Minnesota Twins Trade Deadline Preview
By Jason Burke
Eduardo Nunez is seeing more playing time this year than he has in just about any year in his career, save for 2011 with the New York Yankees in which he played in 112 games. Nunez has a 118 wRC+ at the moment, and is batting .310 with a .341 OBP and a career-high nine home runs.
He provides speed on the basepaths, collecting 17 stolen bases this season, and has played second, short and third base this year, along with limited time in the outfield over his career.
A right-handed bat means that he could be a fit for a number of teams, but the Red Sox always come to mind with the Green Monster always looming in left, or the Houston Astros and their Crawford Boxes, if Marwin Gonzalez were to go down with an injury.
The San Francisco Giants already have a versatile player on their 40-man roster in Kelby Tomlinson, but he is currently on the disabled list with a sprained left thumb. If the injury lingers, Nunez could be a nice upgrade to have for the Giants, who are also currently without third baseman Matt Duffy. Nunez wouldn’t be a necessity for the even-year warriors, but he would be an upgrade nonetheless.
His power is mostly to left field, and all of his home runs in that direction would have cleared the wall at AT&T, while his one homer to right would have gone high off of Levi’s Landing. The one concern with Nunez’s power as it concerns AT&T would be whether the weather would affect him. While he has nine home runs, all of his Target Field homers have come since May 21, when the average temperature in Minneapolis rose to a high of 70 degrees. San Francisco’s weather at that same time was 67 degrees, and at night the air can be downright frigid. As the temperature drops, the air tends to get thicker and allow fewer balls to find the outfield seats.
Another landing spot could be the Pittsburgh Pirates, since they strike me as the kind of team that won’t necessarily make a huge move, but rather an under-the-radar one that could end up paying off.
Next: Paging the Red Sox