Astros Acquire Brett Wallace From Blue Jays for Anthony Gose
by OremLK on Jul 29, 2010 3:59 PM CDT
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PrintThat's how you turn a mild downer into an exciting trade. Unable to acquire Jonathan Singleton from the Phillies, the Astros instead flipped Anthony Gose to the Blue Jays for first base prospect Brett Wallace. That means this deal plays out in full as Roy Oswalt plus $11M for LHP J.A. Happ, 1B Brett Wallace, and SS Jonathan Villar.
Brett Wallace is one of the top first base prospects in the minor leagues, and he is major league ready right now. He has enough lefthanded power for the position, projecting to hit around 20-30 homers per year, and he should hit for average as well, enough to get on base at a respectable rate. Although he used to play third base, questionable defense forced him to first, where he should be fine. While he has a good approach at the plate, he hasn't drawn many walks in the minor leagues. His approach should be similar to Chris Johnson's, and he should have the bat to carry first base next year and down the road.
Project Prospect scouting report
Baseball America scouting report (scroll down)
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Seems like a crap-shoot now, but any thoughts on where/who would be involved in a Berkman trade?
by Aging Dominican on Jul 29, 2010 4:03 PM CDT reply actions
If I'm Wade
I’m calling the Angels. D. Lee turned down a trade to LAA so they clearly have some interest in a 1B. Just my first thought.
by IndianaAstrofan on Jul 29, 2010 4:05 PM CDT up reply actions
The chisox since they were goin after dunn but that kinda fell through
If at first you don't succeed, draft, draft again
Good thinking
I’d throw San Francisco in the mix as well. Not sure about where Lance would be most comfortable going and what places he would be dead set against.
by IndianaAstrofan on Jul 29, 2010 4:07 PM CDT up reply actions
Very interesting
Though your previous quick scouting report on Gose actually had me starting to get excited. With Derrek Lee vetoing a trade to the Angels, perhaps they are looking at Berkman now?
I'm just waiting for
Espn to find documents that find Brett Wallace is 31 and has been lying about his age.
by SteveBartman_MVP on Jul 29, 2010 4:04 PM CDT reply actions
Just a note
Baseball America rated Brett Wallace the 27th best prospect in baseball entering 2010. So we got our blue chip. Be happy!
By the way
I actually liked Villar better than Gose. He fits our needs much better and plus defensive shortstops with the bat to carry the position (which I think Villar will have) are rare. We talked about wanting Dee Gordon from the Dodgers? Villar could certainly turn into that type of player over the next couple years.
Then you throw in a middle rotation starter in Happ, and I think this went from being disappointing to being almost the best possible deal we could have made. Especially if we can now move Berkman for even more pieces.
I agree w/ you 100% here. I think the farm system is getting better with this deal and have younger starter in place for several years to come. Plus if they trade Berkman, Keppinger and/or Myers we will have built this franchise for the future which I am all for. We won’t be competitive til 2013 at the earliest anyhow so why not trade everyone that you can.
I’ve come around on Villar for sure, but I’m wondering what his acquisition means when it comes to Jio Mier. I thought Mier’s bat was coming around.
With both being so young, I don’t really mind having high upside depth at the SS position. Neither is guaranteed to pan out so I look at this as the team doubling their odds that one of them will.
by IndianaAstrofan on Jul 29, 2010 4:25 PM CDT up reply actions
Depth is good.
Mier has a better plate approach and a lot more polish on defense, but Villar has much better tools.
Villar ? Fits Astros Needs? huh?
Astros have Mier.
Didn’t Astros sign some DR 16 year old shortstop who should blow the top out of the roof?
How old is Sanchez?
Villar a bat? His stats at all levels indicate no bat.
Villar may turn out to be great. but I see no way based on available data seeing him doing any thing at the major league level for Houston.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jul 29, 2010 4:28 PM CDT up reply actions
May 10 - excerpt from the Houston Astros Examiner
It’s expected that [right-handed pitchers Michael Feliz, and Jose Montero,] left-hander Edgar Ferreira (who signed last December) and switch-hitting shortstop Jean Carlos Batista will be members of the Astros’ Dominican Summer League squad.
The 17-year-old Batista has informally been named the DPL’s top professional prospect and labeled a five-tool prospect by Kiley McDaniel at Baseball Prospectus.
He agreed to terms with the Astros on May 10.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jul 29, 2010 4:58 PM CDT up reply actions
Joe, .690 OPS as an 19-year old shortstop (young for his level) in a pitcher-friendly league is just fine, especially when you couple it with 50 SB speed. Trust me, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at shortstop prospects and their stats. He’s right on track.
