Jeremy Hermida Dealt to Red Sox

“The Red Sox have acquired Jeremy Hermida from the Marlins in exchange for minor league lefthanded pitchers Hunter Jones and Jose Alvarez.”

Very interesting deal here.  Hermida has long been an underachieving hitter throughout his career.  It seems to many that Hermida must be nearing 30 years old, but he is actually just 25 years old (he arrived in the majors at 21 years old).

Hermida’s peak came in 2007 when he seemed to be coming around with the bat, posting an .870 OPS; however, his career K% has remained an alarming 24.9% over the course of his career while his BB% is just 10.0%.

Hermida posted a paltry .740 OPS in 2009 with an ISO (Isolated power index) of just .133…hardly the making of a superstar at the plate.  His defense is hardly anything to right home about either, allowing 8 more runs per season than your league average RF.

His monetary worth last year to the Marlins via production was just $1.1M, while he only made $2.25M, so there wasn’t much gained and not much lost in 2009.  He does still have two more years of arbitration though, so the BoSox can expect to pay something around $3.5M to $4M this offseason in arbitration to Hermida.

This is a decent move by the Red Sox as the gave up almost nothing for a bat that hopefully still has some upside in it.  Perhaps the most telling sign here is that it may be that the Red Sox expect to lose Jason Bay in the OF.

I like the move, but I would warn BoSox fans not to expect a ton from this kid as he doesn’t seem to be coming around any time soon.