The Diamondbacks acquired infielder Jace Peterson and cash from the A’s for minor league pitcher Chad Patrick, the clubs announced. Arizona had an opening on the 40-man roster after dealing Josh Rojas and Dominic Canzone in this afternoon’s Paul Sewald trade.
Peterson is largely a Rojas replacement. He’s a left-handed hitting infielder who splits most of his time between third and second base. Between Rojas’ departure and the recent injury to Evan Longoria, the D-Backs had lost some depth at the hot corner. Emmanuel Rivera is the primary starter. He’s a right-handed hitter who has been quite a bit better against southpaws, so Peterson makes sense as a matchup complement.
The 33-year-old joined the A’s on a two-year, $9.5MM free agent deal last winter. He’d been a roughly league average hitter — albeit with minimal exposure to left-handed pitching — over three seasons with Milwaukee. Peterson hasn’t maintained that form over a more regular role in Oakland. He’s hitting .221/.313/.324 with six homers over 324 trips to the plate.
That below-average offense is largely thanks to a dip in batted ball quality. Peterson is still walking at an excellent 11.1% clip, while his 23.8% strikeout rate is in line with prior marks. Yet he’s making hard contact on only 28.4% of batted balls — well below the 35-36% range of the prior couple seasons.
Much of those poor numbers are attributable to a dreadful start. The 10-year veteran carried a meager .192/.289/.278 batting line into June. He’s a .254/.340/.377 hitter over the last two months with more typical batted ball metrics. The Arizona front office isn’t much concerned by the slow start and adds Peterson to the infield mix.
Peterson is playing on a $4.5MM salary for 2023, $1.5MM of which is still to be paid out. He’s due $5MM for next season. The A’s will reportedly pick up $2M of next year’s salary while Arizona takes on what remains of this year’s sum. The deal pushes Arizona’s projected payroll just shy of $123MM, per Roster Resource.
In return for their relatively modest free agent investment and willingness to pay down some of the deal, the A’s add minor league rotation depth. Patrick was a fourth-round draftee out of Purdue-Northwest in 2021. The 6’1″ righty carries a 4.71 ERA with roughly average strikeout and walk numbers (22.9% and 9.2%, respectively) over 19 starts in Double-A. Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs suggested last month he profiled as a spot starter on the strength of his slider command. Patrick turns 25 in August and won’t be eligible for the Rule 5 draft until after next season.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported the financials.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Am I missing something or is this guy just not that good?
No, you got it.
I still cant believe he was signed for 9.5 over 2. They must be sending alot of money cause he is not good
Not dirt cheap but check his stats vs rhp. Then check away stats. Average utility player.
I written him off after he left the Orioles, never thought he would be a “average” utility player.
Replacement for Rojas I gotta believe
It’s not depth; he’s just not a great player and 33 years old
Not every trade is a blockbuster. Some are just depth pieces, and those have value even to a good team. The guy the D-Backs gave up isn’t very good either fwiw.
But Chad Patrick is young and 24. Jace Peterson is 33. One is before the supposed better years, the other is at the twilight of a long less than mediocre career. HUGE difference.
I hate to give up prospects. Really hate giving up pitching prospects. And for utility bench guys you don’t want to know. But they do know their pitching so doubtful he becomes anything special.
Jace can get hot. He isn’t a spring chicken but he’s had and will have some big hits or plays.
It appears that you’re missing, like way too many people, any ability to consider nuance.
Peterson has about 1.6 WAR per 600 OA this season. That’s a fringe starter/solid back up
Peterson is projected by FGDC for 1.8 WAR per 600 PA. That’s an average regular.
He’s a perfectly fine MlB player.
Will be even better in Arizona. He didn’t seem to care for the colosseum and with all that foul ground who can blame him. People massively under valued Murphy as well because of this. And on a contender he won’t face a lefty in any meaningful abs. At least shouldn’t. It’s the kind of add good teams make when serious about contending. Arizona fans should be pleased. Good work filihok.
