Big news! The Tigers made an early strike to improve the shortstop position by acquiring Edgar Renteria for youngsters Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez.
The Tigers will owe Renteria roughly $6.3MM in ’08 and have a good chance of exercising his $11MM option for ’09. They’ve added a five-win shortstop in Renteria.
The price was reasonable. Jurrjens turns 22 in January and can probably jump into the Braves’ rotation. He throws in the 90-93 with good control. Kevin Goldstein projected him as a future middle-rotation guy. The one concern is that shoulder inflammation surfaced in August of this year.
Hernandez is the potential star in the deal. He turned 20 in September and should man center field in Atlanta for a long time once he’s ready. He’s a burner with solid defense, but he’s yet to grow into his power. He’s still a ways from the bigs though. Goldstein recently ranked him the game’s 10th best CF prospect, behind the Braves’ own Jordan Schafer and others like Jay Bruce, Colby Rasmus, Andrew McCutchen, and Jacoby Ellsbury.
All in all, I think the Tigers did quite well here. I’d like the deal a bit more for Atlanta if I felt that Jurrjens could provide 180 solid innings in ’08. Will Carroll and the aforementioned Goldstein contribute some additional analysis at BP. Sounds like this one began under John Schuerholz.
