Twins Acquire J.J. Hardy

The Minnesota Twins traded for Milwaukee Brewers shortstop J.J. Hardy today, in exchange for centerfielder Carlos Gomez. Prior to 2009, Hardy had been among the better offensive shortstops in the majors, though his numbers slumped significantly in 2009.

Hardy had been listed among the Red Sox’ shortstop trade targets this offseason. The move eliminates a valuable option for the team, as they must now contemplate between free agent acquisitions, a trade (possibly for Stephen Drew), or picking up Alex Gonzalez’s option.

Hardy batted .283/.343/.478 in 2008 with 24 home runs in 2008, before batting just .229/.302/.357 in 2009.

New Poll: Which catcher would you least like to see go on free agency?

New Poll Question: Which Red Sox catcher would you least like to see go on free agency?
* George Kottaras
* Victor Martinez
* Jason Varitek
Vote in the poll on the sidebar.
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Revisiting 2009: Did we get what we expected?

Coming into the 2009 season the Fire Brand community went through the exercise of giving their individual expectations of each players fortunes for the season to come. Once all the forecasts were in, I took the liberty of averaging the numbers together to come up with a singular community projection for each player. Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at results and compare our expectations to the reality that would follow.

Given the uncertain future of Jason Bay underneath the Green Monster in Fenway Park’s left field, I thought it only appropriate that he serve as our first profile.