That’s two pretty good bluechip prospects for Renteria.  I’ll comment more on this deal tonight.  Make that tomorrow.  I’m having some periodic internet outages so I don’t want to have to redo this several times.

***ANALYSIS***

It’s funny because a couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me what big move the Tigers would make this offseason. I told him they’d trade for Edgar Renteria, which was probably one of the worst kept secrets out there. Odds are good this deal was done a while ago, but the two teams were just waiting to make the announcement once the Red Sox finished things up yesterday.

Anyway, on the face of things, I think the Tigers gave up a little too much, but they gave it up at spots where they already have strengths. Jair Jurrjens would have been hard pressed to make a healthy Tigers’ rotation next year and while Gorkys Hernandez appeared to be a keeper, he’s following in the footsteps of phenom Cameron Maybin and is at best two years away.

In my opinion, Edgar Renteria is a bit overrated. In his past five years, he’s had two really good years, two pretty poor years and then a season that’s right in the middle. He’s won two gold gloves, but only one of those was probably warranted and in his past six years, he’s finished with  negative fielding runs above average. And if you’re looking at range factor, he’s middle of the pack. I was going to compare him to Carlos Guillen in the field, but the Hardball Times site started getting glitchy. Anyway, fielding wise, Renteria vs. Guillen is probably a push.

Of course you can’t really compare him to Guillen because Carlos will be playing first base. Unfortunately, that’ll diminish his value a bit because now instead of being one of the better hitting shortstops, he’ll be a mediocre hitting first baseman. I thought they would have been better off finding a decent hitting first baseman and keeping Guillen at shortstop for one more year but all of those errors piling up must have been the driver behind the trade.

Basically what it comes down to is which Edgar Renteria shows up. If it’s the 2007 version and the Tigers win the division, the deal makes sense. If it’s the 2005 version and we don’t, then we got hosed. Regardless, it’s probably better having Renteria/Guillen then Guillen/Casey like we had last year so it is an upgrade but giving Thames another shot at first base would have been an interesting move. So, we’ll see in 2008.

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