If Josh Barfield plays poorly, will he earn the nickname "J-Barf"?

Back on November 8, the Cleveland Indians and San Diego Padres made an interesting trade. The Indians sent 3B/1B Kevin Kouzmanoff and reliever Andrew Brown to the Padres in exchange for 2B Josh Barfield. Let’s break down this deal.

THE PLAYERS:

Josh Barfield was drafted out of high school in Texas. He is now 6 feet, 185 pounds. Son of former major leaguer Jesse Barfield, Josh spent 2006 as the Padres regular second baseman, accumulating 539 at-bats over 150 games. Barfield’s line of .280/.318/.423 was solid by any standard, especially for a rookie who played half of his games in PetCo Park. His home/road splits illustrate just how tough a park it is for hitters; Barfield hit .241/.279/.361 at home, but .319/.355/.484 on the road (keep in mind, the NL West has two other parks that are tough on hitters: San Francisco and Los Angeles. Furthermore, Coors Field was not its normal hitter’s haven in 2006). Barfield also hit 13 homers and stole 21 bases in 26 attempts.

Barfield’s line in 2006 is exactly what we would have guessed his rookie season would look like, judging by his minor league number. At AAA in 2005 he hit .310/.370/.450 with 15 homers and 20 steals (in 25 attempts). Thus, while Barfield has only one season’s worth of a “track record” at the major league level, his minor league statistics suggest that 2006 was well within his abilities as a hitter.

Defensively, Barfield used to have the reputation as a rather mediocre defender. However, most reports I’ve read seem to indicate that Barfield has made strides recently, and is now at least average, perhaps slightly above average. He possesses good athleticism and decent range, as well as an excellent arm.

Barfield’s plate discipline has never been a strong suit: last season he struck out 81 times while walking only 30 times. In 2005 in AAA his K/BB ratio was 108/52. However, he’s shown the ability to hit for solid average in the minors---despite being young for his league at every stop along the way, Barfield’s career minor league batting average is exactly .300. While batting average is a fairly volatile and luck-based statistic, Barfield has shown a consistent ability to hit for an above-average batting average.

Kevin Kouzmanoff put up some incredible statistics in 2006 in the minor leagues. However, he it will be tough for him to overcome his legacy of being the first person ever to hit a grand slam on the very first pitch he saw in the major leagues (not that this is something he’d like to forget).

Kouzmanoff, currently 25 years old, was drafted by the Indians in 2003, and he has done nothing but hit since joining the Indians’ organization. When healthy, that is. Various ailments---usually having to do with his back---limited him to 68 games in 2005 and 110 games in 2006. In 2006, Kouzmanoff started the season in AA Akron, where he hit .389/.449/.660 (in a pitcher’s league no less!), earning a promotion to AAA Buffalo. In Buffalo, Kouzmanoff continued raking to the tune of .353/.409/.647. He accumulated 22 homers and 28 doubles in a mere 346 at-bats between the two levels, and had a K/BB ratio of 46/33.

After making an excellent first impression on the very first pitch he saw, Kouzmanoff slumped to .214/.279/.411 in 56 at-bats with the Tribe, and had a recurrence of some of his back issues which cut into his playing time. Kouzmanoff is a third baseman by trade, although the Indians tried him out at first base during the Arizona Fall League this year. According to reports, Kouzmanoff is a decent third baseman, but perhaps not a long-term 3B, and certainly not an above-average defender (some say he’s actually well below average at the hot corner). Although he has hit at every stop in the organization (his career minor league line, in over 1500 at-bats, is .333/.396/.561), he’s also been old for his league at every stop as well.

Andrew Brown has appeared in nine major league games in his career, but has been traded for a major leaguer three times. The Atlanta Braves drafted Brown in 1999 out of high school in Florida. Brown has had injury concerns throughout his career---after appearing in 42 innings as an 18-year-old, he had surgery and missed the entire 2000 season before returning for 62 innings in 2001. The Braves then included him, along with Brian Jordan and Odalis Perez, in a package to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for slugger Gary Sheffield.

