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 
———————————————————————————————————

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
——————————————————————————————-

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