The Red Sox have acquired third baseman Danny Valencia from the Twins for minor league outfielder Jeremias Pineda, both teams have announced. Valencia will report to Triple-A Pawtucket while Pineda will report to the Gulf Coast League Twins.
Valencia has struggled this season hitting .198/.212/.310 in two tours with the Twins. He has also played 69 games for Triple-A Rochester batting .250/.289/.399. Valencia, originally selected by the Twins in the 19th round of the 2006 First-Year Player Draft, had an impressive Major League rookie season in 2010 with a slash line of .311/.351/.448, but has seen his numbers drop steadily since.
Pineda is a 21-year-old outfielder from the Dominican Republic who has never played above Rookie ball. Pineda, a switch-hitter, is leading the Gulf Coast League in batting (.421). Over his two professional seasons in the Red Sox organization, Pineda has a slash line of .321/.380/.423 in 70 games between the Dominican Summer League Red Sox and the GCL.
Um, why?
My post asked that same thing in like 50 words.. BAFFLING.. Maybe they found a way to con some team into taking Punto and his 1.5m salary???
it was more of a change of scenery for Valencia, got him for nothing, why not?
I wouldn’t call it “for nothing”. Pineda was just signed in 2011 and is already stateside. His scouting report said a CF w/ “elite” speed and a plus arm. if he tuned into a marginal hitter (.260/.340/.400) then that’s a really good bargain for 6 years of control. Meanwhile, is Valencia even “back up” worthy? Can’t hit (.694 career OPS in his somewhat brief career) and not a good fielder (-2.3 UZR career).
Not saying it’s a bad deal just not understanding it from the Sox perspective. Twins just added another young, raw prospect for a guy who wasn’t doing anything thing for them right now and probably would be expensive for what he gave them in another year or so.
Only way I see it as a “plus” is if it means they are trying to move Punto and his salary. Valentine is in “love” with Ciriacco and has been since ST. Aviles and Punto were the only guys on the roster who could b/u 3rd, maybe some kind of deal is in the works if Valencia isn’t ticketed to Pawtucket.
FWIW.. Pineda is 21YO tearing it up at the GCL, so he is older than his contemporaries.
Sounds like the Twins want to put him in A ball, according to the Twins broadcast. I don’t know if they meant immediately or not though. It was just thrown into the conversation.
Granted, he is 21 but he’s a “young” 21 in the sense that he has not played ANY professional ball until 2011 when he made hi debut in the DSL and GCL all in the same season. It’s not like he’s been in the DSL or stateside for years or anything. He is raw in it’s truest sense and could really develop in a professional coaching environment.
Also, the average age of a hitter in the GCL is 19.7 and for pitchers 20.1 so it’s not like he’s THAT much older than the rest of the players at his level.
I don’t really disagree, but it’s kinda like all those throwers that come over every year. They can throw a 100mph fastball, but they can’t control it and they don’t have any secondary pitches; if you can teach them some off speed stuff and harness their control a little you could get a great pitcher out of them, but most of them never make it above A ball. This kid has tons of speed, and a good arm, but that’s all he is right now, and the chances are probably better that he never sees AAA than that he even becomes a bench player in the MLB. There’s also got to be a reason he went five years between the time he became eligible to sign and the time he actually signed, and there’s also got to be a reason that he only got $10k to sign; he’s also almost 22 (22 in November) which means he’s two years older than his average peer and at least as raw as the average GCL player.
Again, that doesn’t mean I don’t think he can become something, just that I think the chances are really low, and the Sox obviously didn’t value him very highly (nor did other teams since no one signed him for five years), and they likely had a reason not to value him highly.
He would be blocked by Jackie Bradley, who has way more upside
not blocked by anyone. not anywhere near a level at which he is eligible to be blocked. he’s a run-of-the-mill, toolsy wildcard
that’s not an insult and it’s not talking him down; this is good for the twins. but the amount of text wasted in this thread trying to build up a 21 year old who has hit well for 70 games at a level for which he is 2 years old on the back of a .500 BABIP…
well, let’s just say this is the only circumstance under which you’ll see non-sox fans talking up sox prospects: when it is completely and entirely inappropriate and the only possible purpose is to try slight boston
I take a little offense to that my friend. I don’t have any reason to bash the Sox and I would think that I’ve proven over the years that I can think as a fan of baseball who happens to be a Yankee fan. I absolutely HATE the Sox but I’ve NEVER felt the need to bash them just to bash them and you know this.
If you FELT I was bashing the Sox then I apologize. Again, it’s not that deep as you mentioned. Never said it was a good or bad deal for the Sox. Just didn’t see the point of acquiring him is all.
