White Sox Trade Nick Swisher to Yankees For Former First Round Pick Jeff Marquez

Just read that the White Sox traded Nick Swisher to the New York Yankees for former first round draft pick and right-handed starting pitcher Jeff Marquez, along with reserve infielder Wilson Betemit and relief pitcher Jhonny Nunez.

A collection of thoughts about this trade. First, the excitement.

I like this kid Jeff Marquez, at least what can be gleaned from a quick five-minute Internet search. He was a first round draft choice in the 2004 draft and Baseball America recently rated him as the #7 prospect in the Yankees’ organization. Last year, he pitched for the first time in AAA, starting 14 games and pitching 80.2 innings while racking up a 6-7 record, a 4.69 ERA, a K/9 rate of 3.68, and a WHIP of 1.45. Those numbers don’t seem all that great, and they are not — actually, they look pretty similar to Javier Vazquez’s second half numbers from last year. However, for his minor league career, Jeff Marquez is 43-40 with an ERA of 3.60 in 560 innings, with a K/9 of 6.36 and BB/9 of 3.07. The best number though? How about a HR/9 rate of 0.55 (which was much higher during his brief stint in AAA, ballooning to 1.34). For a pitcher projected to start half his games in the U.S. Cellular Launching Pad, keeping the ball in the ballpark is key.

Earlier in his minor league career, Jeff Marquez was described this way on Scout.com:

The Yankees selected Jeff Marquez in the 1st round of the 2004 draft. Marquez has earned tremendous confidence from the organization with a mature approach along with a lethal combination of a sinker and an outstanding power changeup.

So, obviously we won’t know anything until we see this kid spend some more time at AAA and ultimately in the majors, but he appears to have a pretty high upside as he only recently turned 24.

As far as the other guys go, Wilson Betemit was a former top-level prospect with the Atlanta Braves who has never seemed to live up to the early hype and promise. I remember fantasy gurus tugging on their little Salisbury about him when he first came up to the Majors. In six Major League season, Betemit has never topped 400 ABs once, and is a lifetime .260 hitter. He did hit 18 HRs in 2006, the season in which he had his most ABs of 373. He can, however, play both SS and 3B at a decent level and gives the White Sox flexibility to move Juan Uribe or Joe Crede with Alexei Ramirez expected to move to short, Orlando Cabrera to be jettisoned, and Josh Fields hoping to play somewhere.

With respect to Jhonny Nunez, I will withhold judgment until I see him play, but my first impression is not good. Why? Because he spells his name “Jhonny.” This reminds of Jhonny Peralta of the Cleveland Indians, and anything that reminds me of the Cleveland Indians is enough to make me want to wretch. It took me three years to fully embrace Jim Thome as a true member of the White Sox, and as the memory of his home run in the one-game playoff over Minnesota fades, even he still reminds me of the Indians. Anyway, back to serious baseball conversation, Nunez has only pitched 27 innings above A ball, and has already been in three organizations in three years. But he’s still young (22) and has shown a good K rate in his brief minor league career. Perhaps he can help shore up the bullpen at some point, but it does not appear that he will be on the South Side in the coming years.

Now back to Nick Swisher. I was ecstatic when the White Sox acquired Nick Swisher. He had always put up good numbers at U.S. Cellular Field and his defining characteristic was boundless energy that everyone thought would be a positive in a clubhouse that had gotten stale since winning the World Series in 2005. However, Swisher struggled mightily last season, and today’s article on the Sun-Times website explains that Swisher actually brought more negative energy to the clubhouse towards the end of the season as his playing time waned. He apparently was not receptive to coaching, and this did not help him break out of his season-long funk.

While the Swisher and Cabrera experiments in 2008 seem like failures, they were the primary additions (along with Super Alexei) to a team that reversed its awful performance from 2007 and ended up in the playoffs. It seems ironic that both Nick Swisher and Orlando Cabrera with leave Chicago embroiled in stories about how their final weeks and days in the White Sox clubhouse were defined more by pouting and being negative influences than the positive energy and excitement that they seemed to bring at the start of the year, and that everyone thought would be such a boon for the White Sox. I guess they were for awhile, but just could not find a comfortable groove with Ozzie Guillen and the rest of the South Siders.

Either way, I will say this: not every move that Ken Williams makes turns into gold, but he is not afraid to cut his losses and move on. Take a look at his moves before 2008. He struck gold with Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez, and they are now two building blocks for the future of the White Sox. Nick Swisher and Orlando Cabrera didn’t work out, and they will be gone. A lot of General Managers are afraid to admit when they make mistakes, but not Ken Williams. He wants to win. And even though people will now question the wisdom of trading a pitcher with the potential of Gio Gonzalez for one year of Nick Swisher, Williams is not stubbornly holding onto Swisher in hopes it will work out. He has turned right back around and gotten three players in return, one of whom is a starting pitcher probably just one notch below Gonzalez. You have to take chances to win, as Ken Williams did in bringing in Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez. Sometimes they work out, and sometimes they don’t. The good GMs double-down on the moves that work and quickly move past the ones that do not.

We will not be able to assess the true value of this trade for years to come, but I applaud the move despite how much I fell in love with Dirty 30 and his technicolor goatee at the start of the year. Ken Williams has earned my trust, and hopefully the trust of all White Sox fans. Now let’s hope that Jeff Marquez actually turns into the 3rd or 4th starter that he seems to have the potential to become.

[tags]chicago white sox, ken williams, nick swisher, mlb[/tags]

Tags: jeff marquez, ken williams, nick swisher, orlando cabrera

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