The Philadelphia Phillies finally have their center fielder, acquiring Ben Revere from the Minnesota Twins. In exchange, the Phillies will send starting pitchers Vance Worley and Trevor May to the Twins.
Revere will at least provide the Phillies with a solid defensive presence in center field, but he brings nothing to the table offensively. In Revere's entire pro career of nearly 3000 plate appearances, he's homered just five times. In slightly over 1000 major league plate appearances, Revere has a total of 33 extra-base hits. If that sounds familiar to a 2012 Phillies outfielder that signed with the Marlins this winter…well, take a bow for realizing that Revere is similar to Juan Pierre of a decade ago.
In exchange for Revere, the Phillies create a hole in their 2013 rotation by dealing away Vance Worley, and also dump prospect Trevor May. The 25-year old Worley struggled with elbow issues last year, perhaps raising a red flag to the Phillies brass. Worley is also a guy that relies on called strikes and doesn't get many whiffs, logging a 5.5% whiff rate in each of the last two seasons with a fastball in the low-90s. He's really just a back-end starter, but was still a contributor to the Phillies major league rotation, accruing 4.3 fWAR over the last two seasons in 264 2/3 innings.
May could be the real prize in the deal, a former elite prospet that has fallen a bit from grace in recent years due to issues with his control. He's struck out at least a batter per inning at every stop of the minors (aside from his 12 inning debut in 2008), but he's always walked at least 60 hitters over each of the last three seasons. May is a hard thrower with a ceiling of a number two starter, but he may never reach that potential.
This is a pretty good haul for the pitching starved Twins, considering the Revere the team saw in 2012 was probably him at his ceiling: a .300 hitter with no power that doesn't walk and steals at an 80% clip while playing good defense. There's a lot of value in that, but he's not a superstar. The Phillies on the other hand, finally get their center field hole filled after seeing numerous other options drop off the market at the potential risk of overpaying for a guy whose offensive skillset might not play out very well in Citizens Bank Park.
