Long rumored to be on the market, off the market, and back on again, Hunter Pence finally knows where he will continue playing baseball as the Philadelphia Phillies picked up Pence in a trade Friday evening with the Houston Astros.
Ken Rosenthal and Jon Morosi of Fox Sports had been working on the potential trade all afternoon, but Morosi finally started tweeting details around 9 pm eastern time.
In picking up Pence, Philadelphia acquires a 28-year old former second round draft pick of the Astros. Currently hitting .309/.356/.472 with 11 home runs and 62 RBI, Pence is a career .290/.339/.480 batter. His career offensive season came last year when Pence hit 25 home runs and 91 RBI to go with a .282 average. Pence has hit 25 home runs each of the last three seasons.
Houston will be receiving Johnathan Singleton, Jarred Cosart, and two players to be named later. According to Baseball America, Singleton was ranked second in the Phillies system while Cosart was fourth. Singleton was ranked the 39th best prospect prior to the season, Cosart came in at 70th.
Singleton, 19, is already 6'2" 215 lbs and was hitting .282/.386/.411 with 9 home runs and 47 RBI for Clearwater (A+), while Cosart , 21, was 9-8 with a 3.92 ERA for Clearwater. The right-hander has 79 strikeouts against 43 walks.
Astros fans should be happy as Baseball America's Ben Badler seems to love Singleton (via twitter)-
don't know that Jared Cosart can stay healthy, but man oh man do I like Jonathan Singleton's bat
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