Rumor Mill: Peter Bourjos to Minnesota

Heard a rumor yesterday that Minnesota was interested in acquiring Peter Bourjos, so I thought I’d examine the possibility.

First off, why would Minnesota want him? They have Danny Santana in CF already. He hit .319 with a .353 OPB last year in 430 plate appearances. He was only worth 0.4 WAR on defense though, so his glove is average at best. With Josh Willingham gone, perhpas they slot Santana into left field and Bourjos into center, buying time for Byron Buxton to develop further and also allowing the Twins to ease Buxton into the lineup when he gets to the majors. Plus Bourjos, who made 1.2 million last year shouldn’t get a big jump in salary via arbitration as he played sparsely for the Cardinals last year and didn’t put up great numbers. Bourjos’ UZR was 8.9 though, compared to Santana’s – 5.4, a huge difference. Having a CF who can actually field would help out the Twins weak pitching staff immensely

So what’s in it for the Cards? Well the Twins have a couple of mid-level pitching prospects in Kohl Stewart, Taylor Rogers and Trevor May. May is rated their eigth best prospect, while Stewart is ranked fourth and Rogers is ranked 19th. Rogers, a control artist, would probably be the one Twins would be most likely to give up, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask about May, who has a good changeup.

Why do it? Well, we know Mo loves his young arms, and this would clear up our suddenly crowded outfield a bit. I may be undervaluing Bourjos here, but the conversation has to start somewhere, and the young arms seem like a good starting point. Plus, if Mo even mentioned Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton, Terry Ryan would probably hang up on him, and rightly so.

I could be reading this wrong, and Mo may have an entirely different target (or targets) in mind, we may never know.

As always, thanks for reading.