Rangers - Acquired Eaton
Texas Rangers - Acquired P Adam Eaton and P Akinori Ohtsuka and an unnamed prospect from the San Diego Padres for 1B Adrian Gonzalez, P Chris Young, and OF Termel Sledge.
Well, the Ranger front office gave away all the newfound-love they acquired last week in the clever Soriano for Wilkerson-Sledge swap. My best guess? The Rangers totally got Adam Eaton and Jake Peavy confused, thinking that they’re landing the guy that finished in the top 10 in ERA the last two seasons and has 3 years until free agency rather than Eaton, who has put up a better-than-league-average ERA+ once in his career, during his 22-start rookie campaign. Chris Young, despite wearing down the second half of the season, had a better year than Eaton has ever had in the majors. And he won’t be a free agent until the winter of 2010.
In return for this downgrade in value (even if we call them equal in ability or call Eaton a bit superior, Young’s cheaper for a long time and under team control), they trade a good, though not top-notch, 1B prospect and throw in a suitable starting outfielder/4th outfielder for the Pads bench. No doubt people will cry SALARY DUMP!!!! but if you can dump salary and get better, where’s the downside? Yes, Ohtsuka is a very valuable reliever and probably the more valuable commodity the Padres are giving up, but this is a lot of talent to send out of the system.
Thumbs up for the Padres, making up somewhat for the Mirabelli-Loretta debacle. As an entertaining side dish to this trade, due to the extreme park differences between Chase and Petco, everyone in this trade except Chris Young will look a good bit worse than they are.
2006 ZiPS Projections
———————————————————————————————————
Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
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Gonzalez 470 54 124 22 2 16 56 35 78 1 .264 .318 .421
Sledge 351 31 86 16 5 11 47 37 60 2 .245 .316 .413
2006 ZiPS Projections
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Player W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
——————————————————————————————-
Eaton 10 10 29 28 170 184 92 26 50 119 4.87
Otsuka 6 4 69 0 69 63 31 5 30 62 4.04
Young 9 9 29 29 148 134 65 15 47 135 3.95
Dan Szymborski
Posted: December 20, 2005 at 09:26 PM |
37 comment(s)
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1. robinredAs for Texas, they don't really need Sledge and Gonzalez, but I think they would have been better served by keeping Young and flipping Sledge + Gonzalez or some such package for one pitcher to build up rotation depth.
I don't get this trade for the Rangers at all. Seems like they're getting worse (and acquiring an injury risk in Eaton) while giving up good trading chips.
I can't blame them, considering the kajillion times I've done this.
In that park he's likely to have a bunch of game scores that make cpmlete sense listed next to the name "Young, C"
I sure hope Chris Young looks good at Chase. That's why the Dbacks acquired him in the Javy deal. And his defense alone at Petco would make him worth having.
I'm disappointed. The Padres got quite a bit better here. And cheaper. Not what I would've liked to see. As if the Redsoxification of the Dodgers wasn't enough...
Could be worse, Dan. Once in a while, I still confuse Jake Peavy and Mike Bynum.
I still can't believe they traded Mark ####### Loretta. Why the hell would you do that?
Almost as embarassing as the time that Albert Pujols was only 3B eligible, and the league wouldn't let my dad and his co-owner put him in the outfield, so they couldn't bid on him. They had money left on the table, and could have had Pujols for his rookie year--and still have him locked up today.
Or the time we traded Dontrelle Willis for Marlon Byrd.
Or when I thought 2005 was Corey Patterson's bust out year.
*sigh*
Oddly enough, the team has won the league in 2 out of 5 years, and finished in the money one other time. Back when Vlad was in the NL, we rode him to victory two years in a row.
Roto is sort of like high-school sports now. I have never met anyone who admits to having been/being a crappy high school athlete or having/having had a crappy roto team. I guess if you finish 9th in your roto league every year you don't talk about it.
Not that I'm saying this isn't your actual pitching staff--I'm just pointing out the general phenomenon.
Obvious. They'll trade back to Washington for Soriano.
But even I wouldn't have made this trade. The Rangers are dopes.
