The Padres will sign Jody Gerut to a minor league deal, according to Tom Krasovic of AOL FanHouse (on Twitter). The Brewers, who released Gerut earlier in the month, are about to face off against the Padres. Oddly enough, the Brewers acquired Gerut from the Padres last year for Tony Gwynn Jr., who happened to hit the disabled list today.
Gerut, 32, has not played in a major league game since May 22nd. He posted a .197/.230/.366 line with two homers in 74 plate appearances this year, before he missed two months with a heel injury.
So techincally, they acquired Tony Gwynn Jr. for a cycle, a few home runs, some good times with a stanford grad, and about 3 months worth of DL time. In exchange, they got the best defensive outfielder in Baseball, a catylyst, and a ton of WAR.
And a .611 OPS?
A catalyst and a ton of WAR? Come on man. Gwynn has had a good year in the field but he is awful offensively and his track record isn’t that great for defense anyway. I dont see Gwynn’s season ending injury as a bad thing.
Not a bad thing? Is that some kind of a joke? The Padres are a great team. The greatest aspect of the Padres is their defense. Gwynn was our best defender. HUGE loss.
1. The Padres are in 1st place and he is a reason for that so when you say his injury isn’t a pad thing, I’m guessing your making a joke.
2. he has had some huge clutch hits for the Padres. he’s worth 2.0 WAR. He also steals bases and again, is a catylyst for the entire team.
1. Gwynn is the reason the Pads are in first? Give me a break. Its not a joke.2. Huge clutch hits? Catalyst? What are you talking about. He isnt even good enough to crack the starting line-up.Fact of the matter is much better players will now get to play with Gwynn out. Gwynn’s good defense still wasnt enough to make up for his putrid offense.
So I’m guessing you don’t watch the Padres play.
I agree with you that he is an important asset to the team. His defense is great, and without a doubt it is one of the elements that have kept the Pads at the top of the division, but he isn’t a good offensive player, and he isn’t a catalyst. His defense is just good enough to offset his poor offensive line. It’s never a good thing to see any player go down with an injury, but the Pads aren’t crippled by this injury.
Apparently you dont watch them play. They have rattled off wins and Gwynn hasnt been starting.
The problem with WAR is that is relies far too heavily on a stat, UZR, that fangraphs readily admits needs a 3 year sample size to be considered reliable. Tony Gwynn is a fantastic example of this when compared to another center fielder, Andrew McCutcheon. Casual baseball fans to professional scouts would all rather take McCutcheon between the two, but, alas, they have virtually the same WAR (Gwynn – 2.0, McCutcheon – 2.1). Also, from watching McCutcheon, he looks to be a more than capable CF’er and could be far above average. He has excellent speed and doesn’t seem to take bad routes or get bad jumps, so why does UZR not like his defense this year? I’m not interested in doing the research at the moment, but my point is that while fangraphs values both players (almost) equally, you really need to evaluate where that value is coming from. Defense has so much less impact on the game than offense and WAR treats them as equals factors when attempting to determine the overall value of a player.
You can have him, Gerut sucks! He was out for 3-months with a heel bruise. Come on man!
He’s a decent outfielder and can play centerfield but he can replace Gywnn and also Willy Mo Pena and Jody could be September 1st call up and be good for the Padres