Analysis: Joyce & Jackson swapped

One more move from last night, a good old-fashioned straight-up trade, with the Tigers sending outfielder Matt Joyce to the Rays for righthander Edwin Jackson. Joyce, who turned 24 in August, has progressed steadily ever since the Tigers made him a 12th-round pick out of Florida Southern in 2005 and he played the rest of that summer for Oneonta in the New York-Penn League. From there, it was on to Single-A West Michigan, where he hit 11 homers in 2006, Double-A Erie for 17 homers in 2007 and Triple-A Toledo, where Joyce had 13 homers in 56 games this year before getting called up to the majors and hitting 12 more homers in 242 at-bats with the Tigers. But with Detroit moving Carlos Guillen to left field, and already having Curtis Granderson and Magglio Ordonez in the outfield, Joyce was deemed expendable. Just as with the Tigers' trade for catcher Gerald Laird and their signing of shorstop Adam Everett, you could argue against this move on the basis of not wanting to give up a quickly-blossoming ... (link)