In a trade that sends Houston Astros center fielder Michael Bourn to the Atlanta Braves for a grab bag of prospects, Atlanta has done very well. Bourn is a significant upgrade for the Braves, a team in position to win the wild card despite muddling along with virtually no production from their outfield this year.
Getty ImagesMichael Bourn is an upgrade for Atlanta both at the plate, and in the field, where he covers a ton of ground up the middle.
Bourn's best tool is his glove -- he covers a ton of ground in center and is one of the league's best half-dozen or so defenders at the position. At the plate he has almost no power, but despite that can at least foul off better fastballs that beat most zero-power hitters, and he draws enough walks to keep his OBP up over .340; his OBP of .363 this year would be third in Atlanta's lineup. Bourn is probably worth more than a win to the team during the rest of the regular season, but this move looks like it's more about improving run prevention in the postseason while reducing the number of automatic outs in Atlanta's lineup by one. He's under control through 2012, solving one position for the team for next year as well.
The return for Houston however is shockingly poor -- quantity over quality, to say the least -- and can't do Ed Wade any good in extending his status as GM beyond "lame duck." It makes me wonder if Houston had a ranking of Atlanta's top 25 prospects but looked at it upside-down. The best player coming back to the Astros is Brett Oberholtzer, a command-and-control lefty who'll pitch at 87-92 mph with an above-average cutter and changeup; he profiles as a back-end starter, maybe a fourth guy in a mediocre rotation. Centerfielder Jordan Schafer is a former top prospect whose career was derailed by injuries, a PED suspension and mismanagement of his career by Atlanta; he turns 25 in September and has hit .217/.288/.286 since the start of 2009 between Triple-A and the majors. He could be an above-average defender in center in time, but the bat is a real longshot to play every day. (He's also currently out with a broken finger.) Right-hander Paul Clemens has a power arm, throwing 91-96, and will flash an above-average curveball, but the command and control aren't there and he has shown a huge reverse split for two years, getting rocked by right-handed hitters this season to a .284/.370/.460 line. Juan Abreu is a 26-year-old right-handed reliever in Triple-A with a huge arm (he'll touch triple digits) but well below-average control; he was signed as a minor league free agent, which means the Astros could have had him for nothing this offseason.
The package is just stuff for a pretty solid big league regular, nowhere near sufficient for a guy like Bourn who has a year and a third of control remaining and will probably remain underpaid by arbitration because the process overvalues power and undervalues defense.