameron leaving only because he SO streaky at the plate one has to endure four months out of the year where Cameron is a borderline black hole at the plate. Yes, the defense is still good. But the lows are SO low one can understand the frustration among team leadership.
I'm not sure trading for Gomez is going to address this. Maybe a little of the "he's young, he might improve" can help them through the rough patches.
Brewers aren't exactly buying low on Gomez.
Maybe Minny got something for Johan after all.
They already did: Jon Rauch!
This is what I find interesting. Two years ago, JJ Hardy (24 years old, coming off a 100 OPS+ season, slugging 463, 190 ISO, very good defense) for Johan Santana would have been a lot better than what the Twins actually got.
How things change ...
What evidence is there of this? He was rushed to the major leagues and in two seasons of regular play made absolutely no progress in any phase of the game. He's a good fielder. That's all. People have been wishcasting him based on his height and speed for years, and he's never done anything with any of it, and I've never seen any evidence that he's a particularly dedicated student of the game or anything.
The difference of course being that the Brewers now have about $10M that they can spend on pitching, which they desperately need. Actually, with Cameron not coming back and Hardy gone, that could be around $15M that the Brewers may have to play with.
The Brewers didn't have someone ready to replace Cameron fulltime if they let him go, so they hav e an option with Gomez. I would have preferred a pitcher as return for Hardy, but maybe teams are holding onto their pitchers so tightly that Melvin couldn't get what he wanted.
Forgetting that the Twins were forced into moving Santana and that they may or may not have botched the chance to get Ellsbury.... The Twins do great at identifying the really young Rookie League type guys who are going to blossom in 2-4 years. I mean, that's a crap shoot, and the Twins shoot craps well. And they seem to do OK with older worn out pitchers.
But evaluating older AAA type talent and young ML talent (and older position talent) not so much. When they actually trade a guy off their ML roster they come up with Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez.
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