Bay Area Winds........

On July 31, 2009 the A's and Giants found themselves in very different positions. The A's were dwelling in last place of the American League West while the Giants were sitting high a top the National league wild card tied with a familiar division foe, the Colorado Rockies. Both teams made two trades a piece leading up to the deadline but had different purposes for making them. The first deal was A's shipping off Matt Holliday to St. Louis for a package of Brett Wallace, Clayton Mortenson and Shane Peterson. In many ways I found this deal to be ironic. ironic in the sense that there was an outcry after the A's had passed up Wallace in the draft a year prior for one Jemile Weeks. Ironic in the sense that he was almost traded to St. Louis the prior off season. This deal is a win win for both teams. For the A's they get a possible impact bat in Wallace. Comming out of the draft Wallace was seen as perhaps the "safest bat" in the draft due to his incredible feel for hitting. He was knocked a bit however due to the fact that he was questionable defensively and was likely to move t first base which would hurt his value due to the fact that scouts thought he had limited power potential due to the fact that he didn't offer much more projection in that his frame was pretty filled out. And rightfully so, while watching the futures game I instantly took note of Wallace's thick lower half which will most likely make his range detoriate in future seasons. He made a couple of routine plays but certainly didn't look the part of a solid major league third baseman he didn't have the smoothest actions and while he may be able to stay there to begin his career I eventually see him making the transformation to first base or DH. On the season Wallace is hitting .284/.364/.432  which is good for a .796 ops while not terrible isn't great either. In all fairness it's somewhat impressive that he's already in AAA. He's still getting on base at a decent clip but his strikeouts are a bit of an issue he currently has 81 in 103 games while I'm nitpicking a bit it's something to look for as we go forward I wouldn't quite promote him to the big leagues yet but I would be more willing to do so once rosters expand in September. Something else of note is that his BABIP for his career is .357 and his BABIP in Memphis before the time of the trade was .341 so I wouldn't say his step back from last season was a regression at all but that this is a more realistic indicator since his BABIP has come down a bit. I would still say I think Wallace can be a .300/.380/.480 player which is quite a valuable offensive contributor. They also received Clayton Mortenson in the deal. Mortenson was a supplemental first round pick out of Gonzaga in 2007. When drafted I saw him as an intruiging arm comming from a small school such as Gonzaga baseball speaking scouts thought he would need a bit more time to develop than most college pitchers in the first round. He hasn't developed slowly at all but sometimes his results aren't as good as one would think. He has a good 90-93 sinker with good late life and can dial it up to around 94 but then it flattens out. He also throws a slider that can be an outpitch as times but he struggles to find consistency with his third pitch his changeup this prompts many scouts to think he'll windup in the bullpen eventually. At the same time thats not all that bad, I figure he'd have a hard time cracking the Oakland rotation for years to come anyway. He does come with his fair share of red flags however, His whip in Memphis was 1.44 and so far in Sacremento in an extremely small sample size it's 1.77 so he's letting a lot of runners on base. Opponents are also hitting .284 against him so he's proving to be quite hittable .285 off of him. He's an interesting arm don't get me wrong but I see him as more of a reliever than a starter. Shane Peterson is an interesting player the 2nd round pick out of Long Beach State has played all over in his brief career 1b/rf/lf/cf he reminds me a bit of former Dirtbag and current Giants product John Bowker. He's somewhat similar to Bowker in that he profiles as a a corner outfield that will have to hit for substantial power to hold his value. He was promoted by the Cardinals earlier this season out of the Florida State League where he was only slugging .428 but in the Texas League he's only slugging .405.  I believe he could be similar to Bowker in the since that Bowker had stagnated until a promotion to AA and so far Peterson is putting up a .324/.390/.486 line in Midland albeit 9 games but you never know.......