Reyes to the Phillies?

by glamboomer on Jul 29, 2007 9:15 PM EDT

I didn't check the game thread & I've been having fun at my daughter's 4th birthday party, but saw this nugget here from Cardinal Diaspora & thought maybe it deserved a diary all it's own over here..

http://www.cardinalsdiaspora.com/?p=1782
and here...

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2007/07/phillies-scout-.html

Reyes for Bourn? What do you guys think?
Here's a link to Bourn's minor league stats:

http://thebaseballcube.com/players/B/Michael-Bourn.shtml

Looks like he gets on base & runs a little bit. Is that enough for our most colorful twirler?

Boomer.

0 recs | Comment 25 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

I do not want them to trade Anthony for

anyone....he is going to be a good major league pitcher, maybe even a great major league pitcher and this organization cannot let another starting pitcher go star on someone else's mound. It would be a real feather in the organizations cap if they finally sent a pitcher of his potential into their own starting rotation. Besides, he's handled his own struggles well...that speaks volumes of his character....he never gave up on himself, and they should not give up on him. Starting pitching is too scarce. Don't do it....

by jillsinmo on Jul 29, 2007 9:13 PM EDT 0 recs

i don't want to trade for another 4th outfielder

like michael bourn

Por Que!?

by kyle man on Jul 29, 2007 9:38 PM EDT 0 recs

Bourn?

He looks like a faster, younger Skip Schumaker without the contact skills to me.

I'd be very confused if Walt thought that was worth Anthony Reyes.

by liam on Jul 29, 2007 9:52 PM EDT 0 recs

hmm...

i am not sure how i feel about Reyes right now. i still believe he is going to be a very good major league pitcher, but i don't know if it will ever happen with st. louis. i think if ladunketty are going to be around after this season they should move Reyes (albeit not for Bourn) but if ladunketty won't be running the show in St Louis then we oughta hang onto him because he will develop into a heckuva pitcher.

(imho if we do trade Reyes we will all look at it as another Haren deal, because i do think he will be special)

by lopey986 on Jul 29, 2007 9:55 PM EDT 0 recs

haren had a solid track record before

and dunc and tlr both liked him, and haren was younger when we dealt him, compared to if we traded him now

Por Que!?

by kyle man on Jul 29, 2007 10:03 PM EDT up 0 recs

I have probably written 1,000 posts on A Rey

Do not trade him
He started his professional career in 2004
He was the cardinals organization minor league pitcher of the year in 2005
He was ranked in baseball america top 50 in 2006
It is 2007. Why would they even consider trading him or doing anything other them helping transition into the major league rotation? He is in his 4th professional season! They are nuts. That pitching last night was electric and he was clearly dominating a strong HOME RUN hitting line up. There is no reason to do anything but stick him in the rotation and keep working on a ground ball pitch for when he HAS to have a ground ball. I fly ball isn't going to hurt you too much if they don't get a good swing on it. 2 hits 2 runs...if he and all the other pitchers threw a game like that 4 times a week, we'd be at the top of the division. Keep him. Change things gradually so he'll be a more well rounded pitcher. Use him just how he is right now.
He did pitch to contact, it just wasn't ground balls. So what. Flyballs are outs too and Jimmy gets to show off a little by making some catches look harder than they are. It's the one thing I love Jimmy for.........

by jillsinmo on Jul 29, 2007 10:27 PM EDT up 0 recs

As others have said, the guy seems fungible.

We already have two Michael Bournes on this team.

The St Louis Cardinals- 11 time World Champs!

by Zubin on Jul 29, 2007 10:05 PM EDT 0 recs

nah, gooch is to old to be michael bourne

and skip isn't as good as a hitter

Por Que!?

by kyle man on Jul 29, 2007 10:11 PM EDT up 0 recs

Okay so we get a young Taguchi

How many 4th or 5th OFers do we need?

The St Louis Cardinals- 11 time World Champs!

by Zubin on Jul 30, 2007 12:19 AM EDT up 0 recs

Reyes would be a disaster in Philly...

Reyes is basically a fly ball pitcher. Their stadium is basically a launching pad. Not a good mix.

by DiscoJer on Jul 29, 2007 10:51 PM EDT 0 recs

If they want Reyes...

then Rollins should be the guy we look to pick up.

Send them some sort of package including Reyes, Eck and another prospect not named Rasmus, Anderson, Garcia, or Perez.

Micheal Bourn doesn't make a lick of sense.

