Trade Forum: Jose Guillen

The first in a series...

Will Jose Guillen be traded?

Pros:

• Is somewhat famous.
• The Royals have been trying to move him (supposedly) for months, so everyone knows he's available.
• On the face of it, Guillen is having a nice comeback season, especially in the power department. A .340 OBP is pretty good for him. Can be sold as a good RBI man.
  
• Guillen's speed score (3.5) is way up from the last two years (2.5, 2.2) and he's posted his best UZR number in RF since his Nationals days. I don't know if this jives with the scouting reports that are out there or not. But it would not surprise me if they did, given his obvious weight loss.

Cons:

• Is widely known as insane.
• Is owed somewhere around 5-6 million dollars for the rest of the season.
• Guillen's power numbers have been in a free-fall for over a month, due to his power-sapping blisters. Guillen wasn't simply not hitting homers, he wasn't driving the ball at all. Given how assiduously the Royals have showcased him, there's no chance that other team's haven't seen that as well. Even with a HR in his last game before the break, Guillen slugged just .396 in his last 24 starts before the break... despite a .319 batting average. Basically, he was Scott Podsednik.
• A skeptical eye would look at this season's defensive information (scouts and stats) and nevertheless conclude that he's not really someone you want in the OF.
• Guillen is an older player and a mild to heavy injury risk.

Could Go Either Way:

• Guillen's personality could be a positive or a negative. There's definitely a school of thought out there that guys like Guillen can help fire up a team. Additionally, we've already seen references made to Guillen being precisely the kind of player who performs well in contract years, which he is currently in.
  
• As far as I or anyone can tell, Guillen projects to be a Type B free agent after the season, although a hot streak could get him into Type A status. This could make him more or less tradeable.

Conclusion:

The Royals should be motivated to trade Guillen, who isn't even a part of the team's run to glory in 2011. Guillen's attractiveness is definitely higher than it was in Spring Training, and, to an extent, higher than it was in April. The problem with Guillen at this point is that his positives aren't that strong, while the negatives that everyone in the game knows about (the contract, the flaws in his game, the clubhouse stuff) are just about as strong as ever. Moreover, the Royals have no leverage on the market, further depressing the price. The problem is that when you look around, it's hard to find a suitable landing spot for Guillen at the moment. There's not many places in the AL for him to go, which is unfortunate because he needs to DH. The Royals need the teams on the fringes of the NL races (the Giants, the Mets, possibly even the Marlins) to stick around for another two weeks.  Overall, it just doesn't add up to a likely deal. The Royals might end up giving Guillen away for nothing at the last minute, but only if they take a worse contract back or absorb all of his remaining salary.