Upton Rumors: Saunders vs Gutierrez
Rumor sez:
The D-Backs want Bard + Ellsbury + whatever from Boston. Bard is a great closer-in-waiting, but
Did they forget a Jon Lester in there somewhere or ? ;- ) That would be kind of like Lueke/Cortes + Guti WITHOUT Pineda.
Anybody here going to consider giving up Michael Pineda for a real good short reliever?!
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ML-ready Opening Day starters are gold, baby.
You ever try to trade for a 97-mph pheenom who has aced AAA and is ready next March? I'd rather try to buy a 2011 Camaro... You think that Toronto would trade you Kyle Drabek for, say, Franklin Gutierrez?
Ellsbury's fine, but agree that he has to struggle to match up to Gutierrez (both playing in neutral parks).
Basic reaction to this particular Red Sox rumor is that the DBacks may not be getting as wild-n-crazy as people thought they would. Sounds like a Pineda 5-for-1 is running even down the back stretch.
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Also wouldn't get carried away about Pineda's health questions. Every young pitcher is a major health question. Drabek himself is coming off one major surgery already. Pitchers throw in pain their entire careers; it's all relative.
Pineda has had some soreness, but started the full 25 games in 2010 and finished real strong. I don't think that ML GM's are going to discount Pineda much, if at all, based on injury concerns.
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Can't say what Kevin Towers thinks of Pineda specifically. But if he thinks Pineda is anything less than a bona fide franchise #1 prospect, then you don't have a match with Arizona on that one.
Just 'cause Pineda's our #3, doesn't mean he's not a lot of teams' #1.
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G with yet more officer thinking:
I would do Saunders/Pineda/Cortes to fill those 3 needs and throw in another minor leaguer (Poythress?) or two. If they don't want Saunders I can throw in Gutierrez and move Saunders to CF, which he CAN play - though not as well as Franklin does.
I looooooov eeeet.
Will be all alone on this one, but I might almost prefer Michael Saunders in center field, the next three years, to Franklin Gutierrez.
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1. Safeco. My dread of righty-Safeco-drain-swirl knows no bounds. Gutierrez had a regression year when he should have leaped a nice plateau.
Michael Saunders, it says here, is going to hit .250 with 30 homers -- and after you put him in CENTER field, he goes from [dubious LF bat] to [exciting potential for a glove player].
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2. Defense. SSI staunchly maintains that most of what you are seeing, with these UZR's from Jeremy Reed and Randy Winn and Franklin Gutierrez, is the floating-beach-ball effect in Safeco.
I love Saunders' gait as he runs down fly balls. I wouldn't bet you anything I was afraid to lose, that Michael Saunders' UZR's wouldn't be very comparable to Guti's.
Yeah, I know. But after it occurred, everybody would go oh well whatever nevermind.
One thing that mystifes me: No idea how Seattle Mariner fans watched this dude run down low pops in foul territory and didn't credit him with blazing outfield speed. This guy can pick 'em up and lay 'em down.
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3. Salary. Supposing that Saunders does post a 100 OPS+ and [shockingly] shows nice UZR's, boom, he's a magical 3-4 WAR player and all the sabes are on board.
Then we're saving $5 mills a year, right?
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I'm not sure I don't push Gutierrez at them and hold back Mick Saunders for myself. Very enthused about that concept.
At the very least, if it's for Justin Upton, I surely don' mind givin' 'em their pick of the two.
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Cheerio,
Dr D