And while he may have a .500 BaBip which of course is unsustainable and while he of course won’t hit .421 for the whole year it still doesn’t mean that when he returns to the norm that he CAN’T or WON’T be an average or better hitter. Anywho…no big deal I guess.
the same of course can be said for valencia, whose 80 game hot streak two seasons ago came in the big leagues, not rookie ball
to be clear, i don’t think you ever go out of your way to bash boston and you’re typically not somebody who misuses data to suit your purpose. but you’re certainly digging deeper here for positives about a sox prospect than you ever have before
and look, this is the first time in many years i don’t have much to say in defense of the boston front office. this move doesn’t impress me and neither have many others of late. i’m not here to talk up valencia or talk down pineda. i’m just pointing out an apparent coincidence: a non-sox fan (yankee fan, even) is finally making an effort to talk up a boston prospect, and it just happens to be a situation where doing so is a means of talking down boston
Again, not talking up the guy. I simply responded to @twitter-170498265:disqus who stated Valencia “was gotten for nothing”. Pineda MAY end up as nothing but just because he’s too early into his career doesn’t mean he won’t develop. Meanwhile, I just don’t see the point of acquiring Valencia for him.
And pointing out it being a coincidence that I’m a Yanks fan discussing this matter sort of makes me wonder. I mean, anytime you’ve been critical of the Yanks I tend to look beyond the fact that your a Sox fan and instead remember that you usually make sense.
I mean feel free to disagree with me but don’t question my motives for what I said. I’m not the kind of guy that sees everything thing as rosy when the Yanks do something and everything negative when it’s the Sox.
Because he will be a decent backup to Middlebrooks, and why wouldn’t you want him for a rookie league guy?
Oh good someone else already asked this.
why?
Do they plan on using him at short?
Danny can’t play shortstop.
Or 3rd base, for that matter…
Can he pitch?
– Dayton Moore
Ok.. Someone explain this.. I know the have Andy (the roach) at Pawtuck as a break glass backup for Middlebrooks and supposedly.. Punto is the reserve.. I see no roster spot, unless they are getting rid of Punto or Ciriacco or Punto and Punto is owed 1.5m.. Thais is bad for the useful Ciriacco..
I hope this Valencia has MiLB options…
they already sent him to Pawtucket
LaRoche is an FA at the end of the season if the Sox don’t add him to their 40-man, and Valencia has an option left for next season and can hit LHP at an okay rate.
Pineda is a fast guy with a good arm but is incredibly raw and at his age it could take him a while to develop anything. He’s not hitting for power or walking, so his league-leading AVG is a derivative of him hitting so many infield singles. And at 21, you can give up on that in an area you have okay depth already.
Comment about LaRoache was meant as a joke. yea.. he was acquired from Philly (or someone) during the season as nothing more than retread depth after they moved Youk.. They have a roster full of retreads like him at Pwtucket that will be FA’s, Gomez can play some 3b also and is a FA.
Glad he’s got an option at least. he can go down, or they get rid of Punto, he’s got to be better if they are not going to keep Ciriacco on the roster.
Hadn’t even paid attention to the GCL roster, except for Taiwanese recent signee Lin this year really. Maybe the twins got a decent long shot.
No way Ciriaco’s job is in danger. Heck, I was at the game to day and was perplexed as to why he wasn’t starting EVERY DAY until he stops hitting. I’m guessing Valencia is an emergency option??
makes you wonder why they got him. maybe middlebrooks is being sent down
Of course not.
Good luck with him, Sox. We’ll miss you Danny, but not really.
They already sent him to AAA Pawtucket, so you can stop wondering whats happening to Punto, Ciriaco, and Middlebrooks, its just a depth move.
Bye Danny. Maybe one day your talent will be able to back up your attitude.
Makes absolutely no sense from the Red Sox perspective.
Valencia has been really good against lefties in his career. maybe that’s why the acquire him? who knows.
Seems obvious to me – Punto is gone pretty soon.
Ha, Gardy has power. Doesnt like a player and they are gone. Watch Oh Danny Boy lite it up. See ya!
It also helps that besides a half of a season in MLB (two years ago now), Danny has been really terrible. That cannot, and should not, be ignored.
Great contribution there. Really, he didn’t have good numbers? Thanks – I didn’t know that as I sit at every home game at Target field.
Well, usually the people who hate on Gardy for not liking a player usually also forget to check out how bad some of those players are.
Danny should be gone because he’s bad and almost 28. That’s good enough reason alone. Not being one of Gardy’s guys is a dumb argument most of the time, especially this time.
Here is the deal, Gardy still thinks his team is in it this year. He even said so after Saturday’s night game with the Sox.
Please dont give me the “he is only saying that to get his players to play hard”
Danny will end up being a good player—mark my words, just as I said Ortiz would be after the Twins let him go. Gardy does not treat people who are in slumps very well, plus he has his favorites (Punto, Hocking and others)
I know baseball, it’s my day job. Now good day!
And I dont see a word where I was ripping Gardy – just stated that he had power – you read into thinking that I was dogging him…
now good day! 🙂
Didn’t say you were ripping Gardy, but you assumed Gardy was the reason Danny was gone or his “power” at least. Meaning you’re implying that you’re a “he’s not one of Gardy’s guys” people.
