A's acquire DeJesus for Mazzaro & Marks

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5789833

The above article recaps the Oakland A’s acquisition of outfielder David DeJesus from the Kansas City Royals in exchange for pitchers Vin Mazzaro and Justin Marks

SportsReaction

The A’s dealt from a position of depth to fill a hole on their roster, and that can only be a good thing. 

Before the departure of Mazzaro the A’s had six pitchers; Brett Anderson, Gio Gonzalez, Dallas Braden, Trevor Cahill, Mazzaro, and Hisashi Iwakuma—the 29 year old right handed pitcher from Japan that the A’s just won the bidding rights to—to fill five rotation spots in 2011.

Mazzaro was the obvious choice to be traded  This becomes clearer when you look at him compared to his rotation-mates last season:

Pos	Pitcher	Age	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	BB	SO	ERA+	WHIP	FIP
SP	Gio Gonzalez*	24	15	9	3.23	33	200.2	92	171	128	1.311	3.78
SP	Trevor Cahill	22	18	8	2.97	30	196.2	63	118	139	1.108	4.19
SP	Dallas Braden*	26	11	14	3.50	30	192.2	43	113	118	1.157	3.80
SP	Vin Mazzaro	23	6	8	4.27	18	122.1	50	79	97	1.447	5.13
SP	Brett Anderson*	22	7	6	2.80	19	112.1	22	75	148	1.193	3.21

Mazzaro’s numbers are highlighted in orange and it’s pretty easy to distinguish his season as the worst.  This doesn’t mean he won’t be a good pitcher for the Royals in the future as his stuff seems to suggest he could be a solid member of a Major League pitching rotation for years to come--at least that’s what the Royals hope.   The A’s just needed a bat and Mazzaro, being somewhat of a “luxury” at the time, was a perfect candidate to exchange for that bat.

Justin Marks has been ranked as a C+ prospect and doesn’t even rank in Oakland’s top 20 prospects.

Going to the Athletics DeJesus, while not being a big power bat, is a very solid offensive player that also brings good defense to any outfield position he plays.   Last season he hit .318/.384/.443 with 5 HR and 46 RBI for the Royals in 91 games and has hit .289/.360/.427 for his career.   His defense in the outfield, as per UZR/150, rates at 5.3 runs saved above average for his career.

 

When you put this all together DeJesus has never managed to post a WAR lower than 2.6 in any season of his career except for 2007.  The definition of a “good player,” DeJesus doesn’t just fit in well on the A’s—he would be a good fit on any team.  To get a player of his caliber at his low salary ($6 MM in 2011) for a piece of organizational depth is a great coup for the Oakland A’s.   

This doesn’t mean this trade was a loss for the Royals though.  A team always in rebuilding mode, the now 30 year old DeJesus just didn’t fit in with their plans.   Now they have two young arms that are a much better fit for them.

While the better player in the deal goes to Oakland, the better deal (monetarily and organizationally) goes to the Royals in this case.  Remember, DeJesus is in the last year of this contract and doesn’t fix any holes in Oakland’s system for the long term.