The Athletics have acquired outfielder Ramon Laureano from the Astros, per MLB.com’s Jane Lee (via Twitter). Houston will receive right-hander Brandon Bailey in return.
Oakland additionally outrighted right-hander Bobby Wahl off of its 40-man roster. That move will create space for Laureano to be added to the A’s roster to protect him from the Rule 5 draft — the same consideration that no doubt created the circumstances of this swap.
Laureano, 23, ranked 11th on MLB.com’s most recent prospect list for the ’Stros. But he failed to follow up on a breakout 2016 season. Over 513 plate appearances at Double-A in 2017, he slashed just .227/.298/.369 with 11 home runs and 24 stolen bases.
The 23-year-old Bailey is still a ways off from needing his own 40-man spot. He split the 2017 season between the Class A and High-A levels, pitching to a cumulative 3.26 ERA over 91 frames. Though he allowed a few more runners to cross the plate after his promotion, Bailey did impress with 12.4 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 in his 34 innings at the higher tier.
Meanwhile, the 25-year-old Wahl made it to the majors for the first time in 2017, allowing four earned runs in 7 2/3 frames. Much of his prior time has been spent at the Double-A level, where he owns a 3.08 ERA with 10.4 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 in 73 total frames.
Wahhabism was a boss in my ootp save
Wahl. Stupid autocorrect
I like Wahhabism better
Me too
Interesting challenge trade of 22 year old prospects, but looks like a big win for Houston, Bailey (6th round pick) had a great year, Laureano (16th round pick) was awful.
It’s weird that you wrote that the A’s acquired a player, it looks more like the Astros got the more well-known quantity.
Kinda seems like a move to make sure the Double A or Triple A roster is filled out next season.
That said they’re both prospects, so they could both become something, or nothing. Not really worried about it.
Bailey could have gotten more than a failing, barely-CF, no? Or is this maybe another Brendan McCurry type deal where the A’s knew something was up and moved him before the tests came back?
BTW Longenhagen had Laureano as the Astros #5 prospect in this pre-season, ahead of Dax Cameron, David Paulino, Derek Fisher, Teoscar Hernandez and more. What a difference a year makes.
I don’t know, guess the A’s saw something they liked. We aren’t short on A level pitching right now, so this move doesn’t’ really worry me, and our hole is still center field.
It almost feels like this is just for depth purposes, and a prelude to what the A’s do later today to protect players from the R5 draft.
Well Laureano is definitely a plus CF, I guess I underrated him at first. I forgot what a huge year he had in 2016, but he’s definitely a reclamation project player right now, which makes sense he’d bring back a solid but unspectacular SP prospect.
Agree with your R5 comment too. Curious as to how the A’s fit Semien, Barreto, Mateo, Merrell, Allen & Munoz at SS, and who gets moved to 2B and the OF out of that group. 1B + 3B are certainly spoken for for the next 6 years, but that group is extremely talented and all have good odds of becoming MLB regulars. Martin is also the best defensive SS in the farm, but hits like Brendan Ryan, so, no idea what route they take with all of those players. Love the A’s farm right now, they’re such a dark horse to me. They could contend in 2018 if they make the right moves, but they could also just play the kids and see what they have.
Our farm system gets underrated, even though it’s the 6th ranked system in baseball. Like farm system rankings follow the way of draft picks or something, where 1-5 is awesome but 6 and beyond is overlooked.
I don’t really know how we fit in all of these players. Schrock/Barreto platoon is possible, Munoz in the outfield somewhere, Mateo in center and Merrell or Allen at short? I have no idea.
Either way trading this one pitcher doesn’t hurt. We had tandem rotations up until Triple A this season, just so all of our guys could get innings. Tons of pitching depth in the lower minors, but very little OF depth in the upper minors still..
Yeah, totally seeing your point now about needing OFs and not needing SPs.
One interesting name you dropped, Max Shrock, it seems he’s a couple tiers under the Mateo/Barreto/Allen/Merrell group that I’d guess the front office would be more interested in promoting, interesting that you put him in there. He looks like a tweener to me, like an INF version of Brugman but with a higher BA. Now Neuse is looking like he’s going to be a thing, doesn’t that make Schrock kind of depth fodder moving forward, right?
He might be, but his contact skills and superior defense at second don’t have me sold on that.
BTW McCurry pitched pretty well in AAA ball after he came back from his suspension, and pitched even better in the Arizona Fall League. Stros still think very well of him. Jed Lowrie has netted Brad Peacock, Max Stassi and McCurry…..not bad.
Neuse is better defender than Schrock though.
Laureano is a good outfielder, someone the Astros liked. But they have Derek Fisher, Kyle Tucker, John Kemmer, Drew Ferguson, Jason Martin and Myles Straw in front of him. So nothing against Laureano, but they probably saw an opportunity to get a good right hander in Bailey. Strictly a swap of surplus OF talent for maybe A’s surplus pitching talent. Although as an Astros fan, I like the fact that Bailey struck out 47 in 34 innings in high A.
Laureano lead all minors in OBP in 2016, which has been a weak area for the A’s the last several years. So that plus defense, plus speed, plus OF depth in the upper minors make him very appealing to the A’s.
They’ve already started playing Munoz in the outfield over this last year, and he’s got a plus arm, and decent speed. So that takes some of the middle infield pressure off.
I would not be surprised if the A’s traded Lowrie, used Wendle to begin the season and let Barreto push his way up to the majors.
So they’re grooming Munoz as a multi-position player now. I think Mateo will push Barreto to 2b. So A’s could have Neuse 3b, Mateo SS, Barreto 2B at AAA.
They could always move Semien to LF. He’s one of the faster players on the team, he hits for some power, and his infield throwing issues would be mitigated.
Pretty sure Merrell will start at Stockton along with Deichmann and Logan Farrar, skipping Low-A. And several of the pitchers that were at Vermont will also skip up like Howard, Salow and Dunshee.
Nice write up.
I don’t think they’ll trade Lowrie, there’s simply no market for him unless you want to give him away for nothing. I think he’ll be at 2B until Barreto is destroying AAA and playing good d at 2B. I think Lowrie stays until the deadline or even further and Wendle is DFA’d.
Also, Chapman is the 3B for a long time. Neuse might leap over Barreto, or play SS or 2B, but I don’t see him playing at 3B if he’s continuing to rake his way into the bigs. Makes no sense, might as well as get him playing the spot he’s going to play in mlb.
I think Pinder is the stop gap of Lowrie gets traded.
Astros finally win a WS and now it’s a race back down to the bottom!
Troll
I thought the Astros would take a chance and see if Laureano made it through the R5. Guess they figure this is a better option.