Out of Left Field
By Fred Owens
May 24, 2015; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Oakland Athletics right fielder Josh Reddick (22) hits a solo home run during the seventh inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Trades?
The are a couple of teams with players who fit our needs and who we could match up with if we chose to. The first is the Brewers who have the gold glove of Gerardo Parra – a free agent who will not get a qualifying offer after the season’s over.
On the season Parra has a .289/.320/.465/.785 line with 2 homers, 2 triples and 10 doubles. As you would expect Parra has a good record against RHP with a career line of .286/.333/.424/.757 and a fine .277/.302/.426/.728 line this year. As a rental Parra wouldn’t be as expensive as in terms of players as some but he does have about $5M remaining ion his contract for this year. The BrewCrew is really short on pitching so a B arm like Manny Banuelos might be enough to pry Parra loose (no recovering TJ to tempt Hart here either).
The Athletics have a personal favorite of mine in Josh Reddick who might be available for the right price. Reddick is their right fielder and has had a good start to the season, his .312/.380/.532/.913 line includes 7 homers, 3 triples and 7 doubles. That improves to .353/.421/.622/.1.043 against RHP. He’s also a gold glove right fielder posting DRS numbers 10,19,13,13 for 2011-2014 and UZRs of 8.8, 17.9, 16.4 and 4.8 in that same span.
Reddick has about $3M left on this year’s contract and enters his last arbitration year in 2016 with salary likely to go up to at least $6M at that time. I’d want to extend him if I made the trade and buy out at least three FA years. That wouldn’t be cheap but should be worth the money..
The A’s would want a good deal more for Reddick that the Brewers would for Parra because of his extra year of control, ability to play everyday and his provide gold glove defense. He’s a power hitter and does add some strike outs but has been a 2.5 rWAR or more player every year and is already at 2 rWAR this year. It would take a good package to get him.
There’s been talk that the Diamondbacks would trade an outfielder as well but none that I’d consider a fit.