UPDATED: Giants Trade Jonathan Sanchez for Melky Cabrera

According to the Twitter feed of the Royals the Giants have traded Jonathan Sanchez and minor leaguer Ryan Verdugo for outfielder Melky Cabrera

The trade isn't a huge surprise because the Giants pretty much said that they had too many starting pitchers and that if they weren't able to trade Sanchez he was a candidate to not be tendered a contract.

Cabrera is coming off a career year and Sanchez is coming off of an injury plagued season where he struggled with effectiveness. My first impression is that I don't like Cabrera much, he doesn't rate well as a defender in center field and his offense outside of last season has been below average.

What the Giants Got:


Cabrera is still fairly young at 27 coming into next season, he is a bit of a tweener outfielder, passable at a corner spot but not enough power and good enough offense for center field but below average defense.

As a prospect he was somewhat rushed by the Yankees (called up to the big leagues at 20) and that could have hurt his early development so it is possible that he could turn out to be a late bloomer and last season was just a sign of things to come. On the other hand the 2600 below average plate appearances are hard to over come to make me a believer.

Here are his major league stats:

Season	Team	BB%	K%	ISO	BABIP	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	wRC+	Fld	BsR	WAR
2005	Yankees	0.0 %	10.5 %	.000	.235	.211	.211	.211	.187	5	-3.0	0.0	-0.4
2006	Yankees	10.7 %	11.3 %	.111	.309	.280	.360	.391	.333	98	3.0	2.2	1.7
2007	Yankees	7.0 %	11.1 %	.117	.295	.273	.327	.391	.317	89	-8.1	-0.9	0.5
2008	Yankees	6.4 %	12.8 %	.092	.271	.249	.301	.341	.285	69	2.5	-1.4	0.1
2009	Yankees	8.0 %	10.9 %	.142	.288	.274	.336	.416	.331	94	1.5	-1.8	1.6
2010	Braves	8.3 %	12.6 %	.098	.288	.255	.317	.354	.294	79	-12.7	-0.9	-1.0
2011	Royals	5.0 %	13.3 %	.164	.332	.305	.339	.470	.349	118	-6.7	3.5	4.2
Total	- - -	7.4 %	12.0 %	.123	.299	.275	.331	.398	.320	93	-23.6	0.6	6.8

The big red flag that shows up from last season is the batting average on balls in play. Last season he posted a .332 average on balls in play which is well above his career mark of .299. This seems like a good situation to use my xBABIP tool to see what we should have expected based on his career numbers.

Type	#	BABiP	xBABip	H	xH
FB	183	0.115	0.117	19	20
LD	113	0.673	0.692	76	78
GB	264	0.311	0.253	82	67
	542	0.327*	0.304	177	165

*This doesn't take into account his 6 for 8 in bunting for hits which boosted his batting average on balls in play another 5 points. 

When we take a look at his BABiP versus his expected BABiP you see that he under performed his career averages on fly balls and line drives but was 60 points higher on ground balls. Those 60 points in ground balls are probably not something I would bet on him repeating next season but overall his batted ball data isn't too out of line with the rest of his career.

If we were to adjust his overall line from last season to his career norms in BABiP and his rate of hitting singles, doubles, triples and homers he would have a line of .269/ .330/ .390 with a wOBA of .325. That have made him still an above average hitter but and more in line of what I would hold out as the expectation for next season.

I'm not thrilled with the thought of him as a lead off hitter (which you know he will because of the stolen bases!) with his career .331 OBP and the thought of him playing center field isn't much fun either. At this point it was probably the best the Giants could get for Sanchez who they are dealing when his value is at a low point and if money were not a problem I would have loved to keep Sanchez around because pitching depth is never a bad problem to have.

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