Kouzmanoff/Barfield Trade

The Padres traded Josh Barfield for Kevin Kouzmanoff and Andrew Brown on Wednesday.

BaseballThinkFactory.com’s ZIPS projects the following for the two:

2007 ZiPS Projections
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Barfield 499 73 135 23 2 12 62 40 107 10 .271 .326 .397
Kouzmanoff 301 39 84 17 1 11 41 22 67 3 .279 .334 .452

If we project Kouzmanoff’s “counting stats” out for 500 at-bats, we get: .279/.334/.452 with 28 2B & 18 HR… While that wouldn’t be a huge upgrade over Barfield. However replacing Barfield’s 2006 contributions.(280/.318/.423) shouldn’t be that hard.

Obviously the deal solves third base but opens second base up for discussion. The Padres are rumored to be after Marcus Giles and still after Akinori Iwamura (only now as a 2B rather than a 3B).

Iwamura (as non-scientifically, but rationally predicted by Jeff Sackman):

.292/.348/.446 with 23 doubles and 19 home runs

Giles, who hit .260/.330/.430 in 2006 might have been the victim of a statistical fluke. Mark Normandin suggests that a slight correction to career rates would led to a .292/.373/.421 line.

More later…