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Matt Garza, Delmon Young: Done Deal!

UPDATE: According to the St. Petersburg Times, this deal is done, although the players invovled are not as originally reported, due to concerns regarding Juan Rincon’s elbow. Reports have been confirmed the new deal is Young, Harris and Pridie to Minnesota for Garza, Bartlett and Eduardo Morlan.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting (update: FoxSports has confirmed this) starting pitcher Matt Garza, shortstop Jason Bartlett, and reliever Juan Rincon are being traded to the Rays for outfielder Delmon Young, shortstop Brendan Harris, and outfielder Jason Pridie.

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It looks like the Twins would get the better deal here, replacing Torii Hunter with a young, power hitting outfielder in the highly regarded Delmon Young. Brendan Harris (.285 avg, .343 OBP in ‘07) is an upgrade over Jason Bartlett (.265, .339) but may be plugged in at 2nd base, where his fielding percentages are much higher. Jason Pridie hit .303 last year splitting time between AA and AAA for the Rays.

For Tampa Bay, this deal would create a very young, talented rotation headed up by Scott Kazmir, Matt Garza, and James Shields. If, and don’t laugh, but if Rocco Baldelli stays healthy in 2008, this is a great deal for the Rays. Baldelli, Elijah Dukes, and B.J. Upton are young, talented players in the outfield. Bartlett may bounce back with a change of scenery and revert to his 2006 form, when he hit .306 as a member of the “piranahs” for Minnesota’s division championship team. Juan Rincon is more or less a throw in to the deal in my eyes.

The Twins were expected to make a move, since they had three open roster spots on their 40 man roster. Those spots were likely for the chips required to pry Santana from Minneapolis. It will be interesting to see if the Twins decide to roll the dice, keep Santana, and hope for the best in 2008. It would appear, at least to this guy, the Twins may be going for it. Then again, by this time next week, Santana could be playing in Los Angeles and Joe Nathan could be in Chicago. Thats the beauty of the hot stove season!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Twins, Devil Rays, Rumors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.