Maybe the next deal will be for Director of Amateur Scouting Logan White after all, he knows the D-Rays farm system as well as his own. All kidding aside, this is some of the tastiest icing on the cake that Rays fans could've hoped for in Andrew Friedman's quest to slowly take over the Dodger organization. Supposedly Guzman has makeup issues, which means he'll fit right in with the rest of the D-Rays top prospects. 280/.336/.443 yes, park-adjusted minor league line. One final note on his production: his park-adjusted minor league line is. 500 slugging wise than his overall line suggests. Guzman's walk rate could use a boost, but his power (outside of that awful May) is closer to. His Batting Averages on Balls in Play are all running a little higher than they should, based off his Line Drive percentages, but otherwise, everything looks spiffy. Take a look at some of his splits so far this year, as well as his batted-ball data from Las Vegas: Joel Guzman 2006 Splits & Batted-Ball Data 255/.342/.304 showing in 102 at-bats helped to drag his season line down somewhat. He hit well in every month except May, where a. 290/.346/.443 through July 28, which is no great shakes, but the league average was.

Joel Guzman on the other hand, was rated an A- by John Sickels in his prospect book, and was the #3 prospect in the stacked Dodger system (behind Chad Billingsley and Andy LaRoche) in this year's Baseball America Prospect Handbook. Pedroza has an outside shot at being a major leaguer one day from everything I've read about him, but with the Rays attempting to reinject (or inject for the first time I guess) depth into their farm system, he's worth taking a chance on. After some fine hitting in the South Atlantic League, Pedroza was promoted to the Vero Beach Dodgers, and has struggled so far, although the sample is very small. Speaking of the price, let's take a look at Sergio Pedroza and then Joel Guzman. What do the Dodgers do then? If Kent comes back before Garciaparra, he can be pushed to first base until Nomar returns, but what then? It'll be interesting to see what the Dodgers do to justify the price they paid for this acquisition. He'll inject some much needed on-base percentage into the Dodgers lineup.until Jeff Kent and Nomar Garciaparra return from the disabled list. If he returns to his 2005 level of offense, the boys in blue will find themselves with roughly 3 pNRAA of production from Lugo. If he maintains his production throughout the rest of 2006, the Dodgers can expect roughly 10.5 pNRAA in the remaining 57 games, which is a fantastic number. Lugo is certainly a useful player, as evidenced by his 2005 campaign, as well as the PECOTA projection for 2007, but he is not a top-flight shortstop with power potential. He's basically had a very uncharacteristic two-month span, where he has hit. Most of the rise in Lugo's EqA can be attributed to his sudden power surge he's on pace for a career high in homeruns, hitting one every 24 at-bats. Starting with positionally-adjusted Net Runs Above Average: Julio Lugo 2005-2006 w/2007 PECOTA Year Of course, there is a great deal of emphasis on the 'right now' portion of that last statement at the beginning of this year, Joel Guzman was one of the top, if not the top prospect in the Dodger system, and this year's setback at Las Vegas had the organization sour on him very quickly, first converting him to the outfield, and then flipping him to Tampa for a potential rent-a-player. On a more serious note, this is a trade that helps the Dodgers a great deal right now, with Nomar Garciaparra and Jeff Kent both on the disabled list. This trade is important to me personally, only because I joked on Prospectus Hit List twice that the Dodgers would acquire one more Tampa veteran at the deadline in exchange for a bigtime prospect, last time even citing Joel Guzman by name.

Dodgers transactions