Gardy isn’t even close to the top of the list of reasons why Valencia is no longer a Twin. He’s played like crap for a year and a half, majors and minors. He had no clue of where the strike zone is, always believes that a pitch on the outside/inside corner is a ball every single time. Glares at the ump like he knows better, every single time. Every team has the scouting report on this guy. He hasn’t adjusted his approach in a year and a half. He knows it’s coming every AB, but he still takes and takes and takes. Still believing it’s not a strike. I wouldn’t call a year and a half of bad hitting a “slump.” Hitting .238/.280/.370 in over 700 PA’s is bad. He was hitting .250/.289/.399 in the minor this year in over 250 PA’s. Also, not good. You could try to blame the hitting coach, about the approach, but Valencia is the only one with this problem. And he has been pretty unhappy with how everything has gone.
The team isn’t in it, but most managers are going to say “I think we’re in it” with the way they have been playing as of late and with the way the teams above them have been playing as of late (Mostly Cleveland and Detroit). Detroit flips the switch every now and then and then looks like crap the next minute. Is Gardy wrong about the Twins? Of course, but those are things that Gardy says. He’s not going to say “well we suck, so let’s just forfeit the season.”
And it wasn’t hard to guess that Ortiz would be good. His last three years (two for sure) with the Twins were good years. His problems were injuries. It was an obvious mistake right away. He hit .272/.339/.500 with 20 HR’s. I will take that any day out of a mid-20’s player.
Also, Ortiz did roids, and you never really know how much that helps a player. It doesn’t change plate vision, but it certainly adds oomph.
Roids or not, comparing the Ortiz situation to the Valencia situation is insane. Two completely different talent levels. I’m sure if/when Valencia comes up the Green Monster will greatly help him out, but if he doesn’t learn the strike zone he’ll never be a good player. He’s 28 (or close to it) and his defensive skills are decent, but not spectacular. Maybe he does turn it around. He is in his prime, but with what I’ve seen it’s not likely, unless he changes his approach to every AB.
A change of scenery was needed. Plouffe easily stole his spot and he did nothing to steal it back. Maybe Plouffe is a fluke, but I’ll be happy to see what he can do. We know what Valencia can do, and it’s not much.
Ready for the crazy part… Tsuyoshi Nishioka is replacing him on the Major League roster!
Definitely the worst news to come out of this. Hopefully when Plouffe is ready in a week, Nishioka is back to being in AAA forever.
We could hope that he goes 10-24 over that week with 4 SBs and we can trade him for anything (if it is a player with a pulse: BONUS!).
Yeah, that would be nice. I don’t think he seems much time though. At least I hope not.
Where is Cherington’s head?
There must have been very little interest in Danny, if that’s all they got was a 21 y/o outfielder to add to their system which has plenty of OFs already. IIRC, Danny was once considered an untouchable prospect and there were numerous teams highly interested in him. Too bad they didn’t deal him then for a couple young pitchers, but hindsight is 20/20.
Yeah, really hard to have hindsight when you have a giant hole at 3B. At the time, we really needed him to be part of the future. He failed.
Why though?
So that’s two guys, who management had no interest in keeping long term, that have been held on to until they had no trade value left. Granted Bill Smith made the Delmon trade, and he was still GM when Danny V had his highest value. But I can’t help but think of the return we could’ve gotten for those two after 2010.
Trading Delmon after 2010 would have made more sense than trading Danny. We had OF’s that could come up in 2011. We didn’t have any 3B except Danny. No one knew Valencia would fall that hard. At the time we weren’t able to scoot Plouffe over there because Danny had a good 80ish games that year. He was going to be the starting 3B, for the next three to four years or so, if he didn’t suck. At the time, they did plan to keep him.
I understand the point, and agree for some players, but I don’t think you can say trading Danny after 2010 would have been smart. It’s only smart in hindsight, knowing what we know now.
Yeah. Danny did look like the 3B of the future. And my analysis is a lot of hindsight. It just seemed like the coaching staff and management had no interest in keeping him any longer than they had too, same with delmon too.
But in general it’s always easy to look back and wish we’d moved a guy before he ended up sucking.
The first part is probably true, no plan on keeping them longer than they had to. I just honestly think that they hoped it was longer than it ended up to be as far as 3B is concerned. We had no immediate help until Plouffe emerged. Hopefully Plouffe isn’t a fluke and can hold it down.
Phillies couldn’t get in on this? Or was this a waiver claim move?
Waiver claim
Figured. Wouldn’t mind seeing the Phillies trade a young BP arm for him in the offseason. I like Danny
You don’t want the Philliies to improve then I guess.
Yes, Valencia may not be exciting, but look at it this way, red sox got him for basically not much at all. Seems a little like Aviles, had a impressive rookie year, has faltered since
Danny Valencia can be a good 3rd Baseman. I think that when on a horrible ballclub like The Twinkies you tend to not be motivated.. The Red-Soxs stole a good guy in their line-up, They acquite Big Papi from Minnesota Twins years ago.
Red Sox all set now. Look out NY.
Finally. All set for October now!