Money Ball Moves

The Red Sox traded for minor league middle infielder Tug Hulett from the Royals today.  Hulett is a guy that Money Ball teams like the Sox would like.  He’ll be 27 in 2010, and he’s coming off three AAA seasons in which he posted OPS numbers of .759, .898 and .857.

Hulett is a better hitter than a lot of major league middle infielders, and at age 27 playing his homegames in a hitters’ park like Fenway, he could give the BoSox a lot of offense at a low price. Fangraphs says his defense is poor.

One final thought on Hulett: if this guy can hit a little, why in the world are the Royals trading him for cash or a player to be named later, when they haven’t had a shortstop that can hit his weight in the last decade.  Maybe the Royals know something the Red Sox don’t, but I sure doubt it.

Meanwhile the A’s signed minor-league slugger Dallas McPherson to a minor league deal.  I thought it was a great move when the Giants signed McPherson early in the 2009 season to a minor league deal, because his numbers in the high minors really did suggest that he was a major league hitter, who’d been derailed by too many untimely injuries.  The deal cost the Giants very little, and they don’t usually go after Money Ball players like McPherson.

As it turned out, McPherson’s back problems didn’t get better, and he didn’t play a professional game for which records are kept at any time in the 2009 season.  As a result, I don’t like McPherson anywhere as much as I did a year ago.  He will be an old 29 next year (he turns 30 on July 23), and players who miss entire seasons after age 27 tend to take big dips in their subsequent production.

The best thing to be said for the A’s signing McPherson, is that he’s very low-cost, and if his body is finally right again, he might be able to give the A’s some power at a bargain price.  However, I suspect that, even if he’s healthy, it will take him at least four months of the 2010 season to establish that he can still mash AAA pitching after missing all of last year.