Smilin' Ken Rosenthal is reporting the Astros are trading CF Anthony Gose to the Blue Jays for IF Brett Wallace.
Looks like the Astros got their 1B of the future. Wallace, who was the Cardinals' 1st Round pick in 2008, went to Oakland in the Matt Holliday deal, and traded to the Blue Jays for Michael Taylor, who had been traded from Philadelphia as part of the Halladay deal.
Wallace is a 23-year old (24 at the end of August) 6'2" 205lb lefty hitting .304/.375/.487 over three seasons. He has been at Triple-A for parts of '09 and '10, where he has posted a .299/.357/.484 line.
He has 83K:27BB this season, with a 37.1% XBH rate (24 dobules, one triple, 18 homers) to go with a .301/.359/.509 line. He's been helped by a .347 BABIP this year, but has hit the same rate of fly balls as groundballs - 37.7% - with a 24.6% line drive rate.
The good news is that he's gotten better every year. His OPS has increased in each month from May to July (.816, .849, .881), while his BABIP has gone down (.382, .361. /326).
Ken Rosenthal says he'll head to Triple-A, where Tommy Everidge is now out of a job, and Koby Clemens is no longer the 2012 heir apparent at 1B. Once the trading deadline passes, we'll recap Eddie's Farm, including our rankings of the minor leagues. And we'll only do this after Saturday, because there could be more coming.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