I hope you're right. I'm not persuaded though
I’ll follow him and Jean Carlos Batista, who is like 3 years younger (and Mier) and see how each pans out.
Right now I see no reason for Astros getting Villar (can he pitch?)
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jul 29, 2010 4:40 PM CDT up reply actions
Depth
Mier isn’t exactly tearing the cover off the ball. He’s hitting worse than Villar, and with a lot fewer stolen bases. The hope is that one of the two will work out.
Villar is also apparently a little farther ahead then Mier, because he’s going straight to Lancaster.
Isn't it too early to say that?
They weren’t forced into making this deal.
Why was Toronto willing to part with Wallace?
Overbay is their present 1B and he’s not all that great and is getting old.
Do they have another top 1B prospect?
Here are the problems with Walace
evin_Goldstein
Your so-called ‘hitting machine’ has a career .299/.357/.484 line at Triple-A in good hitting parks, and offers ZERO after the bat. 7 minutes ago via TweetDe
Kevin Goldstein Kevin_Goldstein
Brett Wallace is a 1B only with average at best power, poor walk rate — how is that a good prospect?
Kevin_Goldstein
Brett Wallace is among the most over-rated prospects around.
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
What’s the possibility that the Oswalt trade ends up like the Schilling trade, with Happ playing the role of Omar Daal and Wallace starring as Travis Lee?
interesting thought
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
he WAS the #27 prospect
has slipped substantially overall. Now did not make the mid-season top 25 list after massive attrition this year. Still in the 25-50 range.
Plays in a park that boost offensive #’s and did not keep his OBP which was one of his calling cards
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
He’s doing fine given his ARL. He won’t be a star, but I believe he will be an above average first baseman. Paul Konerko type, maybe.
He will be a good piece, but defiantly not a star that he was hyped to be coming out of college and even after his first year in Stl
I am guessing a league average or slightly better guy. Not a star, but a good piece. Positional scarcity hurts his real value. If he could in any way or form stay at 3B it is a great move. With him being a 1B only guy it is more of a “meh” exchange for Gose.
Don’t get me wrong, he has value. That value is tied to having an in house replacement for Berkman.
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
Fangraphs take on Wallace
Wallace is pretty much just the opposite. His game is so dependent on offense, that even getting to 2-3 WAR consistently will be an issue. After Lance Berkman moves out of Houston, Wallace is the future at first base. He’s not good there, and is surely somewhere worse than 2.5 runs below average. To even reach 3 WAR, he’d have to produce 25 runs with the bat to be worth three wins. And given the fact that he’s never walked 50 times or hit 25 home runs in any season, getting to a .370 wOBA seems impossible.
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
Wallace’s 2010 MLE .239, .289, .384, .673
that’s not very good, and probably reflects the fact that he is playing in a hitter friendly park. he does have the reputation as a quality hitter, but that MLE scares me a bit.
I don’t really trust MLE anymore or use it very much. It just doesn’t have a very high correlation to how prospects actually perfom, in my experience.
Wallace is only 23. He’s only in his second full season in the minors. He could stay in AAA for two more years and still be a prospect. I believe in his tools and approach and I think he will get to the point where he hits enough to start at first base and even be above average there.
I expect league average production with a few above average years and maybe one special well above average year.
Nothing wrong with that. Those guys are great to have.
The entire problem in all of these deals are that the Astros did not end up with a true difference maker. A guy to build the team around.
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
Those are difficult to come by in a trade
Villar at least has an outside shot at it, although he’ll have to improve his plate discipline and clean up his defense quite a bit to reach that level.
But most of the time, I think you have to draft/sign impact players yourself. There are exceptions, of course, it just doesn’t happen all that often.
The video clip posted at the top
Brett Wallace if I interpreted what I saw correctly grounded out 3 times, lined out once, struck out five times, walked four times, and singled once. Too small a sample size to judge much, but definitely not awe-inspiring video.
He does seem to have big thighs – almost a catcher’s lower body. I’m not sure how that’ll translate to batting mechanics.
He was slow running to first.
I read today that the reasons he is considered a first base prospect is he did not have the mobility to be a third baseman. If true, the days Jeff Bagwell and Lance Berkman style defenisive coverage at first may soon be over.
To me a first baseman needs to be a power bat. Maybe a slow outfielder or someone not quite defensively suited to catching or third can be put there as long as they bring the big bat. That makes filling the first base position easier than most other positions.
