White Sox - Acquired Pena (the non-lousy one)

Chicago White Sox - Acquired P Tony Pena from the Arizona Diamondbacks for 1B Brandon Allen

This strikes me as a rather strange move, though I won’t get too creative with bashing it as White Sox moves I like tend to bomb and White moves I hate tend to succeed.

Allen has been a bit disappointing this season, hitting 290/372/452 for Birmingham after going 275/358/614 for the Barons last season, but the Sox aren’t exactly awash with hitting prospects on that side of the offensive spectrum and the Nerk isn’t going to be the starter at the cold corner forever.  If there were a desperate need for a bullpen arm for the pennant race, I can understand it (Allen isn’t a top-shelf prospect).  But while Pena’s a reliever with value, the epitome of league-average, he also should be no higher than the 3rd righty option in the bullpen (ignoring Jenks) behind Linebrink and the rejuvenated K-Tel.

For the Diamondbacks, this was an opportunity to improve their minor league depth at the position.  The 1B prospect depth they have had in recent years has largely been bled off for one reason or another and Allen would be the youngest 1B prospect above A-ball for the team.  Allen’s hardly an iron lock to ever be anything in the majors, but he’s worth hanging onto in the minors and seeing what happens.

2009 ZIPS Projection - Brandon Allen
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                AB    R    H  2B  3B  HR  RBI   BB   SO  SB   BA  OBP  SLG
——————————————————————————————————————

Year-to-Date   310   38   79  13   1   7   35   20   63   1 .255 .301 .371

Rest-of-Year   286   37   72  14   1  13   41   19   69   5 .253 .302 .450
——————————————————————————————————————

2009 ZIPS Projection - Tony Pena
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                 W    L    G  GS     IP    H   ER   HR   BB   SO   ERA
——————————————————————————————————————

Year-to-Date     5    3   37   0   34.0   41   16    3   11   26  4.24

Rest-of-Year     3    2   36   0   37.3   38   17    4   11   28  4.10
——————————————————————————————————————

Total            8    5   73   0   71.3   79   33    7   22   54  4.16

Year-to-date totals include minor-league translations, if applicable.