Had never heard of any these guys until this morning.
Furbush looks like Vargas-plus-Ks and that's a good fit for Safeco. Obviously, they thought the Fister-Furbush delta (that sounds oddly scientific, doesn't it?) might be small and that the chance to add bats made the trade worth it. Z's comment also indicated that Beavan's performance made them willing to trade Fister.
Wells looks like a solid upgrade over Halman and Peguero (talk about not walking a lot). K rates don't look too scary to me for a guy with decent power. I'd think he's more likely to take ABs from Guti (and Halman, obviously) than from Carp. Cust is gone and AK fading and/or gone -- Carp gets their DH time and will share LF with Wells.
I don't foresee Wily Mo with the big club after the Wells acquisition, but I could be wrong.
Wells may get the most ink/pixels due his MLB splash last year, but he doesn't necessarily seem like the key to the deal to me.
Martinez seems like maybe the one Z views as the main guy. The Tigers obviously loved the tools to have run him all the way up to AA at 20 without big numbers to back it up. The Z-crew must think he's got a good chance to bust out. Baseball America had Martinez as the #4 guy in the Tigers' org.
Jon Sickles has an analysis up. Preseason he had these guys 10, 11 and 17, but Furbush (who was 17) would have moved up to a C+ and thus in the same range as the other two.
I think the Z-crew likes Furbush better than that (in Safeco) and ranks Martinez more like BA (tools) than the other ratings.
Of course, the PTBNL will be a factor, too.
It does seem to be a riskier trade than it ought to have been, given Fister's level of peformance and salary status. Z was really in need of offense, obviously, and had been stating how hard it was to get teams to give up bats.
Add new comment
1