Toronto trades for Valbuena

Toronto has traded for Luis Valbuena from the Cleveland Indians for cash considerations. Valbuena has a -.7 WAR in parts of 4 seasons (806 PA). He is a bad defender, with a -1.1 D-WAR for his career. His career offensive statistics look like this: .286 OBP, 72 OPS +, and 1.488 O4S. He isn't arbitration eligible yet, so he will play for the new minimum salary of $ 480,000. Just 25, so he could still improve as he hasn't hit his prime yet. Secondary Average of just .197. 3.3 Runs Created per Game and .326 Offensive Winning percentage. One could point out that he has just a .272 and could be due for a progression. He is a below average walker at 7.3%, as well as a below average home run hitter and extra base hitter. His Pit/PA is at league average, and with his dismal OBP, he has a PPS of just 88.66. However he does have good minor league numbers. In 2011, with Cleveland's AAA team, a International League team, he played 113 games, getting a .372 OBP, 2.45 PAPP, 1.43 PPG, and 3.35 Simple WAR. Through the AAA metric, we can expect Valbuena's numbers to be something like this in the Majors: .326 OBP, 3.02 PAPP, 1.03 PPG, and 1.86 WAR. These aren't overly impressive, but these numbers are much better than what he has shown in the pros so far. Since he is not quite in his prime yet, someone could argue rather convincingly that we can expect those numbers. However, he does have over 800 PA, so there is at least a good chance that he is a AAAA type player. Toronto didn't give up hardly anything for him, so this could actually turn out to be a good depth move. Even if turns out that Valbuena can't play, its not as if they have poured a big investment into him. So certainly this is a low risk low reward move.