Brown made 11 starts as a 21-year-old for the Dodgers in 2002, striking out more than a better an inning, but posting a 4.11 ERA due to walking 4.4 batters per nine innings. However, he once again injured himself, and missed the entire 2003 season (well, he pitched one inning). Paul DePodesta’s Dodgers then included him, along with Franklin Gutierrez, in the deal with Cleveland which sent Milton Bradley to Los Angeles.

Brown spent 2004 as a 23-year-old in AA with Los Angeles and Cleveland. He continued to strike out a lot of batters---125 Ks in 117 innings---but he still walked too many (50) and was surprisingly hittable, leading to ERAs of 4.66 and 4.02.

In 2005 the Indians decided to shift Brown to the bullpen, in order to maximize his value and curtail any future injuries. The result seemed promising: Brown stayed healthy, and had an excellent 81/19 K/BB ratio in 69 innings for AAA Buffalo. His ERA dropped to 3.36.

In 2006, Brown repeated Buffalo, with interesting results. He once again managed to stay healthy, and his ERA dipped all the way down to 2.60. However, his K/BB ratio sunk to 53/36 in 62 innings.

Brown, at 6 feet 6 inches and 230 pounds is an intimidating figure on the mound. For most of his career his fastball came in around 97-98 MPH. However, in 2006 his velocity was down to 94, and his control issues returned.

WHY IT’S A GOOD DEAL FOR CLEVELAND:

The Indians were able to address a gaping hole in their lineup without giving up anyone who figured into their 2007 (or later) plans. Josh Barfield is not only a credible everyday second baseman (with upside well beyond that), but he’s also going to make the minimum salary for another two years, and will not become a free agent for another five years. Cheap players are great; cheap players who are productive are the key to a small market team’s success.

If Barfield mirrors his 2006 statistics he will be an almost-exact replica of Ronnie Belliard during his tenure with the Tribe. However, Barfield is 23, has a track record of success in the minor leagues, and spent 2006 playing half of his games in a hitter’s wasteland. While a sophomore slump (which is just a layman’s term for “regression to the mean”) is not out of the question, Barfield is likely to maintain his production, and has a significant chance of improving.

Furthermore, while Brown and Kouzmanoff could very well end up being good players, neither was going to get a chance to play in Cleveland. Kouzmanoff was behind Andy Marte on the 3B depth chart and Ryan Garko on the 1B depth chart---he had more value in a trade than he did to the Indians. The Indians had soured on Brown due to his loss of command and decrease in velocity; plus, Brown was out of options and unlikely to make the team. Rather than risk losing him for nothing (a la Brandon Phillips), the Indians decided to get some value out of him by trading him.

WHY IT’S A GOOD DEAL FOR SAN DIEGO:

The Padres addressed a significant need of their own: third base. Kouzmanoff has proven that he is a legitimate hitter. While he does have decent home run power, he has excellent gap power, a quality which will suit him well in spacious PetCo. The Padres consistently have excellent bullpens, and obtaining guys like Andrew Brown is the exact reason why. For all of his faults, Brown’s upside is significant: it is reasonable to project him as a very solid 7^th or 8^th-inning reliever in the near future. If you collect several guys like Brown, chances are one or two of them will pan out.

However, by filling their void at third base, the Padres have created another at second. While there are several decent veteran fillers on the market (Mark Loretta, Ronnie Belliard, Adam Kennedy), I have to wonder if the downgrade from Barfield to any of the aforementioned veterans will be offset by the upgrade from Russell Branyan to Kevin Kouzmanoff at third base. Yes, Kouz has hit at every level, but he’s not a very good third baseman, and has lingering injury concerns. Furthermore, much of his value is against left-handed pitchers (whom he CRUSHED in 2006, hitting .436 against them in AA and a ridiculous .500 in AAA), and he is far less proven (and is also older) than Josh Barfield.

CONCLUSION:

Overall, it’s a good deal for both teams. However, there are many more questions as to the Padres’ motivation than the Indians’. In the end, though, I remember something I read in an interview with Atlanta Braves GM John Schuerholz.

“My view [on trades] is that when you make a deal, the most important thing is to make your team better. The next most important thing is to make the other team better...because if you do that often enough, there's going to be a lot of guys lined up to do a deal with you.”