Former Memphis and St. Louis second baseman Jarrett Hoffpauir has moved from Toronto to San Diego.
San Diego and Toronto seem to be collection points for former St. Louis Cardinals. That pattern continued this week.
Though the Scott Rolen-Troy Glaus trade received the most attention, the Blue Jays seem most involved with waiver claims made. Many times, the players don’t stick north of the border too long, as was the case with Cody Haerther and Kelvin Jimenez. Now, Jarrett Hoffpauir can be added to the list.
The former Memphis (and briefly St. Louis) second baseman was awarded to the San Diego Padres this week after the Jays had placed him on waivers earlier. Hoffpauir had moved to the Jays when he was claimed from the Cardinals last November 4. He was viewed as expendable in part due to the rise in prominence of Daniel Descalso.
Hoffpauir had been added to the Cardinals’ 40-man roster two years earlier as protection from the Rule 5 draft. The now-27-year-old made his MLB debut with St. Louis on July 3, 2009 but only appeared in eight games with the Cardinals. Originally, Hoffpauir had been selected by the Cardinals in the sixth round of the 2004 First-Year Player Draft.
The right-handed hitter appeared in 13 games for the Blue Jays this season when starter Edwin Encarnacion temporarily lost his job. Hoffpauir appeared in 11 games at third base and two at second base. After hitting just .206 (7-for-34), he was returned to Triple-A Las Vegas.
With Las Vegas, Hoffpauir hit .295 with 16 home runs and 73 RBI in 107 Pacific Coast League games. He also drew 58 walks against just 34 strikeouts and forged a .376 on-base percentage. He was originally named a PCL All-Star, but missed the game when called up.
With Padres second baseman David Eckstein eligible for free agency, San Diego looks to be stocking up on potential replacement candidates. Former Redbirds second sacker Edgar Gonzalez also played for the Padres with his brother Adrian in 2008-09 before heading to Japan this past summer, where he batted .263 in 100 games with the Yomiuri Giants.
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Hoffpauir is AAA/AAAA type. Its tough for a guy like him to break through to the majors, not unlike Bo Hart. But teams need depth, so reasonable for the Padres to stock up with Hoffpauir, in case an injury requires his promotion next year, as Fate once beckoned Bo.
Given yesterday’s column, timely to read the Jays stuck Hoffpauir at 3B for a handful of games, like the Cards just did with Descalso. Hoffpauir would have had less experience at 3B, but there he was, ML 3B, temporarily fill-in.
Hoff has time in the minors at SS (10 games), 3B (35 games) and OF (2 games). Not extensive, but his 47 games at other positions in the minors is considerably more than Ryan and Greene combined – and Descalso too, if you exclude his rookie season of 2007 before they moved him to second full-time.
Its understandable why the Cards let Hoffpauir go to seek other opportunities. We used to employ Fernando Vina at 2B. Tony Womack during 2004. Aaron Miles got a bunch of play at 2B. In 2007-8, Adam Kennedy. During 2009-10, Skip Schumaker. The common thread is all swing left. This is helpful at 2B, where you can use table-setters before the RBI guys. Since there are more RHPs, left swingers enjoy more match-up advantages. Descalso is another left swinging 2Bman, in this tradition. He fits the Cards better than Hoffpauir, so we let Jarrett look for opportunities elsewhere.
By the back half of September, the Cards are out of the running. I dont think TLR thinks there is anything wrong with letting Descalso get his feet wet in the majors at 3B. Descalso’s long term position is still 2B, TLR is not expecting gold glove D from him at 3B, during games that do not matter. Descalso got introduced to the majors. This can encourage him for spring training and to compete with Skip during 2011.
When the Cards added Miles in 2005, it came to light Aaron had never played SS in the minors. The Cards had to give him training, because the backup IFer has to be able to fill-in at SS. Its nice the Cards gave Hoffpauir 10 games at SS and 35 at 3B, because he needed the experience to compete as a ML utilityman. Hoffpauir’s ceiling may be utilityman, whereas Descalso’s could be everyday 2B. Its not so important for Descalso to train at SS, because he is probably not going to be asked to backup SS in the majors.
Will Pete Kozma play at Memphis in 2011?
Or will Kozma continue to train at Springfield, while slick fielding Ryan Jackson skips up to AAA?
Only time will tell.
Doesn`t Kozma have over a year in AA? Ryan Jackson is a basic glove first SS who won`t offer much to the big club.Kozma is still developing at the plate and offers more all around ability than Jackson.
I’m not sue that JAckson has more potential than Kozma. Jackson came on with the bat this year and if he is able to fill out, might develop some power. That said, I dont see him jumping up to AAA at this point.
I wonder if Mo will be gun-shy about making an important trade. The Luddy trade failed in that we were in first and ended up going home. It also was every bit a judgement call on Mo’s part because pitching had not been costing games whereas offense had. He thought pitching would be a bigger problem than offense down the road, and he turned out to be wrong. So does he risk a big trade? About all we have is Colby. Does he risk that?
In part, it may depend on whether Mr. DeWit accepts that after spending $120M there is still no consistant offense. It may be that Mo is expected to make it work with Matt and Albert. He may have been sold that.
Westbrook pitched fine, whereas the Padres were in first place without Ludwick and they did not hold off the Giants with him. Ludwick sunk the Padres and dragged down Eck and Gregerson.
If some team wants to give us a lot for Rasmus, we should listen to the offer. What harm can it do to listen?
Holliday had a fine season, exactly what we hoped for out of him. TLR and Mo were right on target with signing Big Matt.
No argument with any of that Jumbo. I just wonder if Mo will get cold feet.
We will get offers for Colby. Probably some pretty good ones. He’s a 900+ OPS pretty good defensive CF with 4 years until free agency. I would think RC will be along to beat the drum once the post-season wraps up. Kind of hard to think what somebody might offer that would be better than having Colby, for the money I mean. But no harm in listening.
Nice to see Ankiel starting for the Braves. You just never know in baseball.
Discussion question: why does TLR play coy about returning for 2011? What is Tony up to, when he holds out for a while?
He probably wanted Jack Clark out of the picture for one thing. In the P-D article about Clark’s firing, the commentary coming from other post-game personalities was called “typical namby-pamby talk”. It had been reported Tony was quite unhappy about his team being called quitters. I’m sure he’d also want Bernie out of the picture if he could.