The Royals acquired right-hander Kevin Pucetas as the player to be named to complete the Jose Guillen trade, the team announced. The Royals added the 25-year-old to their 40-man roster. Pucetas, a 17th round pick in 2006, has made three minor league All-Star teams, appeared in the Futures Game and finished first or second in ERA three times in his pro career.
Despite his early-career honors, Pucetas is no top prospect. He has struggled in two seasons at Triple-A and had yet to succeed in the upper minors. This year, he posted a 5.69 ERA with 6.3 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9 in 26 starts at Triple-A Fresno. The silver lining for the Royals? As MLBTR’s Howard Megdal showed earlier this month, the return for Guillen has usually been better than expected.
Not much of a prospect but getting anything for Guillen was a bonus. Good move all around I guess, Guillen didn’t cost the Giants much and he didn’t prevent them from making the playoffs and the Royals got a warm body in return for someone with no future with the team.
Wonder if skipping AA entirely hurt Pucetas’ development…
It’s possible but it doesn’t look like he improved any from ’09 to ’10, maybe someone knows why? I’d think if he has much of a future he would have shown something. Doesn’t look like he’s got much going on given his age/regression and poor numbers.
and the fact he was traded for Jose Guillen should be anohter clue
Yeah. Warm body, organizational filler, organizational arm etc… He’s not a lefty so he’s not a good candidate to blossom late, I’d guess his MLB ceiling is as a mediocre middle reliever, mop up man type duty.
Your analysis looks about right. I took a look at his numbers and he actually regressed in his second go-round in Triple-A. His walks rose, in fewer innings, his ERA rose and he coughed up about 40 more hits than innings pitched. He has the stats of a batting practice pitcher–kind of like a new Nate Minchey.
What gets overlooked in these analyses is that he was the best pitcher in camp this year for the Giants, and almost made the team as the 5th starter out of Spring Training, losing out to Wellemeyer and his contract. If Sabean hadn’t thrown $1 million at Wellemeyer, Pucetas would have started 2010 as the Giants #5 starter.
Yes, he’s struggled at AAA, but when he faced the major leaguers this past spring, he did pretty damn good.
He did good in spring training but that really holds no ground, really small sample size. Todd Linden hit something around .550 for the Giants in ST, look how that turned out
Can’t wait to hear Fred White try to pronounce his name. May have to take his teeth out to do it.
Poo-say-ta’s?
Fred White?
Anything for Jose Guillen is a rip-off. PUCETAS for GUILLEN? Come on, Brian Sabean…Come on…
Guillen was good for the Giants, they just used him terribly wrong. Pucetas never has a chance to stick in the majors
How was he good for the Giants? He was slow, played horrible defense, and didn’t hit well enough to make up for those two weaknesses.
Well completely ignoring my comment, as you decided to. Guillen would have been a very good pinch hitter down the stretch, but he should have never seen the field, under ANY circumstances. That grand slam he hit pretty awesome if you ask me.
I don’t disagree that the grandslam was awesome…I think it’s awesome when anybody hits a grand slam…
He would not have been a “very good pinch hitter” though. Look at his stats. He struck out a lot, rarely walked, didn’t hit for a good average, nor did he hit with much power. He would have been an upgrade over the Giants’ other pinch-hit options (i.e. Rowand) but not “very good” by any means.
That being said, he’s not worth Pucetas in my opinion. Even if Pucetas does not have much of a future in the majors, he still could have been traded for something better.
“he still could have been traded for something better.”
god some people are dumb. Pucetas is garbage.
Okay…on second thought you’re right. This was still a stupid trade, though. Pucetas sucks. Jose Guillen sucks too though. This was a pointless acquisition. As bad as Pucetas is, the trade wasn’t necessary.
I think the Giants really gave a lot compared to Cody Ross, Ross have been very good since joining the Giants