As for Brett Wallace, a lot of savvy baseball scouts have praised him the past few years, so I must conclude he brings something to the table despite Fangraph’s evaluation (which I can’t challenge either) – you pay your money and take your chances on him I guess.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jul 29, 2010 6:15 PM CDT up reply actions
Wallace’s unusual lower body is one of the reasons he wasn’t expected to stay at 3d base. Supposedly he is surprisingly athletic for his body shape. I followed him quite a bit when he was a Cardinals’ prospect, and I fancied the idea that he could be a Ron Cey type player at 3d base. The descriptions of Cey’s lower body were similar to Wallace. Cey was originally a LFer, but just wasn’t fast enough for the outfield. Because of his “penguin” like running, most people thought Cey had no chance in the infield. Of course, he turned out to be one of the better third basemen of his era.
He was also still on Baseball America’s top fifty midseason prospects list, and was the 27th ranked prior to the season. You can’t judge prospects just by pure stats. You have to factor in age and scouting as well because there is so much projection involved. BA looks at all of that stuff; FanGraphs just made a cursory examination of his statistics and dumped a conclusion (unsurprisingly) unfavorable to the Astros.
I was wrong
I didn’t think there was a chance we would get Wallace for Gose, but I am soo happy we did.
I wanted a bat and I got a bat, hurray.
Now, this definitely opens the door for a puma deal.
Not a huge fan of Wallace
but he and Goose are about the same in terms in value. Gose has the higher ceiling, Wallace is much closer to the majors.
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
I’d rank Wallace above Gose, but they’re not hugely far apart. More importantly, we already have Jay Austin, who is not much worse than Gose and profiles as a very similar player. So for me, this is a situation where we used depth to deal for a little better piece at a position of greater need.
more of a deal to move stuff around
no real value gained or lost.
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
Hudson and Morel for Berkman?
Wouldn’t that be nice!
by BrewCongdon-GTA on Jul 29, 2010 4:33 PM CDT reply actions
Gimme Moore Brignac and another
by EveryHoustonTeamRox! on Jul 29, 2010 4:48 PM CDT up reply actions
Goldstein is a d-bag who hates the Astros
take what he says with a grain of salt
by BrewCongdon-GTA on Jul 29, 2010 4:35 PM CDT reply actions
I just don't see anything that jumps out about Wallace's minors numbers.
He seems to project to be an average hitting 1B and reportedly isn’t very good defensively, either.
I wonder.....
If Wade valued Wallace over Singleton as Wallace is closer to the bigs and that’s why he went Gose over Singleton.
Doubt it
Singleton was rumored to be untouchable all throughout the process. I think this was a very solid plan B.
Orem...
what is your take on why Tor made the deal?
Overbay is old and nothing special.
Do they really have other 1B they rate higher? Maybe Gose is better than some think?
From FanGraphs
“by himself Oswalt is a valuable player, a No. 2 pitcher who has been an ace in the past.”
Did I miss something? When did Oswalt become a no.2 pitcher?
David Cameron Oswalt bashing too
“he’s still one of the better pitchers in baseball.” Its a very needled comment.
He’s 10th in the NL for WAR amongst pitchers
has been for a while
just been heading the rotation in Hou. There are fewer than 15 true #1’s in baseball
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
might
wanna check Roy’s numbers for this season. He IS a #1.
"He’s been following him around for two weeks like his lapdog". - Stan Van Gundy about Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade
by RocketsAstros on Jul 29, 2010 5:06 PM CDT up reply actions
This is the God's honest truth
While he hasn’t had a stellar year – he could easily be around 11- 5 or so on a better team.
"I am from one of the top 15 cities in the world. Buffalo, New York." - TrentEdwardsHoF2018
Good approach for MMP
BA:
“A natural hitter, Wallace has a strong lower half and an inside-out stroke that allows him to drive balls to all fields.”
He’s got a lower half reminiscent of Jeff Zgonina and the oppo stroke helps. Would love to see a spray chart for a little extrapolation.
2010: .984 OPS against lefties, .822 against righties.
I’d expect regression on both of those, but it shows a lot about his ability to step into an MLB role and not be overwhelmed.
It will hurt so much if Berkman goes
One of the best pure hitters I’ve ever seen. He’s struggled the last 2 seasons so trading him is the right thing to do, but it will suck to see him go.
Would not be surprised to see in CHW uniform
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
I know
but Berkman has little real value.
