Patterson Traded to Orioles
According to the official site, Corey Patterson has been traded to Baltimore today for two players who have yet to graduate from the low minor leagues. I'll lay out who they got, and leave it up to the reader to determine whether or not it's better than a hill of beans:
Nate Spears, SS: The better of the two prospects, Spears spent 2005 playing for the advanced-A Frederick Keys, where he hit .294/.349/.429 with 6 HR in 445 AB. That's pretty good for a 20-year-old in the Carolina League. I don't know how he is defensively, though it may not be great, as he apparently played second base until last season.
Carlos Perez, LHP: I'll be shocked if Perez ever plays a game for the Chicago Cubs; in fact, I'll be reasonably surprised if he ever plays in the majors, period. He signed with the Orioles as an undrafted free agent as a 17-year-old in 1999, and has since worked his way up the organization verrrry slowly. In fact, last year, as a 23-year-old, he pitched in a full-season league for the first time, throwing 151.1 innings for low-A Delmarva. There, he posted a 4.28 ERA, with a 8.68 K/9 (not bad, I guess) and 2.39 K/BB (kind of mediocre). Basically, he looks like every other pitching prospect the Cubs have (strikes people out, kind of wild), only a couple of years older.
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Sickels on Spears and Perez
Before the 2005 season, John Sickels ranked Spears 14th and Perez 18th in a relatively weak Baltimore Orioles farm system.
Spears's 2005 numbers look pretty good for a 20-year-old middle infielder in high-A ball. It'll be interesting to see whether he's able to maintain his success in AA. A bad trend is his K/BB ratio over the past three seasons (32/40 to 63/47 to 82/36). But he's still young.
I'm sad to see Patterson go. It had to happen after the Pierre signing. There's little chance of Patterson succeeding as a bench player. But the pre-injury-2003 season showed us so much that it's disappointing to have it end this way.
Under the circumstances, I think Jim Hendry did well in the trade, assuming there was limited possibility of using Patterson in a bigger trade.
Baseball America on Spears
From an August 2005 profile: "While there might not be anything flashy about him, Spears garners comparisons to David Eckstein--a label that's just fine by him. He handles situational hitting well and excels at moving runners over. In short, he does all the little things the right way." . . . more
also sad to see him go, but it was time...
Phil Rogers has an interesting piece on the decline of Corey.
I'm sad to see him go but hopefully this is a wake-up call for him.