Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.

 
More on Hillenbrand-Kim
Even though Dan's already covered it and shown you all what Lee Sinins thinks about the trade, I'll chime in with my own thoughts on the much-ballyhooed Byung-Hyun Kim for Shea Hillenbrand deal.

Basically, this is a significant win for the Red Sox. I recognize the money discrepancy and the service time difference (the Diamondbacks have Hillenbrand locked up for a year longer than the Sox do Kim), but Boston is a team that can afford to pay for the kind of quality that Kim provides. A lot depends on whether or not he's used out of the bullpen, but either way, they've added a very effective young pitcher to the staff to take the place of some of the dead weight they've been lugging around. The problem in Boston this year has definitely been the pitching and not the offense, and this helps.

I don't really understand the deal from the Diamondbacks' perspective. Hillenbrand is a productive-if-overrated offensive player who can handle third defensively and plays a decent first. And while he's better than an injured Matt Williams at this stage of his career, that's not saying a whole lot. On top of that, the team has a third baseman who's pretty damn close to being ready in Chad Tracy (the linked page has nothing on it now really...but when Tracy's got big league numbers, that's where espn.com will put them!). Through 49 games at AAA this year, Tracy's posted a line of .333/.386/.473. While Hillenbrand is having another acceptable, RBI-rrific season, Tracy's not that far behind and, being a younger and more disciplined hitter (17 walks thus far), he's potentially got a brighter future ahead of him. And to acquire him, you have to give up an often-dominant young pitcher when you've had injury trouble already this season and a staff that relies on ancients. It's not that Hillenbrand's a worthless player...he's not. He can clearly hit major league pitching, but he's a guy who you don't want to pay too much for and you should only keep around until there's a better option available. Arizona's paid too much here, and I'm not sure that there's not already a better (at least in the long term) option available to them.

I think this'll end up being a win for the Red Sox either way, but they can really take advantage by using Kim the proper way. He's been relatively successful as a starter despite his record (1-5) this year, and there's little reason to believe he couldn't continue to succeed and improve (he's only 24) in such a role. I know Pedro's out, but Kim is not Pedro and it's not like the Red Sox don't have other arms a la Robert Person floating around to pick up a few starts. The team is good enough offensively to stay in games with merely adequate pitching, and the Red Sox are awash in that, at least when it comes to the rotation. The most glaring need in Boston is in the bullpen, where Kim has excelled in the past. He is a good enough and versatile enough reliever (he can pitch multiple days on end for multiple innings per outing) to be the centerpiece of the poorly titled "bullpen-by-committee" system. While I loathe the Red Sox and hope it doesn't happen, there's no doubt in my mind that using Kim in the pen, in this type of role, would be the best way to go and really improve the team's chances of winning the AL East.
posted by VZW Watcher at 6:27 PM -