Pitch to swing and misses...not contact. I've never heard of a "seeing eye K"

by bobbyballgame1 on Jul 29, 2007 11:29 PM EDT 0 recs

Reyes for Bourn

would be a terrible idea. Bourn's ultimate upside appears to be real similar to Juan Pierre. Anthony Reyes has certainly been a bit of an enigma this season, but it's not any kind of stretch to say he easily has #2 starter upside. As successful as, say, Brad Thompson has been this season at times, we all got a very good look at the difference between a guy like him and Anthony on Saturday night. Anthony is just far less hittable than your average, back of the rotation type of pitcher. To give up a guy with that kind of upside for a fourth outfielder, at the most a speedy, slappy hitter in center field, would be very foolish.

I don't need no instructions to know how to rock.

by the red baron on Jul 29, 2007 11:57 PM EDT 0 recs

I know, I can't help myself,

but I have to ask: is Michael Bourn a veteran? Don't we have a good pipeline of outfielders? I know the pipeline of good pitchers is more than a season away. Nope. I'm for keeping Anthony; there is a chance for him to be really special.

by jillsinmo on Jul 30, 2007 12:03 AM EDT 0 recs

Nope.

Bourn is a young guy, a rookie even. I think he may be a slight bit older than most prospects, (maybe around 26) as I believe he had a couple of rough years, where he became enamoured with trying to become a power hitter. He went back to bunting for base hits and just trying to slap and run last season, and he's made good progress since then.

Even with his youth, he's not at all the sort of player I want to see Reyes traded for, particularly since, as you so astutely observed, the outfield is the one area where the Cardinals do have very good depth in the system.

Just say no to Bourn!

I don't need no instructions to know how to rock.

by the red baron on Jul 30, 2007 12:27 AM EDT up 0 recs

bourn is 24...

will be 25 later this year. i wouldn't trade a pitcher of anthony's ilk for bourn straight up...however i also think that a lot of people seem to be underselling bourn.(i'm not even an advocate of trading reyes, but you have to give bourn some credit).
the player everyone seems to be dumping on, would be the best athelete on our team, by far the fastest, and witholding a healthy jim edmonds likely our best defensive outfielder too (very good range and arm). he's got 18 steals in part time duty (he's on track for less than 200 at bats), and it should also be noted that he has a higher obp AND slugging pct. than our very own david eckstein, so it could be construed that he would als be the most effective leadoff hitter on our current team as well.
i also disagree w/ the juan pierre comp. while it's true that bourn is speedy, hits the ball on the ground a lot, and doesn't have plus power, he is also disimilar to juan in that he is not nearly as prolific at making outs (he WILL take a walk), he is much better in the field as noted above (pierre has a terrible arm), and he also has the type of live athletic body (he's 5'10" or 5'11",180ish right now)that has a chance to become more powerful in the future (not big-time power by any means, but maybe along the lines of what his teammate shane victorino has become a 15 hr guy).
anyway i'm not in his fan club or anything but i do think he has some potential, and i hope that the real reason people were so neg about him is due to their faith in anthony. otherwise, it seems like a shame that so many fans of a wholly unathletic team would turn their nose up at the prospect of acquiring a young cheap speedster...a real need

grow back the beard adam...it couldn't hurt

by intimidator45 on Jul 30, 2007 12:57 AM EDT 0 recs

Fair Enough.

Bourn is about a year or two younger than I thought. You say he may have more power potential than a guy like Pierre, and that may be true. I still think the comparison is pretty apt. If Bourn's absolute maximum is what you wrote above, then if he misses it by even a hair you have the aforementioned slappy hitting former Marlins OF.

Believe me, I'm not arguing that Bourn wouldn't be an upgrade over our current, unathletic leadoff situation. He probably would be better, or at least more exciting. However, again, the Cards system is well stocked with OF prospects, and I don't know that Bourn, even if he's closer to your assessment than mine, is worth the price of a potential #2 starter.

Now, if he played short or second base, I might feel slightly differently. But we don't really need much more OF depth, particularly of the lefthanded hitting variety. Mostly, I just think Anthony is far too steep a price to give up for a guy like Bourn.

I don't need no instructions to know how to rock.

by the red baron on Jul 30, 2007 1:24 AM EDT up 0 recs

you must not have read my post....

