Twins - Acquired Young
Minnesota Twins - Acquired OF Delmon Young, IF Brendan Harris, and OF Jason Pridie from the Tampa Bay Rays for P Matt Garza, SS Jason Bartlett, and P Eduardo Morlan
Just to keep the big trades the last few trades straight, this is the trade in which one side isn’t absolutely looting the other side.
The Twins have been quite good at cultivating pitchers in recent years, but although Mauer and Morneau were developed by the team (though one could argue that Mauer was essentially a finished product), the team has done a terrible job at developing players to fit in the core around them. The Devil Rays have been the opposite - they develop outfielders by the dozen but except for Young and infielders that don’t play defense. Both teams look better after the trade. The Twins get a player with superstar potential, though it would be overrating the odds to say that he was a lock, and the Rays now have a Kazmir-Shields-Garza top of the rotation with some terrific prospects. Hopefully gone are the days when the Rays (I’m still tempted to say Devil Rays) do things like keep sticking Mark Hendrickson in there because he’s huge and acting as the farewell tour for Hideo Nomo, International Man of Misery.
Brendan Harris can’t field shortstop, but he could be a serviceable 3B. Probably won’t hit anywhere near what one would like at the hot corner, but this is a team that thought they could compete with Nick Punto at 3rd. In a sense, Punto’s wretched season was an act of mercy - if he hit 330/330 as he probably should have, the Twins may have just been convinced that he was scrappy and worth it, but when he played that badly, it’s hard to even make that argument.
2008 ZiPS Projection - Matt Garza
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Projection 13 13 33 32 185 208 89 20 51 137 4.33L
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Opt. (15%) 16 10 35 34 197 200 80 14 58 170 3.65
Pes. (15%) 7 14 28 27 147 180 92 21 60 112 5.63
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Top Comps: Lynn McGlothen, Bob Moose
2008 ZiPS Projection - Delmon Young
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AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
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Projection 589 63 173 34 1 13 81 26 118 11 .294 .324 .421
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Opt. (15%) 638 82 208 45 2 18 100 33 103 17 .326 .361 .487
Pes. (15%) 508 46 136 28 0 9 58 17 111 7 .268 .292 .376
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Top Comps: Claudell Washington, Roberto Clemente
2008 ZiPS Projection - Brendan Harris
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AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
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Projection 492 64 133 29 2 11 57 42 99 3 .270 .332 .407
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Opt. (15%) 549 79 154 41 3 18 84 56 103 5 .281 .364 .464
Pes. (15%) 418 43 99 26 1 8 47 31 93 1 .237 .294 .361
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Top Comps: Harvey Kuenn, Chris Gomez
2008 ZiPS Projection - Jason Bartlett
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AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
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Projection 528 81 144 25 4 5 46 45 75 14 .273 .340 .366
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Opt. (15%) 579 100 171 32 7 7 66 52 71 23 .295 .365 .411
Pes. (15%) 447 57 113 18 4 2 39 30 67 11 .253 .306 .324
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Top Comps: Scott Fletcher, David Eckstein
Dan Szymborski
Posted: December 01, 2007 at 04:49 AM |
11 comment(s)
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1. Walt Davis Posted: December 01, 2007 at 06:04 AM (#2630454)eh? Kuenn was a pretty good hitter -- 108 OPS+ career, 105 through 26 (Harris' age). Gomez has always stunk as a hitter -- 82 career, 78 through 26. ZIPS seems a bit confused about Mr. Harris. :-)
That seems to perfectly sum up the debate on this trade. Young could go either way. If he's Claudell Washington, that's a useful player to have, but the kind of guy that you trade away when you can plug 2 or 3 holes. If he's Roberto Clemente, well, those are the trades you remember for a long time. It should be fun to find out which one he is.
Eduardo Morlan 22 5.01 4 6 42 9 97.0 105 54 17 30 78
Jason Pridie* cf 24 .253 .303 .379 139 494 55 125 22 5 10 44 32 94 14 7
Wow, ZIPS doesn't think Garza will be around AT ALL by age 35. Creepy.
They only have to win if for the next five, and with all the young talent on their roster and young arms in their system, they'll definitely be going for it at some point in the next five years.
It's way too early to write off Young. Granted. But all the posts comparing him to superstars who were also less than impressive at age 21 (Clemente, Yount, Yaz, Molitor, Sosa) ignore the fact that none of those players, producing as they did from ages 21 through 26, would do the 2007 through 2012 Tampa Bay Rays much good.
Yaz was a terrifc player from age 21-26, so was Molitor, Sosa and Clemente got going at age 25
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