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Trade Analysis - Gerut/Dubois

By VoxMediaUser59609

Cleveland Indians trade OF Jody Gerut to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for OF Jason Dubois.

This is a simple OF/OF swap. Gerut is about 18 months older than Dubois and has more major league experience.

In terms of Gerut, the dangerous trend is the alarming decline in power:

AB/HR

  1. 21.8
  2. 43.7
  3. 138.0
Isolated Power
  1. .215
  2. .154
  3. .101
We could also look at this graphically... I used the day-by-day database for this and plotted a curve, comparing the number of games that he had played in to his career's isolated power figure. Notice the steady decline after the early spike.
Gerut's fast becoming a glorified singles hitter. From a guy who hit .279/.336/.494 in a very promising rookie year, he just hasn't grown. It's an error that many baseball analysts and an error that I make - sometimes, players peak earlier than 27. I think Gerut's a classic case. He's not a great player, nor a very good one. It's conceivable that he regains his power stroke at Wrigley, but I wouldn't bet on that. Gerut's a mediocre ballplayer, which isn't bad, but I don't think he'll ever exceed what he did as a rookie.

Perhaps I'm higher on Jason Dubois than most, but I definitely think that the Cubs gave up on him too soon. In 152 PAs, Dubois had a line of .239/.289/.472. While the OBP is incredibly low, here's an optimistic spin - if 6 bloops or line drives had fallen in, Dubois's line is .282/.329/.514, which, all of a sudden, is fantastic. (Of course, if 6 fewer balls had fallen in, his line is .197/.250/.430).

The lesson of all of this is that the isolated power is there, meaning that there could be a very solid player underneath the impatience; he hit .316/.389/.630 in AAA last year and .269/.367/.458 the year before.

I think that Cleveland got a very good deal here and that Dubois, at his peak, will be a very dangerous power bat towards the bottom of a lineup. Gerut? Wasn't starting for the Indians, and Dubois is a much better power threat and a much better 4th OF at this point.

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