Mariners Trade for Brendan Ryan
I am sure Dave will give a more detailed writeup, but in the interest of timeliness, the Mariners just traded RHP Maikel Cleto to the Cardinals in exchange for SS Brendan Ryan.
Ryan is a very good defensive shortstop who has been inconsistent offensively since earning the regular SS job with the Cardinals in 2009. He is coming off of a dismal 2010 which saw him put up a .256 wOBA. In 2009 he was a good deal better, posting a .324 mark. There is pretty good reason to think that neither 2009 or 2010 represent his true talent level. He had an unsustainably low BABIP in 2010 and an unsustainably high mark in ’09, despite little change in his underlying skills. Still just 29, Ryan has a good chance to become a more durable version of Jack Wilson. Good defensive SS (11.4 UZR/150 at the position over parts of four seasons) who will be comfortably below average offensively but might not be a total black hole at the plate. Ryan can either step in for Wilson if the team tries to jettison him to clear salary, or serve as a placeholder for Dustin Ackley and then slide over to SS when Wilson inevitably gets hurt.
In return, we say farewell to Maikel Cleto, the piece of the J.J. Putz trade that offered the most upside when the deal went down. Cleto came to the organization as a fireballer who did not have a good idea of how to harness his power arsenal, and two years later, that’s still pretty much all he is. He has struggled with visa issues, command, secondary stuff, and elbow soreness in his two years in the system, and he is a pretty solid bet to end up in the ‘pen.
Looks like a pretty nice low-impact move. Cleto is not a huge loss, and Ryan will not cost much as a 1st-year arbitration eligible player coming off a bad year.
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13 Responses to “Mariners Trade for Brendan Ryan”
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I like this move, it is sad that Cleto didnt work out. A couple of questions form me would be…. is Jack Wilson movable or might he just retire?
Now in Hindsight was the Josh Wilson aquisition a waste of time/money?
I like Ryan better than both the Wilsons. Now I would prefer to see us get a 2B with a bit of an upside – is there still any chnace we bring back Valbuena as was possibly rummoured?
I like this move a lot. There’s no cost to Ryan, besides Cleto, and you can do worse than a role-player that costs nothing in a rebuilding year. Now everybody can praise Jack Z again, despite the relatively uninspired acquisition of a boring and mediocre catcher that (at least temporarily) replaces a young, inspiring, and probably, ultimately, mediocre catcher.
Unless Jack Wilson really hates his job, like hates it some much he won’t do it for $5 million, I don’t think he’ll retire.
Is Ryan the one with the sweet ‘stache?
He won’t return anything of value, but the Mariners may be able to get out from part of his contract if they eat the rest, and maybe get a token minor league reliever in return. That’s basically the best case scenario for a Wilson trade.
Yes. The annoying commercials will almost write themselves.
OK, for considerably less than what someone like Nick Punto will cost, I have to like this.
He’ll fit in rather nicely then.
Is he healthier than Jack Wilson? He is? Good.
I had to google image him and realized I know him more for the freaky ass socks. What will he do on a team without a vivid sock tradition?
I like this move. Ryan had a bad offensive year last season, but his ’09 numbers were very good. He will hit better in ’11 than he did last season. He plays hard and he plays good defense. He is better than Josh Wilson – and he is likely to perform better than Jack Wilson this season. He will probably stay a lot healthier than Jack Wilson too. They didn’t give up anything to get Ryan that they didn’t already possess within their system, and Ryan has an upside at a critical defensive position.
It would be great if Jack Wilson were to retire – or be bought out of the last year of his contract or traded, but that is pie in the sky hop-er-ation at this point.
I like this move a lot, even if Cleto finally realizes his potential with the Cards — which he has a chance to do under Dave Duncan (if it’s going to happen anywhere… just ask Joel Pineiro). Classic “both teams get better, with the chance of an upside” trade (something Jack Z seems to always aspire to).
Establish one? It’s overdue.
I, personally, hate this move. Just what we need is another good fielding shortstop that can’t hit (how many do we have now?). Would be nice to make a move to improve MLB’s worst offense. Wish we’d made a move for JJ Hardy but that’s easy for me to say…
We now have two players who fit that description, but only one of them can reliably take the field every day for a full season.
Brendan Ryan was better offensively in 2009 than JJ Hardy was in 2010 (99 WRC+ for Ryan, 96 for Hardy). Hardy will also earn something like $6-7 million next year, while Ryan will earn $1-1.5 million. Hardy is probably a little better than Ryan moving forward, but he’s nowhere near 4-5X better than Ryan.
There are players who are worth 3/4 of your entire offseason budget. J.J. Hardy isn’t one of them.