Boston Red Sox Trade Two Minor Leaguers For Adam LaRoche

Yesterday afternoon, the Boston Red Sox made a deal for Adam LaRoche of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Boston Globe Newsletter reports that the deal sends Double-A Portland shortstop Argenis Diaz and Single-A Greenville pitcher Hunter Strickland to the Pirates for LaRoche.

The value of a left-handed hitter has proven to be worth it at Fenway park over the past few seasons. Adam LaRoche is batting .247 with 12 HR and 40 RBI. LaRoche has 25 doubles as well as an OBP of .329 with 41 BB. The numbers LaRoche has provided for Pittsburgh show that he can be an impressive left-handed hitter. Adam is very streaky, similar to JD Drew, and has begun a 3-game hit streak after being 0-19 from July 10-18 (before and after the all-star break).

Pair Of Sox To Pittsburgh

Argenis Diaz is the 29th overall prospect for the Red Sox according to SoxProspects. Diaz's numbers aren't very impressive (.253/0/24). Diaz has also struck out 60 times in his 277 AB. On the defensive side, Diaz is predicted to be a "gold glover in the bigs".

Hunter Strickland is ranked 38th by SoxProspects with a record of 5-4 and a 3.46 ERA with the single-A club. Hunter is another player in the Red Sox farm system that does not have very impressive numbers to show that we made any type of mistake sending him away.

Take A Hike Julio

I got a great synopsis of Adam LaRoche's performance over the years from Matt (@FenwayWest). While looking through that, I also found that the Red Sox received Chris Duncan from the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for Julio Lugo.

I am more excited than I have been about the Red Sox all season long. Theo picks up two left-handed batters for two minor league prospects that haven't been impressive enough to make the jump to the big club and we also dumped off Julio Lugo although, eating his $9 M contract in the process of it all. Duncan's numbers don't jump off the page or anything, but he's another left-handed hitting outfielder and did I mention, he's the reason we were able to get rid of Julio Boo-go.

Expectation Station

With Boston in second place, Red Sox fans are going to have high hopes for these two lefties to come into Fenway and put a few over the short wall in right. So excited that Lugo is gone. The Yankees are currently on a six game winning streak as the Sox can't string together two wins to save my life. A change in the clubhouse may be just what we need to get the spark going again and light the fire behind the Yanks to take back first place.

With all the movement, I'm starting to think that Theo has a big plan brewing with Dice-K and Wakefield both on the "DL" and two hitters being brought in, Epstein is probably going to land a solid pitcher (Halladay talks starting up again). Either way, Julio Lugo is gone and we have two solid lefties to come off the bench or even start periodically to help produce more offense for the team. Expect big things to continue to happen before the trade deadline.

Thanks to Matt Bandi, MVN for the picture of Adam LaRoche.
Thanks to Keith Allison for the picture of Julio Lugo.