Chicago Cubs deal veteran Jeff Baker to the Detroit Tigers – MLB News
The Chicago Cubs on Sunday, August 5, kept the deals going as they sent the utility man Jeff Baker to the Detroit Tigers. The deal shall get the Cubs two players who are yet to be named. With the recent move, the Cubs now have 11 players out of 25-man roster that were not with the team on Opening Day.
Sunday’s move might well be surprising for many, but the team general manager said they already had had some talks with the Tigers about Baker.
"I'm happy for Jeff," Hoyer said. "They wanted him a lot and he gets to go into a pennant race and we get to bring up Josh and give him a chance he's earned."
All these developments coincide with the promotion of the outfielder Brett Jackson and the third baseman Josh Vitters. It is pertinent to mention that the two were No.1 Draft picks to the big league team from Triple-A Iowa.
The Cubs, like said earlier, now essentially consist of younger players with fewer number of veterans as the latter were traded recently. From Paul Maholm to Ryan Dempster and from Jeff Baker to Geovany Soto, a considerable majority of the veterans have been traded now.
Would it create some kind of challenge for the Cubs? It definitely would. That is what Baker also referred to while speaking about the recent moves, including that of his deal.
"When you see the direction they're going here now, you knew it was a possibility," Baker said. "When they made the moves with Maholm, Reed, and Demp, to be honest, I don't blame them. They've got to go young and see what they've got and see what they've got for the future. I just made up 21 games in the standings, so I'm definitely excited about that."
Having appeared in 54 games, Baker had maintained a batting average of .269 with .753 OPS, hitting four homers and 20 RBIs to his credit. He was part of the Chicago Cubs since July 2, 2009 when the team had his acquisition in a trade with the Colorado Rockies.
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