After successfully completing the Danys Baez trade in January, the Dodgers and Devil Rays have matched up again on a multi-player swap. This time L.A. sent Jae Seo, Dioner Navarro, and a PTBNL to the D-Rays for Toby Hall and Mark Hendrickson.
With a .258 batting average on balls in play, Hendrickson has been the 11th luckiest starter in baseball this year. Given the D-Rays’ team BABIP of .316, we can be fairly confident that the 32 year-old southpaw will not maintain his hit rate of 8.13 per nine. His peripherals are otherwise unimpressive – 3.4 BB/9, 5.1 K/9, 1.0 HR/9. Prior to this season, Hendrickson had allowed almost 11 hits per nine innings in the Majors. His control is better than this, but he’s in for a steep decline overall.
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Despite an ERA near 6, I’m not sure Jae Seo is much worse than Hendrickson. Though no one seems to trust Seo to succeed, he has managed a 3.85 career ERA in almost 400 innings leading up to this season. Hendrickson doesn’t seem like a significant upgrade, especially half a season worth of him.
The exchange of Toby Hall for Dioner Navarro is another clear win for Tampa Bay. Navarro is still just 22 and hasn’t had a full trial in the Majors. Any backstop that young who can draw a walk 10% of the time has value.
I think this is a disappointing move for the Dodgers. While it’s true they may not miss Navarro or Seo, Hendrickson is not the #3 starter the team needs to run away with the NL West.
