Tyler Austin Traded to San Francisco

Good for Tyler. Good for the twins. In years past the twins would have built around a player like Tyler. Good to see they went out and got better players. I think Austin will have a nice big league career in a franchise that has a need

Welcome Ziegler!

San Fran is just gobbling up all these Twins fringe waiver players. Looks like Ziegler's more "organizational depth" than anything at this point, but he could be a nice player. We won't know for many years if the Twins got the better of this deal.

Good luck Tyler, that chip on his (and his father's) shoulder is only going to get bigger.

Given Ziegler's hometown is Des Moines, I wonder if the Twins will start him out in Cedar Rapids rather than Fort Meyers.  

Good luck, Tyler.

Hope it all works out.

Kid from Des Moines? Gotta love it.

Too bad for TA the Giants have an entrenched 1B and fewer opportunities at DH.

There is some platoon opportunity though. Wouldn't be surprised if Austin hit more homers than Belt in fewer at bats. (He actually did last year).

Who is worse in the OF, Austin or Belt?

Good luck in San Fran, Tyler, and welcome to Malique.

Great seeing the Twins get something in return for a player who just didn't have a spot on the roster after last winter's moves.  That isn't something we would have seen in the past.

Not certain whether to be excited about what they got in return.  I guess the bad news is he will need to go on the 40-man roster this November or be eligible for the Rule 5 draft...seeing he was 19 years old when drafted/signed in 2016.  Not a lot of position players get selected, so that probably isn't going to be a problem.    

Not sure what our infatuation with 4th outfielders is but I guess you can never have enough. For a marginal player like Austin I guess it is likely a take it or leave it proposition.  His K rate is problematic so he is a flawed player as well.  I just think that with a Platoon split and or more experience he actually has major league value.  The guy we are getting doesn't even seem to have Austins level of potential but again i guess it is better than nothing.  Giants got another marginal player from us that could turn into a solid player in time.  For that price they can't lose on this trade.

Cave? I have my doubts, you need 4 OF. And Marwin and Astudillo are not OF. Can Garver play the OF?

Marwin played more in the outfield last year than the infield, iirc.

Cave has an option remaining.

Try him in the OF and see if he can platoon with Kepler, I'm guessing.......or at least PH sometimes and stay out there w/o being terrible.....

Giants’ Stadium (whatever they call it) is one of the largest outfields in MLB. You HAVE to have guys that can cover ground.

I’m surprised Baltimore didn’t claim him. I wonder at what point they simply bite the Chris Davis bullet.

Tyler Austin looks to me like a 1B power hitter, period. Decent glove, but the big question is, will he hit 30-plus home runs per season with an acceptable OBP? If so, then the Twins possibly blew it. CJ Cron appears to be that guy, but just older, and maybe a little slower. 

Might not matter anyway. Twins could bring up a prospect that's better than either Cron or Austin. Brent Rooker should be that, if he works his butt off at fielding first base. Or they could stand pat for now, using Astudillo to back up Cron. Whatever gets El Cherubo on the field is okay by me. 

Austin is just going to park himself in a lawn chair in the outfield and leave the defense up to Dugger and Pillar.

Don’t think Cave is going anywhere. A catcher and Adrianza are the most vulnerable, I think...but again, it could be Cave based on his option...and still good chance it’s moot if only one guy needs to DL in the next several weeks.

Doubt seriously that any major league team sees Austin as an outfielder, even a platoon OF. In 91 appearances, Austin started 3 games in the OF...that was awhile ago, with the Yankees...and they replaced him in two of those games.

Austin should have a path to at bats with the Giants against lefties at 1B and pinch hitting for pitcher.

Thanks for sharing.

 

That pre-injury 2018 line was a super small sample of course (86 PA), but a few of the underlying peripherals certainly weren't unsustainable: 12.8 BB%, 23.3 K%, .333 BABIP. He hasn't sustained anything close to that .246 ISO yet, of course.

 

FWIW, it looks like he had a similar cooling off in 2017, without injury. His 2017 OPS by month:

 

June: 1.001

July: .665 (further split into .754 first half of the month, .592 second half)

August: .539

 

Not that I necessarily buy that monthly splits are all that indicative of much...

 

Edit to add: also, this information would have been more encouraging if we had acquired him in the offseason. I don't like to appeal to authority, but I'm guessing the Giants wouldn't have traded him for Tyler Austin (to play outfield?) if Ziegler showed anything like that 2018 pre-injury line in camp this spring.

Yeah this guy kind of reminds me of Tanner English.  Maybe slightly faster but all defense and no offense.  He has a couple of years left to see if he can be special with the bat otherwise guys who can't hit are sort of a dime a dozen.