Weird how you didn’t share his actual career WAR.
This is a 1 win player. He’s barely above replacement level. He’s not an average regular that’s made up. He’s an OK bench guy but so is Rojas.
KoC
Ok, let’s suppose it’s true that “he’s on OK bench guy”
That’s something that gives him some value and is something just few hundred people in the world can say.
It’s almost certain that he’s better at what he does than you are at anything – and that includes making useful posts here.
He’s not good. Arizona just being Arizona and making lousy moves as buyers.
There are always teams looking to add a utility player at the deadline when in a playoff hunt. Most utility guys aren’t big names that gets fans fist pumping on the acquisition.
So the closer they got it’s lousy??
Blah blah blah
Now, A’s trading Peterson is a bit unexpected but they have some youngsters they want to try at third too…
A’s dumping salary is unexpected?
Vegas thinks they are getting a MLB team when its a AA team. Vegas is so desperate they even gave fisher $380 million to bring a AA team to Vegas.
Well it’s Las Vegas. They are used to second rate acts and the ball park is on the strip no less. Can see Carot Top and the A’s lol.
This is awesome for the As
WOW more exciting players for a’s fans to root for (both of them!)
Announce Blackburn to Baltimore now
Kemp or Brown would have been better
Why would you want him?
A’s gotta cut payroll.
A for OAK. Good to dump his salary and got a pitching prospect.
C for ARZ. Didn’t give up a great arm but still a decent arm. Got a average solid utility player. Upgrade from what they just traded away earlier.
This guy is pure comedy gold
Goooo Vegas! Get good prospects.
not sure what website I wrote that we were going to get him but it was one of them. lol. If we don’t get a monster bat and a pitcher all that first half was for nothing. I also can’t stand our coach.
Lovullo seems like a really good guy. Deeply cares about winning.
Definitely is and does. But he’s not right for the job.
Hey Dbacks, do you mean he’s not fit for this particular managing job (because of roster construction, where they are at in terms of competing, etc) or he’s not fit to be a MLB manager anywhere ???
It might have been here lol. Thought I read something the other day and this is the only place I really go and read comments
Finally a good trade by the A’s. Have no idea who they got back, and don’t care. Now get rid of Aledmys Diaz
On base Jace!
Filler at 3B, until someone gets promoted?
Yeah, but he’s signed through next year thanks to the dumb A’s who gave him two years when nobody else would.
Yeah. He’s serviceable for what his role is. They could’ve done way worse. He plays pretty much every position and is good for double digit steals. It’s not like he’s batting under .200
Arizona: Hello, Oakland? Yeah, we want your ace.
Oakland: Sure, you can have our Jace.
Arizona: DEAL!
Who’s their ace? Lmao
Definitely no aces, none even close. But JP sears has been consistently decent/ solid and Luis Medina has had a nice stretch of a handful of starts. One of the few trades they made that looks ok, mostly because montas has been injured for Yankees
I’m SO glad the Brewers didn’t trade for him and say “Alright, fanbase! There’s the trade you asked for!”
Jace Peterson: Yankees legend
The gutless Commissioner allowing a team to have no payroll shows Manfred needs to be voted out immediately.
Peterson actually had some really good underlying numbers prior to getting hurt last year, and he’s been pretty down since then. Not saying the A’s deal was that good, but there was definitely promise at one point last year.
Guess they need to fill the utility role somehow after trading Rojas.
Who else thought for a quick second it said Joc and thought “Huh”?
He is a veteran player been involved playoff chase with Atlanta, he replaces Rojas. What I have heard and read the prospect they gave up was the lower tier of pitching prospect they had in the minors, didn’t give up much to get Peterson.
I bet that was painful for the A’s to have to kick in cash on this deal
I’ll miss that Diamondback broadcasters “RRROJAS”! ebelishment.
ARC 2 is 100 percent right. For a commissioner to allow a team to purposely tank is a dereliction of his duties and he should be fired. However, because he’s the owners hand picked czar it will never happen.