In the vastness of the Rays Offseason moves, the most intriguing trade that was made was the move that got us Sean Burroughs from San Diego. On paper, we basically traded our first round draft pick mistake for someone else's.
Depending on how you look at it, this trade will give the Rays some stability(defensively) at third base which we haven't had for a long time(and possibly ever). On the other side of the coin, Burroughs has never shown that he can hit for power in the majors and his current swing will never produce much.
There's a very good chance that we came out ahead in this trade, though. San Diego always had Burroughs on a short leash and they've never given them a full shot to prove himself. With the Rays, they give him a well-needed change of scenery, a guaranteed job and a chance to prove himself. With the Rays, he's got less pressure to win games with hits than he did with San Diego who always seemed to be in a fight for a divisional championship. The lack of pressure, change of scenery going from an extreme pitchers park to a pitcher/neutral park, new manager with a different but more hitter-friendly philosophy and a guaranteed job may be what Sean needed to salvage a MLB career.
The Rays are a very unusual team compared to most of the teams in the MLB. The majority of the Rays production comes from the OF positions and middle infield positions instead of the corner infield which most MLB teams have sluggers at. So any production offensively that the Rays would receive from Burroughs would be a bonus. We basically got Burroughs for his decent glove and we didn't give up anything critical....so he doesn't have to do much to make this trade a positive one.
All I want, as a fan, from Burroughs is for him to do his job on the field, get some hits when he's up at the plate and work on the swing a little. If he hits doubles, he hits doubles...just as long as he doesn't hack away like some of his newly-found teammates. You've given Rays fans one less Alka-seltzer moment when you got traded to us for Brazelton....you could be seen as a hero by some Rays fans.
As the old saying goes: "Another man's trash could be another man's gold."