The Brewers have acquired right-hander Oliver Drake from the Orioles in exchange for a player to be named later or cash, the teams announced. This is the second swap between the two teams tonight, as Milwaukee shipped recently designated right-hander Damien Magnifico to the O’s in exchange for an international bonus slot just minutes ago. The acquisition of Drake needn’t be accompanied by a 40-man roster move in Milwaukee, because the Brewers also designated right-hander David Goforth for assignment within the past hour.
Drake, 30, was designated for assignment by the Orioles earlier this afternoon — a seemingly innocuous move at the time that set off this moderately dizzying sequence of transactions for the two clubs. In 37 Major League innings, Drake has a 3.89 ERA with 10.0 K/9, 4.6 BB/9 and a 50.5 percent ground-ball rate. Drake doesn’t have minor league options remaining, so he’ll have to be inserted directly into the Milwaukee bullpen. The Brewers could quickly try to run Drake through waivers once again themselves, thus allowing him to be optioned to Triple-A, though in doing so, they’d risk losing him to another club.
“He’s not a hard-thrower, having averaged just 90.6 mph on his fastball to date, but it’s mildly intriguing to note that Drake has averaged an improved 91.8 mph in the young 2017 campaign (albeit over just 3 1/3 innings).”
This is probably because of the change in how pitch speed is recorded this year. It’s been said to add about 1 MPH to fastball velocity based on the previous system.
That’s probably true. I kind of spaced on the Statcast / Pitchfx switch in 2017 when writing that. I just struck it entirely due to the fact that the discrepancy falls well within the confines of the general 1 mph guideline. Thanks for the reminder on that.
This sort of feels like a trade of Magnifico for Drake where both teams are trying to salvage some value from these guys.
Magnifico throws hard, but has little to show for it in 5 years in the minors with only one solid year of performance. At this point, he was just rule 5 bait anyway, hence his removal from the 40 man roster.
Drake, meanwhile, has a far more solid minor league body of work, but (like Magnifico) has yet to translate it into Major league success, and worse, he’s 4 years older than Magnifico.
So who would you rather have: a younger guy who throws harder with almost no history of success, or an older guy with a better track record? At any rate, here’s hoping that the change of scenery bodes well for both players.
Brewers also picked up the #15 slot in the international draft which is pretty significant. As for the players I’d still rather have the younger flamethrower and hope he’s just a late bloomer.
How can there be a #15 slot in the international draft if there is no international draft? The Brewers merely acquired a bonus slot, which just raises their spending cap for signing international free agents.
Every team has four slots of value. As if the draft was already in place. A team can trade slot values. They can’t trade random value amounts with no bearing on anything in particular.
Magnifico has a way higher ceiling than Drake. He has been an all star at every level he’s pitched at in the minors. Only thing holding h back is control and if he just improves that a little he has the stuff to be a solid high leverage reliever
Agreed he has a higher ceiling, but he’s far from an all-star in the minors . . .
Outside of a stellar year in 2015 (at AA), he’s pitched 286 innings, with 133 earnies, 134 walks, 272 hits, and 227 Ks. . . . that translates to a 6.44 ERA, a WHIP of 1.42, and a K/BB ration of 1.7/1 . . .
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Like I said, I hope things work out for him, but his velocity is the only thing that makes him at all attractive.
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I like Magnifico and would have liked to seen him get a shot but reality is he lacks control and his K9 is closer to someone throwing 87 instead of his 97