I like Dan's theory that the Rangers thought they were getting Jake Peavy. Extreme groundballer, three years to free agency...for Young...hmm, you could see someone taking that chance in Texas. But for Adam Eaton? Young is better than Eaton right now, and cheaper. This makes the Rangers rotation worse this year, and the next.
I should be up front about Adrian Gonzalez and Terrmel Sledge: I like them both a lot, and think they can be starters. They are also both surplus in Texas, and had to be traded. So good for Daniels to do that, rather than let them regress in AAA or on the bench. The Padres should go with Klesko in LF again, Giles in RF, and Cameron in CF, and give Gonzalez the 1B job. Trade Dave Roberts, which we all expect them to do, to either the Yankees or Red Sox. I like Gonzalez more than Ben Johnson.
Otsuka is a good pitcher. I think his debut was an abberation though, so Texas should expect more of 2005 than 2004. No one can sustain a 1.75 ERA. So look for a K/9 of 9, and he keeps the ball down. A good acquisition, but guys like this can be found if you look. (Looking at Benoit on your own roster would be a good place to start. I think he could post similar numbers as a setup man. But they can't seem to decide what to do with him, and given how thin this rotation is looking, they might through him back out as a starter, which I think is a mistake.)
So they get an A-list reliever, and do not improve their rotation situation, for Gonzalez, Sledge, and losing Young. I know the Rangers probably "owe" the Padres a favour, for taking Chan-Ho off their hands, but this is a bad trade. I want to give a new guy some time, not judge him right away. But it's getting harder and harder to refrain from heckling Jon Daniels. He's crossed the line into buffoon territory now.
I was a pretty crappy high school athlete. It's not as shameful when you go to a huge highschool though.
I've also had bad roto teams... I'm in a 10 team AL only league with 40 man rosters (29 active). We've had the same owners since 1994 and they all know what they are doing, so someone has to finish 10th... (I finished 9th this year in full rebuild mode).
Well, DMB accounts for park effects, so it's not as if the trade makes a difference there. May impact trade values if the other owners don't take those into account, however.
So do Gonzalez or Sledge have a shot at a starting job? I thought Klesko was moving to 1B, which should open up a spot in the outfield for someone, either Sledge or Ben Johnson. Is that the latest plan?
Poor Terrmel Sledge. Goes from a lousy hitter's park to a great hitter's park and then right back to an even worse hitter's park than he started in.
If you've seen Otsuka pitch you know that he has a "trick" delivery which I think that baseball people feel will become less effective as batters see him more. His stats over the last two years seem to bear this out as his ERA rose from 1.75 to 3.59 last year. His walks rose and his strikeouts declined. This seems to reinforce this but his numbers were destroyed by some atrocious pitching in Arizona (1.1IP, 11R, 5BB, 0-4 Record!).
Me? I don't really know what purpose Sledge plays (could he be traded again? Or will Roberts be traded?) and I am not sure what he offers that Ben Johnson does not. I also think that Otsuka is a damn fine relivier.
Still, I am a fan of Gonzalez, I think he will have a really good next six year and Young looks to be as good as Eaton while being younger, cheaper (Eaton wanted 3 yrs. $27 mil), and healthier.
Anyone know how good this prospect is? A 19 year old catcher seems like a real wild card, kinda like an A-ball arm and the Pads already have the next Posada (at least to me) in George Kottaras.
Home: 36.2 IP, 20 H, 39/15 K/BB, 1.23 ERA
Road: 26.0 IP, 35 H, 21/19 K/BB, 6.92 ERA
Needless to say, this does not bode well for Otsuka's performance in Texas.
Organization filler. Career AVG/OBP/SLG line of .218/.290/.291, mostly at the Rookie League level. Only played 14 games last year. Maybe Killian retired at the end of May and Daniels doesn't realize it?
Especially with Hoffman being rather injury prone
Any ideas who might fill in?
115AB...287/300/391/691...28K/3BB
Scott Linebrink for one
linky who has probably been the Padres' best reliever over the past two seasons.
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