The Pirates announced tonight that they’ve acquired corner infielder/outfielder Jason Rogers from the Brewers in exchange for both outfielder Keon Broxton and minor league pitcher Trey Supak. Rogers was fairly impressive in his first expanded run of playing time with the Brewers last year, hitting .296/.367/.441 with six doubles, two triples and four homers, one of which was a huge grand slam against the Cardinals in the heat of the pennant race that I was pretty excited about at one point last September.
It’s sort of a boring internet cliche to say that a trade is “interesting” when you don’t know what else to say, but this is a pretty interesting trade. Rogers has legitimately good minor league numbers after a slow start in the low minorsand his first extended big league trial went well, but he’s also going to be 28 before the season starts and only has 179 big league plate appearances to his name. This isn’t exactly a cheap price to give up for him, either, as Broxton could have a useful career as a fourth outfielder in front of him (he’s shown pretty good on base skills, is fast as hell, and has a good defensive reputation even though he strikes out a lot and doesn’t have a ton of power) and Supak was 2014’s second round pick who had some pretty nice-looking peripherals in the Appalachian League last year despite a really ugly ERA.
That would indicate that the Pirates like Rogers a lot, age aside. His Triple-A numbers the last two years were really impressive, though they came in the PCL (last year in Colorado Springs) and his Double-A numbers were generally good, as well. I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out why he moved so slowly through the Brewers’ system; my guess is that the Brewers didn’t think he was a prospect when they drafted him (32nd round, 2010) since they sent him to Rookie League out of college, and so he had to hit his way through the minors to be taken seriously. The numbers aren’t all flash, either, since he doesn’t strike out a ton and he walks enough that his lowest OBP at any level was .349 over parts of two seasons in Double-A.
He seems like a useful big league player, in other words, and it seems like Mike Morse is probably a fair comparison for him since he’s right-handed. He’s more flexible in the field than the current incarnation of Morse; he can play both corner infield spots (which means he can play regularly while Jung Ho Kang recovers from his leg injury) and has some outfield experience, so he can fill Josh Harrison’s role as a right handed outfielder that can play right when Polanco is struggling. In other words, he replaces a lot of the depth that I thought the Walker trade depleted, and since he can play first, he also sort of addresses that need, as well.
I say sort of because the Pirates already have Mike Morse on the roster, of course, and while Rogers seems like a decent bet to be better than Morse in 2015 (ZiPS had Morse projected for .243/.301/.406 earlier this week and Dan Szymborski just tweeted that he’s got Rogers at .259/.332/.410 in 388 PAs, which makes him a 1 WAR player vs. Morse’s 0.2), what the Pirates really seem to need at this point is a left-handed bat for the infield. That’s not to say that the depth isn’t valuable (he can play third while Kang is out with Morse at first, then move to first and send Morse to the bench), just that it’s not exactly what I would’ve thought the Pirates needed at this point.
Of course, you can only trade for what other teams are willing to trade. Rogers helps the Pirates and their willingness to trade Supak so quickly is a pretty strong indicator that the Pirates think that Rogers is an acquisition that will do more than fill in while Kang is injured or while they wait for Josh Bell.
As for the left-handed bat, well, it’s still only December 17th.
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