Twins Trade Piece of Meat for Eddie Guardado
Posted by SBG on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Twins send Hamburger to Texas for Everyday Eddie.
The Minnesota Twins announced today that they have acquired lefthanded pitcher Eddie Guardado from the Texas Rangers in exchange for righthanded pitcher Mark Hamburger.
Guardado, 37, was 3-3, 3.65 ERA (49.1 ip, 20 er) and converted all four of his save opportunities in 55 appearances for the Rangers this season. He allowed just three home runs while walking 17 and striking out 28, while holding opponents to a .220 (38-for-173) batting average. Guardado has a career record of 44-58 with a 4.27 ERA (899.1 ip, 427 er), with 331 walks and 773 strikeouts. He has 187 career saves (232 opportunities), including 116 with the Twins, which ranks third on the Twins All-Time list behind Rick Aguilera (254) and Joe Nathan (195).
Hamburger, 21, was 1-2, 4.17 ERA (36.2 ip, 17 er) with 13 saves (14 opportunities) in 27 appearances for the Rookie-level Elizabethton Twins (Appalachian League) this season. He was named to the Appalachian League Postseason All-Star Team as well as being named the Appalachian League Closer of the Year.
I'm expecting a presser with Eddie crying about how happy he is to be back with the Twins. Just get some guys out, Eddie, and I'll be happy.
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Well, at least Bill Smith is actually alive. You always worry about trading a young minor-leaguer for a veteran, in that you'd hate to be trading John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander. But I'm happy to see Eddie back, and there's some chance that he'll help.
Eh, minor league closers are pretty much the least likely guys to ever make the majors. Add in that the Hamburgler (there has to be a strong chance he's related to a guy my sister dated since there can't be too many Hamburgers in the world) is a 21-yo who didn't look that great against people 2 years younger than him, and I give his chances of reaching the Majors at about 0.5%.
What do you mean? There's at least 1.75 million.
Ok fine, Hamburgers from MN (rumor has it this guy was from Mound)
Wash your hands, anyway.
And he's going to meet up with the Twins in Seattle! One of those two teams got his best years, the other paid him a ton of money. Yay, us!
Eddie's numbers this year are solid. I'm okay with this move. Bill Smith finally made a move to address an area of need for the penant race. Now it's up to Gardy and Eddie to get after it and battle their tails off.
Eddie Guardado 2008:
49.3 IP, 17 BB, 28 K, 3.65 ERA, 118 ERA+, 1.115 WHIP.
Jesse Crain 2008:
53 IP, 19 BB, 40 K, 3.74 ERA, 110 ERA+, 1.377 WHIP.
He's got an XFIP of 5.25 which is over a run and a half worse than his FIP.
He's got a pretty high DER, meaning that he's had some help from the Rangers defense this season. (Did I just say that?)
We'll see.
I think you mean "run and a half worse than his FIP" ? I see 3.74 FIP at the Hardball times.
Yes, you are right.
Let me fix that. Thanks!
It's ALIVE!!!!!
Welcome back, StF. Or is that ubelmann wearing The Disguise??
Thanks, it's good to be back.
I had heard that ubelmann has left, so I wanted to come back and provide whatever contributions I could/can to WGOM and SBG.
also worth noting is his home/away split this year, given that Texas is notoriously hard on pitchers
192/283/354 home (115 PA)
257/291/365 away (79 PA).
while those numbers qualify as SSS, it should be clear that his performance at home has been impressive (despite the 4.40 home ERA vs 2.61 road ERA). The only really worrisome thing to me is the K:BB ratio -- 28:17 in 49.3 innings. He's not missing a ton of bats any more.
You have to wonder what move the Twins will make with the addition of Guardado.
You'd think getting rid of Everett is the right move, but you never know anymore. IMO, the Twins just don't need to be carrying four middle infielders in Harris, Everett, Punto, and Casilla. We'll see though.
I am interested to see what Guardado has left...his fastball based on MLB.com's Gameday, has ranged anywhere from 84-87 MPH lately...and he relies quite heavily on his changeup and an occasional slider. His underlying numbers don't give much optimism...but if he gets outs, that's all that matters.
Don't know how many of the infielders will make the playoff roster, but Everett, Punto, and Casilla have all spent time on the DL this year, and Casillo's was very recent and he's still healing. I think that will make Gardy nervous enough to keep all of them through the end of the year.
You'll have Tolbert up by September 1st which gives them another option for the middle of the diamond.
You don't need that many middle infielders...especially one that offers almost nothing. (Everett)
It's a little overdue, but he got something done. I'm not confident that Guardado will be that much better than Korecky this fall (how does he only give up 3 homers on a 26.0% ground ball rate? Nathan gave up 4 on a 49% GB rate this year...), but what the heck. EDDIE GUARDADO. I wonder who gets bumped from the roster - somebody we can bring back up in a couple days?
Korecky should be up in a week. My guess is Ruiz.
You think so on Ruiz?
I just can't see any reason why the Twins keep Everett...and rid themselves of players like Ruiz.
We wouldn't really be ridding ourselves of Ruiz for more than a week, but sending him down now would keep him off the playoff roster. But we do face about 6 lefties in our next 7 games, so keeping Ruiz around would probably be a good idea. Busher's faced a few lefties recently with poor results. They were ready to DFA Everett just a few weeks ago but he got a second life when Casilla got hurt, so I don't think they would have any qualms about kicking him free again. We'll see what happens.
Update from LEN3's blog:
and StatFreak is back! The Twins are ready to roll now
I hope I'm welcomed back!
But, of course!
Twins send Hamburger to Texas for Everyday Eddie.
I thought a part of me was missing. I feel 10 lbs lighter.
I think Lamb goes.
Hmmm, can a team DFA a guy and then bring him back on Sept. 1?
I believe so, assuming the guy accepts a minor league assignment and is put on the 40-man roster. But I don't think he would be eligible for the 25-man playoff roster then.
Good guess. Lamb DFA'd.
Wow, I guessed right for a change.
well, it's not as though you are New Guy or summat with the predictions. You had a chance.
Oh yeah? Well, I predict that Carlos Gomez goes 0-0 with 5 walks tonight. Now we'll see who has a chance.
Wait... did I do that right? Aw nuts.
Nooooo!!!! For some reason, I really like Mike Lamb. I think I got hooked by the preseason fluff pieces. Can we ask him to stick around and be the team mascot for the rest of that money? Or maybe just to hang out with me when I go to games? C'mon, don't leave us Mike!
Congrats to Buscher I guess for making such a big impression that Smith cut the string on a 2 year contract with less than a year complete. Of course, it does seem likely that this team is in a position to be competitive again in 09, so Smith would be faced with a decision on a non-productive roster spot in the offseason anyway.