Giles To San Diego, Laroche on his way out?

Well, it looks like Marcus Giles is on his way to San Diego, after all. The catch? The Braves don't get anything in return. Linebrink would have fit in nicely with Soriano, methinks. Oh well. I haven't had a chance to gush about the HoRam for Soriano deal, but, rest assured, I love it. Ramirez was constantly injured the last few years, and as I mentioned earlier, the Braves had a logjam in their rotation anyway.

But, on to bigger news. The latest rumor to hit the papers is the three way trade that would send Laroche to the Pirates and Mike Gonzalez to the Yanks, who would shoot Melky Cabrera our way. Cabrera is a good looking young player, but I can't see us giving up Laroche for just Cabrera. I mean, this is the same Adam Laroche who as 10th in the NL in OPS last year, and posted a 2nd half line of .387/.655/1.042

Cabrera hit .360/.391/.751, which was an OPS+ of exactly 100. Not sparkling, but not too bad of a season for a 21 year old. The hope is Cabrera would be able to grow into a good top of the order hitter, and shift over to CF if or when Andruw leaves. Which is a fine idea, but I still think it's just a bit too little to get back for Laroche.

Stop with the Lugo!

We'll hold off on talking about Marcus Giles extensively until the Braves either trade him or say that they're keeping him. In the meantime, we'll address a player that, for some reason, many Braves fans wish to see next year in the infield. That's right, we're talking about Julio Lugo.

Why do some want Lugo for the Braves? The most common answer is that they want a leadoff hitter, while others cite his defense. Let's take a closer look:

Well, Giles has a .361 career OBP, and Lugo has a .340. True, Lugo was having a fine campaign in Tampa Bay last year, with a line of .308/.373/.498 in 289 At-Bats. After coming over to the National League, he dropped of drastically, posting an abysmal line of .219/.278/.267 in 146 ABs. His decline is very interesting, as most will agree the AL East was a good bit better than the NL West in 2006. Giles and Lugo both posted similar OPS+'s last year (90 and 94), but Lugo had an incredibly low OPS+ of 40 for the Dodgers in the NL. Even if it was a prolonged slump last year for Lugo after the trade deadline, he was so horrible for LA that it might not be worth it to even take a chance.

That's another thing, Lugo would probably cost $5-6 million dollars a year, right about where Giles would be. Giles was better than the NL version of Lugo anyway, but was hampered by injuries. If healthy he should be able to bounce back and post comparable, if not better, numbers.

Let's move on to their fielding now. Giles has really been solid the last few years at 2B for Atlanta. He had a FRAR of 26 last year, and has consistently hovered around a 30 FRAR in his career. Now, Lugo did play 29 games at 2B for the Dodgers last year, and had a FRAR of 5. He notched a FRAR of 10 as the Devil ray's shortstop the first part of the season. However, since Lugo played a considerably fewer amount of games at 2B than Giles did, it is better to look at their Runs Saved Rate, with numbers over 100 being for the better. Lugo got the better of Giles here, with a 112 rate as compared to Giles' 104.

So what's the bottom line? For the season, Lugo had a WARP of 3.4, and Giles had one of 4.5. It makes very little sense to trade away Giles and replace him with Lugo, which would not provide much, if any, of a salary break. Replacing him from within, with a player like Martin Prado or Willie Aybar, might not match the production Giles had, but would free up salary for the Braves to commit somewhere else. We'll have to wait and see what John Schuerholz decides to do with Giles. I just hope he doesn't go pick up Lugo.

Barfield To Cleveland, Giles to San Diego?

With the San Diego Padres dealing young 2B Josh Barfield to the Indians, it seems more and more likely that Braves 2B Marcus Giles will be joining his brother in San Diego. As Ken Rosenthal has reported, a deal was rumored to have been discussed, but Barfield was potentially blocking Giles at the position. There was talk of Giles being moved to 3B, a position at which the Padres were thin.

Now, however, the Padres have their 3B of the future in Kouzmanoff, and a void at 2B. In exchange for Giles, the Braves would probably receive reliever Scott Linebrink. As all Braves fans know, the bullpen was horrible in 2006, and Linebrink was better than every single reliever the Braves had in '06, with the exception of Bob Wickman and Chris Reitsma.

(Kidding about Reitsma, just checking if you were paying attention).

Anyway, Linebrink went 7-4 with a 3.57 ERA (118 ERA+) and 68 Ks in 75.7 IP. He also had a 32 PRAR, or Pitching Runs Above Replacement. The best PRAR total by a Braves reliever in 2006 was 30, by Oscar Villareal. This only includes innings pitched for Atlanta. If you include all innings pitched, Wickman had a PRAR of 39.

Bullpen (with 2006 Atlanta statistics)



Linebrink would be a solid setup man and good first step towards restoring a bullpen that needs to be much better in '07 if the Braves want to regain control in the NL East. More will be addressed on the topic of the Braves bullpen throughout the off-season. Next, however, we will examine the ramifications of potentially losing Marcus Giles.