Jul 7th, 2009
White Sox Trade Brandon Allen to Arizona
By Dan Santaromita
The White Sox traded first base prospect Brandon Allen to the Arizona Diamondbacks for right-handed reliever Tony Pena.
This season Pena is 5-3 in 37 relief appearances with 1 save. He has a 4.24 ERA and a 1.53 WHIP. The 27 year-old has a career 4.08 ERA in 222.2 innings. His best season came in 2007 when he had a 3.27 ERA in 85.1 innings. He is a durable reliever that should help take some pressure off of Dotel and Linebrink from the right side.
Allen was one of the top prospects in the White Sox organization. With Gordon Beckham and Aaron Poreda currently on the big league squad, Allen was certainly one of the top five prospects in the system (in a group with Tyler Flowers, Dayan Viciedo, Jordan Danks and Dan Hudson). The 23 year-old got promoted to AAA Charlotte a couple weeks ago and after getting off to a hot start really struggled. In 15 games with the Knights, Allen was hitting .262 (16-61) with a home run and 8 RBI. He drew no walks and struck out 13 times. He had a .639 OPS.
It is likely Jimmy Gobble will be sent down or released to make room for Pena considering the success lefty Poreda has had.
For more information on Brandon Allen, including a scouting report, check out his FutureSox Prospect Profile. FutureSox plans to release our Prospect Profiles in the next week. View Allen’s for a preview of what’s to come.
I like this deal.
Well…I guess next time I’ll be more careful who I tab as the cold hitter of the week.
I don’t think Allen is a spectacular prospect worth fretting over, but you would think the Sox would at least be able to get a reliever with a slightly better resume than Pena. Maybe there were concerns that his AAA slump was due to an inability to hit breaking balls from more experienced pitchers. I don’t know, it’s puzzling, but I can’t say the trade bothers me. I ‘nothing’ it right now.
Just disappointed. Allen is a talented athlete and I think he had more value than that.
Hate this deal. First deal I’ve EVER questioned KW for.
You didn’t question the Swisher deal, both times? As for this trade I agree with Dan, I like Allen but he’s not an elite prospect and losing him is nothing to get into a twist about. That being said I was hoping they’d package him in a deal for a player who could really help us.
Didn’t question Swisher at all and still defended it cause I thought Nunez and Marquez would be something. I still like Nunez FYI. I thought we coulda got a bit more back, but I liked it. Defended the C. Young deal who Jason knows I was never a fan of 3-4 years ago when he was a big time spect for us. First time for everything I guess, but there’s nothing anyone could tell me that will change my tune of this one. Sorry.