I think to many people are confusing their fandom with the actual value of players right now. I would love to see Roy as a true #1 guy for the long term, but he is not. I would love to see Berkman as a difference maker longterm power bat, but he is not. Those guys are losing the battle with age and injures, like everyone else. Without the chemical fountain of youth of the pre-steriods testing era, GM’s are going to value older players even less they where.
I would expect a deal comparable to the Rangers/Cantu deal unless the Astros eat a large portion of the left over salary.
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
What about Berkman w/ cash for Dan Hudson? Would this ok deal in terms of what we get back as BERkman is Type B free agent?
no one will offer Berkman arb...
he will automatically accept and get paid WAY more than he will make in FA
JD’s like, "you want some fucking pitching? Here’s all the pitching you can stand. Now choke on it, bitches!"- RCCook
his walk up to the plate song
is california girls!!!
by EveryHoustonTeamRox! on Jul 29, 2010 7:34 PM CDT up reply actions
Yep...
He just literally created his Twitter account a little over a week ago. I am sure we would all be surprised about his musical tastes. I am still recovering from a few weeks ago when they played “My Milkshake” between at-bats. I think it was Keppinger or Johnson coming up to bat with that song….
"I just want Texas to be number one in something other than executions, toll roads and property taxes." ~ Kinky Friedman
The spelling fail was what caught my eye...
In the message above that pic with his girlfriend or whatever, he wrote this…
“Just finished dinner at Antica Osteria…phenominal Itallian food. :)”
phenominal?… Itallian?
Seriously, Hunter?
My feelings on the day...
I feel good about the day of trades, as a whole. Oswalt + $11m for Happ, Wallace, and Villar seems pretty good to me.
But I’m not in the camp that is saying that the Wallace trade makes me feel okay about the original Oswalt trade. Either we got good value for Oswalt in the trade with Philly or we didn’t, and I tend to think we didn’t get enough. Flipping Gose for Wallace is awesome, of course, but that doesn’t take away that we should have also gotten more from Philly for Oswalt + $11m.
I used to play a lot of poker. Today is like a day when I ended ahead but lost a really big hand along the way.
Im more pissed at East coast fans now
Im getting sick on Mets fans saying that we now need to be contracted because of the deal.
It was an ok deal for Roy O/ Ok...not great -
I don’t think we were going to get much better (Montero? Singleton?). I am hearing Myers might not be leaving at the trade deadline so that if he stayed in Houston for next year. That would mean the pitching in 2011 would shake down like this:
- Myers, Wandy, Haap, Norris, & Paulino as your starting five?
- The usual suspects in middle relief (Sampson, Moehler, etc.).
- Lyons as the set-up & Lindstrom as your closer.
Not “lights out” by no means, but also not terrible. Wallace is interesting as what does that mean for Berkman in the next few days or in 2011. However, it all starts with pitching so I would save your money for 2013 because the next two years are going to be practice runs…
"I just want Texas to be number one in something other than executions, toll roads and property taxes." ~ Kinky Friedman
Waking up to some big TRADE news...
Hey Everyone,
WOW, my favorite pitcher over the last 10 seasons is no longer a Stro – sad day but a trade was needed. Hope the propsects we got can make the jump and also hope Happ can stay injury-free and be a solid starter. Good Luck Roy (now I’ll have to find a new avatar it looks like)…
Go Stros!
Biggio and Bagwell for the HOF!
I hope he can win a title in Philly
So he can come back and retire in Houston and get the Team wins record. He is too close to not finish it.
me too
at least now I have a team to root for that has chances for the playoffs.
"He’s been following him around for two weeks like his lapdog". - Stan Van Gundy about Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade
by RocketsAstros on Jul 30, 2010 3:07 AM CDT up reply actions
wallace
lets complete the housecleaning… berkman.. carlos lee… p feliz…everyone is looking for pitching…put up byrdak or ?? see if something can be worked for clee…package him with someone.. if he doesnt approve tell him he will sit on bench until he rots…happ is a good addition… oswalt is special…we havent replaced him and it will be very hard to do in the future…magnus
Brett Wallace's batting in Las Vegas
Wondering why critics hammered Brett Wallace for his poor hitting when he was batting over .300 at AAA Las Vegas, I checked the Las Vegas Statistics page.
Brett Wallace’s rank on the team in several categories:
Batting average — 14th
OPS – 12th
2B – 4th
HR – 2d
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jul 30, 2010 2:03 PM CDT reply actions
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