Wednesday, February 20, 2013

TRADED! Mike Carp

To the Red Sox for a PTBNL
After being made expendable via the Michael Morse acquistion, the Mariner's shipped Mike Carp off to Boston.  Carp posted a .255/.327/.413 line over four seasons with the Seattle Mariners, hitting 18 home runs in just over 600 plate appearances.  While the Boston Red Sox have relatively steep depth at first base, this acquisition makes sense for them.  First off, while Carp's numbers are modest, he has proven especially effective against left handed pitching, hitting a solid .300.  Secondly, Carp was acquired for very little.  The Red Sox can obviously afford to eat his contract if he tanks, and any sort of prospect that could be acquired for Carp is almost guaranteed to have little Major League potential.

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly for the rest of baseball, acquiring Mike Carp makes other Sox players expendable.  That relative interest I mentioned in Carp earlier in the article, belongs to teams like the Astros, Brewers and Twins; which suggests that teams are looking for a good bench bat or first basemen.  The Red Sox signed Lyle Overbay only a few weeks ago in hopes of securing some first base/DH security, but with Carp joining the team Overbay may become disposable.  The Red Sox, recognizing these teams desire for first basemen, could ask a higher-than-regular piece for a player like Overbay.  The Brewers recently lost Mat Gamel to a torn ACL and are waiting for Corey Hart to return from surgery, which makes them a hot target.  The Crew targeted Overbay before he agreed to terms with Boston, but he opted for the American League team so as to get more at bats via the designated hitter role.  With Gamel out, Milwaukee could reasonably be in a position of relative desperation and be forced to send a low-level prospect out in exchange for Overbay's season, effectively paying a price for their own inability to pull the trigger when he was a free agent. 

No comments:

Post a Comment