Giants/Red Sox Trade Analysis: Ramon Ramirez for Daniel Turpen

After acquiring lefty specialist Javier Lopez from the Pirates for John Bowker and Joe Martinez, the Giants made a second bullpen upgrade, getting reliever Ramon Ramirez from the Boston Red Sox for minor league pitcher Daniel Turpen.

Find out how this one-for-one swap shakes out after the jump.

The Obvious

After beating his defense-independent stats by a mile last year and posting a 2.84 ERA, Ramirez came crashing back to replacement-level earth this year, posting a 4.46 ERA more in line with his peripherals. Soon to be 29, he’s not going to improve much more. He’ll post a K/BB around 2 (1.94 this year), and the flyballer (38.7% career GB rate) will allow a decent share of homers as well.

His split-change has regressed this year, as has his fastball, leaving Ramirez with only his plus slider as a go-to pitch. It works well enough that he’s serviceable, but he’s hardly an upgrade.

Who’s he going to upgrade from? The Giants have the fourth-best bullpen in the NL; they don’t exactly need replacement-level guys. They aren’t the Pirates.

The only sub-replacement level contributors for the Giants all year in relief have been Todd Wellemeyer, Brandon Medders, Waldis Joaquin, and Joe Martinez. None of the four are currently on the roster. So if Ramirez is pushing someone else down, he’s actually a downgrade.

Hmm…

The Not-So-Obvious

In order to downgrade to Ramirez in their bullpen, the Giants had to give up Turpen, a big, beefy Double-A reliever with a rather generic sinker-slider combo.

The 23-year-old had a 4.09 ERA and 42/19 K/BB in 50 1/3 innings, with just four homers allowed and a 59.1% groundball rate.

Turpen is no future closer, but he could be a serviceable sinkerballer for many years in the David Weathers mold. Anyone who isn’t way old for Double-A and is putting up solid numbers is more than just a generic minor leaguer, and I think Turpen qualifies here.

I’ll admit, I’d never heard of him before today, but he does seem to be a pitcher with a nice groundball ability and no big weaknesses elsewhere. That’s useful. Given the cutthroat nature of the AL East, it’s nice to have guys like this in reserve if you’re Boston, even if they aren’t regulars on the big league club. It prevents them from calling on the Scott Schoeneweises, Chris Smiths, Bryan Coreys, and Kason Gabbards of the world. Those sorts don’t cut it in that division, and Turpen, while he’ll never be an immense contributor, looks like someone who can hold his own.

It’s worth noting, though, that Ramirez isn’t a rental–he’s only in his first year of arbitration and has two remaining. He was well above replacement level 2006-09 (3.5 total WAR, which isn’t bad for a middle reliever), so there’s not a bad chance that he’ll rebound a bit over his 2 1/2 year Giants tenure and provide some value. Whether that value justifies his future arbitration raises is another question, but there’s some hope that he can salvage their side of the deal somewhat.

Conclusions

It’s extremely perplexing that the Giants consider Ramirez some sort of upgrade despite him being worth less than anyone else in their relief corps. In terms of overall value, 2 1/2 years of him could well be worth more than 6 years of Daniel Turpen, but this isn’t supposed to be a total value move; it’s supposed to be a win-now move. It doesn’t accomplish that goal.

And the Red Sox? Maybe they’re waving the white flag down seven in the East, but this move isn’t particularly good from their side either. Why trade Ramirez in the midst of his worst season? Turpen’s okay, and like I said, he’s nice depth, but Ramirez has team control left, so why not see if he can put up a 2.50 ERA, luck-based or skill-based, again before trading him?

This deal is just strange from both sides; it’s really up in the air as to who will ultimately win it. We’ll see what happens to Turpen and Ramirez the next two years.