So the Santana trade was a few years back, and some people still think the Twins got fleeced on the trade. Though some people think they should have easily taken the Ellsbury package over the Gomez package.
I am going to try and break this down the best I can.
Ellsbury offensively in the last 3 years:
SEASON TEAM G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB BB SO SB CS OBP SLG AVG
2007 Red Sox 33 116 20 41 7 1 3 18 59 8 15 9 0 .394 .509 .353
2008 Red Sox 145 554 98 155 22 7 9 47 218 41 80 50 11 .336 .394 .280
2009 Red Sox 153 624 94 188 27 10 8 60 259 49 74 70 12 .355 .415 .301
Gomez offensively in the last 3 years:
SEASON TEAM G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB BB SO SB CS OBP SLG AVG
2007 Mets 58 125 14 29 3 0 2 12 38 8 27 12 3 .288 .304 .232
2008 Twins 153 577 79 149 24 7 7 59 208 25 142 33 11 .296 .360 .258
2009 Twins 137 315 51 72 15 5 3 28 106 22 72 14 7 .287 .337 .229
Looking at the two players, it looks like Ellsbury easily wins offensively in 2009 right?. Well, part of that though was that Gomez only got about 300 AB's. If you look as if it was 600 AB's, he actually improved from his 2008 year. Gomez's 2008 year was actually pretty close to Ellsbury's in 2008. Gomez had almost the same amount of walks in 2009 than 2008. That means that Gomez almost doubled his walks per AB in the last year. That is a huge improvement. Now note this: Gomez is two years younger than Ellsbury. That means the comparison should be between Gomez's offense in 2009 to Ellsbury's in 2007 right? Well, if you do it that way, Gomez looks like he will be much better in two years than Ellsbury was in 2009. I have to give the edge to Ellsbury for right now, but I think Gomez has a lot more talent considering he is two years younger.
Now lets look at the UZR ratings, which pretty much shows how much range they have in the outfield (how many balls they can get to):
Gomez: 11.5
Ellsbury: -16.5
That means that Ellsbury gave up 16.5 more runs than the average center fielder. Gomez on the other hand gave up 11.5 less runs than the average center fielder. That is a difference of 28 runs! That is why I easily give the defensive edge to Gomez.
So between offense and defense, I have to give the edge to Gomez, as I feel his center field defense has saved so many games that I can cut him slight slack on his offense. His offense is only going to get better according to the numbers while learning how to play defense like Ellsbury is trying to do is going to be a lot harder.
So since I gave Gomez the edge, lets look now at the Gomez for Hardy trade.
Gomez's defense is superb right? I mean his UZR rating is one of the best if not the best out of all center fielders. Well lets look at Hardy's UZR rating:
Hardy: 11 UZR over his 5 year career.
When putting into effect how much better J.J. Hardy is offensively at the moment, I have to give the edge in that trade to Minnesota. At least for the short-term. If Gomez becomes the player that I think he will be, long-term Gomez might be a much better player.
We will just have to wait and see.
