FanPost

Would We Trade Bourjos to Keep Hunter Around?


I found this little nugget stashed away on MLBtraderumors:

  • Peter Bourjos, meanwhile, is still prominent on the Nationals’ wish list for center fielders, but the Angels want considerable value back if they deal him. With Torii Hunter in the final year of his contract, there is room for the Halos to keep both Bourjos and Mike Trout.
  • Torii Hunter's comment that he wants to play for 2 or 3 more years made a lot of headlines over the slow news weekend. Since we have Trout waiting to rise to superstardom, the living statue of Vernon Wells set up in Left Field and Peter, The Fastest Man on Earth, Bourjos Covering 50% of the Outfield by himself, it looks like Hunter will be moving on.
    While I have immense confidence in DiPoto's skills, I doubt even he can move Vernon Wells at this point. But, what if he is looking at moving Bourjos to the Nationals or some other team? What kind of return could he net? Assuming that Hunter would stick around (seems reasonable since he was begging Arte to give him a bench role earlier in the offseason) at a discounted rate and keep giving us his .280/ 25 HR production, what kind of return would he have to pull to trade Bourjos to make a deal like this work?

    The more I think about this scenario, the more it doesn't seem to work. Certainly DiPoto is creative enough to pull something off, but we arent the ones with the need. Clearly we can keep Bourjos, let Hunter walk and insert Trout into RF for 2013. There is no need to rush him and another year in the minors shouldn't hurt anything. While Trout would be able to survive major league pitching, another year of experience should definitely help him.
    As for potential swaps, we are set at 1B, 2B, OF, and Starting pitching, although a #5 of Strasburg or Zimmermann is certainly appealing... If Aybar is locked up long term, that leaves 3B, C and Bullpen as areas of need. I'm going to ignore any bullpen options since with DiPoto's minor moves we are deep and cheap, the way it should be. Trading Bourjos for a bullpen arm would be a mistake.

    So 3B or Catcher, both positions the Nationals have young, talented players that would be fair in a swap for another young talented player in Bourjos. Both Wilson Ramos and Ryan Zimmerman would be great to pull in a trade from a position of depth. However, the chances that Nationals go for it seem remote. Teams usually fall in love with the stars they develop and don't like to part with them. All of this leads me to one conclusion, Torii Hunter will be playing somewhere else in 2013 if he decides the Bobby Abreu role isnt good enough for him. Because teams are reluctant to trade their young stars, its highly unlikely we would get a fair return for Bourjos and I have confidence DiPoto is smart enough not to trade him for anything other than another young star.

    This FanPost is authored by an independent fan. Tell us what you think and how you feel.

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