very carefully...besides the part that related directly to your comment i suppose.
IF you would have read everything i said you would have noticed that i am not a proponent of trading anthony at ALL, and i explicitly said i wouldn't do a bourn for reyes straight up.
the point was that i thought it was ridiculous for people to keep piling on bourn, when he is a lot more valuable than alot of our current players.
and you're right... we do have a lot of depth in the outfield at the major and minor league levels but if you notice a lot of these guys are the same animal so to speak (low obp, decent speed, pretty good power---ie ankiel, juan cion, ludwick, edmonds)(duncan is left out of this group due to his on base skills and great instead of merely good power). and of the OFs that are more comparable to bourn (skip, taguchi), he has the higher ceiling and better skill set, plus he's young enough to still improve.
in short, though it's true he plays a position that we already have great depth at...bourn in my opinion would be a welcome addition to our team b/c he does things that no one else on our team does...and this is more valuable than having a bunch of interchangeables with similar skill sets. JUST SO WE'RE CLEAR...I'M NOT SAYING WE SHOULD TRADE REYES FOR HIM...but if i were walt and i had another way to acquire him you can be sure that i'd be looking into it

grow back the beard adam...it couldn't hurt

by intimidator45 on Jul 30, 2007 2:06 AM EDT up 0 recs

i also must put it out there...

that while the juan pierre comp is not terrible in that they share some of the same skills (as noted in my first post), for me it is far from perfect due to two circumstances---bourn is appreciably better on the defensive side, which shouldn't be underestimated when considering the value of up the middle players, especially those who slap the ball around and use their speed--also bourn does one thing that makes him a more prototypical leadoff hitter...he gets on base at a higher rate than pierre, allowing him (and the team) to better utilize his blazing speed.
case in point---pierre's career high obp is .378, which happens to be the career minor league average for bourn (he drops down to .365 in his limited mlb experience, but still that's only .013 behind pierre's BEST season).
bourn also compiled that while only hitting over .300 once(he's a .284 minor league batter/.286 mlb). by comparison, even in his heyday for the marlins, pierre's obp was mostly a result of his high batting avg.(a career .301 hitter/.347 obp) rather than an ability to get on base. for another reference point, juan's obp in seasons when he has not hit over .300 is a paltry .325.
basically pierre's inability to get on base has turned him into a high volume outmaker as his batting avg. has declined. as a result he is no longer an ideal leadoff canidate, and thus his value has been stunted and his weaknesses magnified.
if bourn only replicates his minor league numbers (and he could improve on them, he's only 24, how much better has duncan gotten since he was 24?)he will provide a team a much cheaper and viable leadoff option than pierre. plus he's more likely to sustain this as his value is not solely dependent on batting avg., a very erratic statistic.

grow back the beard adam...it couldn't hurt

by intimidator45 on Jul 30, 2007 2:44 AM EDT up 0 recs

also no way....

rollins gets moved

grow back the beard adam...it couldn't hurt

by intimidator45 on Jul 30, 2007 12:59 AM EDT 0 recs

there is no reason to trade Reyes

unless you want to be one of those Florida teams that is just like a farm club for major league teams, developing talent and shipping them off for broken-down parts.

Acquire some runs!

by madding on Jul 30, 2007 7:09 AM EDT 0 recs

Intimidator45....Michael Bourn

sounds like he would be a good useful player.....I have no objections to getting him and I am in agreement that Reyes should not be part of the deal. Actually, since Rowand is a free agent after this year, it might be smart for the Phillies to keep him after all. I think right now pitching potential is more important to this organization than outfield potential.....

by jillsinmo on Jul 30, 2007 8:07 AM EDT 0 recs

Talk to my brother

who is a huge Phills fan, I feel his pain, and he says the word is that the Phills are considering using Reyes out of the pen.

by nybirdfan on Jul 30, 2007 11:21 AM EDT 0 recs

i am a big fan of reyes

as all of you know. having said that: i think michael bourn has the potential to be much more than a 4th outfielder. he has had excellent walk rates throughout the minors (neither schumaker or j-rod had that skill at age 25), and that ability has translated to the big-league level. he also is a superior base-stealer, which schumaker is not and never has been.

so bourn would introduce some of the key elements --- youth, speed, on-base ability --- that the cardinals desperately lack. i don't know anything about his defense, but at a quick glance he looks like a pretty useful offensive player to me.

reyes will never see eye-to-eye with laduncan, so if those two are going to stick around next year then i think this is a trade worth considering.

by lboros on Jul 30, 2007 11:23 AM EDT 0 recs

coming into the season, PECOTA projected bourn

as a 4-win player for the foreseeable future. by comparison, edmonds projected as a 4-win player in 2007 (he obviously won't hit that projection), a 3-win player in 2008. schumaker and j-rod projected as 2-win players; taguchi as a 1.5 win player.

reyes projected as a 3-win player before this year, but given his performance his prospects obviously have dimmed.

by lboros on Jul 30, 2007 11:32 AM EDT up 0 recs

I well personally be distressed and

distraught if this trade happens--that means that LaDuncetty is coming back and I just don't see they would even play Michael Bourn long enough to find out if he is any good........

by jillsinmo on Jul 30, 2007 1:37 PM EDT 0 recs