Melky Cabrera And Jonathan Sanchez Switch Teams

So the Royals traded Melky Cabrera to the Giants for Jonathan Sanchez and Ryan Verdugo. This does matter for the Braves and I’ll get to that in a minute. The trade itself has gotten mixed reviews much like my Christmas rap album. The left handed Sanchez is a strikeout threat posting a career 9.36 K/9 but struggles with command. By struggles with command, I mean he couldn’t identify the strike zone if it was wearing a name tag. But even with an especially poor 2011 (5.86 BB/9, woof), I’m not sure why the Giants made this deal.

Melky Cabrera had a career year in 2011 hitting 18 homers and a .305/.339/.470 slash line while playing below average defense in center field. His defense won’t get better in AT&T Park and there is nothing in his resume that suggests he’ll ever hit like he did this past season. He’s a fourth outfield and, of course, Keith Law hit the snark out of the park…

"Cabrera is just a one-year stopgap until Brown is ready (they hope), but when I call Cabrera a fourth outfielder, that doesn’t mean the Giants get to play three others alongside him to make up for all the balls he won’t catch."

Zing! The Royals will now hand the keys to center field to Lorenzo Cain. With outfield stud prospect Wil Myers nothing but wishful thinking, the Braves would be hard pressed to even net Cain in a Jair Jurrjens trade. I’m fine with all of this since I think Jurrjens should fetch a bigger piece than Cain anyway.

Apparently the Braves agree if the rumors are true that they wanted Myers AND Cain in exchange for Jurrjens and maybe Martin Prado. Ah, to be delusional and in charge of an MLB front office.