Trades Starting to Happen

Two trades were made today.  The Mets sent Ryan Church and cash to the Braves for Jeff Francoeur, and the Mariners sent Yuniesky Betancourt to the Royals for two minor league pitchers.

Francoeur is a player who has certain talents, but I’ve never been a fan of his because he doesn’t get on base.  His career OPS is .308, which is terrible for a rightfielder, even one who gives you as much defense as Francoeur.

When Francoeur first came up a few years ago and had a couple of big seasons at a young age, I expected that he would eventually stop hitting when the NL’s pitchers (and scouts) decided to stop throwing him strikes.  That is pretty much what happened.  His OPS was .653 last year and is .634 after the first half of 2009.

Francoeur has 65 rightfield assists in about four full seasons of play, which is tremendous, and he has good range, but even with that defense, an OPS below .725 is just too low.  He hasn’t even been close to that the last year and half.

Francoeur is only 25 this year, so he could potentially still develop an acceptable level of plate discipline, but his career numbers suggest that he won’t do so before he plays his way out of the major leagues.

This is a concern I have about Giants’ prospect Nate Schierholtz.  He’s an excellent hitter, but it won’t do him much good once NL pitchers learn they don’t have to throw him much more than one strike per at bat.  Schierholtz is the same age as Francoeur, and in 340 career AB’s, Schierholtz has drawn only 12 walks, remarkably similar to Francoeur’s 12 walks in 304 AB’s so far this year.  Both players are rightfielders with excellent throwing arms.

Ryan Church is 30 this year, and he’s no great shakes, but right now he gives you more offensive value than Francoeur.  This looks like a deal that’s more addition by subtraction for the Braves than anything else.  Church can play both center and right well in a back-up role or in a platoon capacity, but I can’t see him being an every-day player.  Looking at the Braves’ major league and AAA rosters, I don’t see a lot of other options, though.

I’m not sure what the Mets think they’re getting in Francoeur.  He’s young, so he definitely has more upside than Church.  Maybe the Mets think they can teach him to swing at strikes.  It’s not as easy as it sounds, so we’ll see how that works out for them.

As for the Yuniesky Betancourt trade, it looks like the kind of trade that keeps stupid, small-market teams in the cellar.  The Royals gave up two good young arms for a player who improves them at shortstop in the short term, but isn’t the kind of player who gets you to the post-season.

Betancourt is only 27 this year, so there’s a chance his best years are ahead of him.  However, the trend in his career is negative.  After OPS’s of .713 and .725 in 20o6 and 2007, his OPS dropped to .691 in 2008 and is .609 through the first half of 2009.

Betancourt’s defense is probably not as bad as some say, but is still only near the top of the bottom half of AL shortstops.  That’s not good enough for a shortstop with a .695 career OPS.  At that OPS, your defense needs to be in the top 25%.

The two pitchers the Mariners acquired, Danny Cortes and Derrick Saito, are a long way from the majors, but both are promising.

Cortes is 22, and although he’s struggled with his control this year at AA, it’s worth noting that his 3.92 ERA is by far the best ERA of any of the five starters on the Northwest Arkansas Naturals (I had never heard of this team before either; they play in the Texas League out of Springdale, Arkansas, which is just outside of Fayetteville).  The next best starter’s ERA is 5.16.  The Texas League is full of high-elevation, hot weather parks where the struck balls fly free.

Derrick Saito is a small 21 year old left-hander from Hawaii who played college ball at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.  He has 53 K’s and only 15 BB’s in 52 IP in the Class A Midwest League so far this year.   At this point, he’s too far away from the majors to project at all, but he’s young and he’s striking people out in professional baseball, so he’s got a real chance.

Trading for Betancourt makes sense if the Royals have a reasonable chance of making the post-season this year.  They don’t.  They’re 10.5 games back in the AL’s weakest division, 6.5 games behind the third-place Twins.  If the Royals wanted a better shortstop, they would have been better off waiting until the off-season, when they’d likely have more optioins availbable to them.