With the trade deadline now less than two months away, we at MLBTR are setting our sights backwards for a bit to highlight past trades. With an arbitrary cutoff point of 2017, we’re counting down the top 10 returns that a team got when selling a rental player. We’re on to #7 in our series, looking back four years to a last-minute 2019 swap.
The Cubs entered deadline season nearing the end of their contention window. Chicago had snapped their World Series drought three years prior. While the Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Báez, Willson Contreras and Kyle Hendricks core never returned to the Fall Classic and fell short of dynastic expectations some observers had heaped on them, Chicago remained a good club. They went to the NL Championship Series in 2017 and made the playoffs again the following season, losing to the Rockies in the Wild Card game.
Chicago’s then-Theo Epstein led front office set out to bolster the roster further in hopes of securing a fifth straight playoff berth. They sat at 56-50 heading into play on July 31, a game back of the Cardinals in the NL Central. The Cubs looked to inject some life into an offense that had ranked 14th in run scoring to that point. The addition: corner outfielder Nick Castellanos in a swap sending prospects Alex Lange and Paul Richan to the Tigers.
Castellanos was amidst a relative down season at the time of the trade. While he’d hit .298/.354/.500 the prior year, the right-handed hitter was carrying a .273/.328/.462 line midway through a ’19 campaign that had seen a home run explosion around the league. The Cubs looked past that comparatively slow start.
In return, they dealt a pair of fairly recent high draft choices to a Detroit club that was midway through a full-scale rebuild and en route to one of the worst seasons in history (47-114). Lange had been the 30th overall pick in 2017 after helping LSU to the College World Series finals. Richan was a second round draftee the next season out of the University of San Diego. Lange had posted middling minor league numbers up through Double-A; Richan had a solid but not overwhelming High-A performance.
It was a bit of a buy-low situation for the Detroit front office. Both pitchers had seen their prospect stock hit a down ebb. The Tigers immediately moved Lange from the rotation to the bullpen, hoping that a simplified repertoire and shorter stints would mitigate longstanding questions about his delivery and command. Detroit surely believed he’d be a viable MLB reliever but probably didn’t anticipate this level of dominance.
Lange debuted in 2021 and posted a 4.04 ERA in 35 2/3 middle relief innings. He took his game to a new level last season, significantly upping his swing-and-miss to force his way into higher-leverage spots. Lange tossed 63 1/3 frames of 3.41 ERA ball while punching out more than 30% of opposing hitters. An absurd 19% swinging strike rate — bettered only by Edwin Díaz and Andrés Muñoz among qualified relievers — suggested the potential to push the strikeouts even further. Paired with an absurd 55.6% ground-ball rate, Lange demonstrated an ultra-rare combination of whiffs and unthreatening contact. He was one of just five relievers (min. 30 innings) to record both a strikeout rate above 30% and a grounder percentage north of 55%.
In his second full MLB campaign, Lange has indeed upped the strikeouts. Entering play Thursday, he’s punched out 35% of batters faced. Lange carries a 2.55 ERA in 24 2/3 innings and been entrusted with the ninth inning by manager A.J. Hinch. The 27-year-old has saved 10 of 11 opportunities. He was blown up for four runs in a third of an inning by the White Sox in his most recent appearance, but Lange has made 17 scoreless outings and recorded multiple strikeouts on 14 occasions.
Lange’s control still comes and goes. He’s walked at least 9.9% of opponents in all three of his big league campaigns. That includes a lofty 13% walk percentage thus far in 2023. Yet he’s been so dominant at his best that he’s able to navigate the free passes. Since the start of the 2022 campaign, opponents are hitting .190/.298/.292 in 371 trips to the plate.
The Tigers didn’t get anything out of Richan. He topped out at Double-A and was released last September. Hitting to the extent they have on Lange has more than made up for Richan stalling out from Detroit’s perspective. They landed a high-leverage reliever who has shown impact talent. If Lange dials in his control, he could be one of the three to five best late-game arms in the sport. Even if he’s “only” an All-Star caliber hurler, that’s a great pull for a player who was two months from free agency. The Tigers forfeited the chance to recoup a draft pick via the qualifying offer for Castellanos’ departure but Lange has been far better than the expected value of a choice landing at the end of the first round.
Lange is under club control through the 2027 campaign. He entered this season with one year and 112 days of service time, so he’ll head into next offseason at 2.112 service years. That could leave him just shy of the cutoff for early arbitration as a Super Two player, which has landed between 2.115 and 2.134 years over the past five winters. Even if Lange does get to arbitration next season, four years of arb control for a pitcher of his caliber is a massive asset.
The Tigers’ rebuild has stagnated, leading to a front office shakeup last summer. While Detroit is only 3 1/2 games out in the AL Central right now, they’re seven games under .500 and have been outscored by 70 runs. This isn’t a likely playoff contender even in the sport’s worst division. As a result, other clubs have called on Detroit’s relievers (Lange included) about a potential deadline deal.
With their extended control window, there’s no pressure on president of baseball operations Scott Harris and his staff to pull the trigger. They dealt shorter-term relievers like Joe Jiménez and Gregory Soto over the winter but moving Lange would be at another level of boldness. The more probable outcome is that Lange will stick around into next season, hopefully anchoring a bullpen for the next competitive Detroit club.
From the Cubs’ perspective, the trade had mixed results. Had they anticipated Lange being this good, they wouldn’t have made him available for a rental. Castellanos validated their optimism, though, rebounding from his middle-of-the-road start with a torrid stretch. He slashed .321/.356/.646 with an absurd 16 home runs in 51 games. Castellanos earned a $64MM guarantee from the Reds the ensuing offseason. His Cincinnati deal afforded a post-2021 opt-out clause which he leveraged into a $100MM contract from Philadelphia on the heels of another excellent season.
Even with Castellanos hitting at a top 20 level down the stretch, the Cubs never kicked into another gear. They’d go 27-28 from August onward. Chicago ended third in the division and five games behind the Brewers for the last postseason spot. They returned to the playoffs during the abbreviated 2020 campaign but were swept in the first round by the Marlins. Chicago hasn’t gotten back to the postseason since and is going on six years dating back to their last playoff win.
Previous installments: honorable mentions, Drew Smith/Lucas Duda (#10), Steve Pearce/Santiago Espinal (#9), Lane Thomas/Jon Lester (#8)
Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.
@Anthony Franco, do you remember how the baseball wags howled that Al Avila got fleeced again in the Castellanos trade, like in the JD Martinez deal?
You can read the comments on the trade at the time. That’s been my favorite part because many are still around the board.
Nicholas Castellanos was leading MLB in doubles at the time of the trade. He then went to the Cubs and nearly carried them to the post season. Alex Lange broke out 3 years after the trade while Paul Richan is not playing. Lange is the best reliever on the Tigers but the bar is … there’s no bar. Castellanos is still more valuable than Lange. Al Avila didn’t ‘win’ the trade. He got value but we’re so accustomed to Avila getting nothing in return. The Cubs got more from the trade than the Tigers.
If more people went back and read their comments years after the fact they would probably post a lot less hot takes.
Any idiot can identify who got the best player at the time. That’s not why teams trade for prospects. If the question is who won the trade ask yourself who’s winning the trade 3/4 years down the line not today. Most fans don’t care about tomorrow only today until 3/4 years later when they change their opinion and say we never shoulda traded that guy.
Strong return for a dh corner outfielder. In cubs defense they knew he wasn’t going to be a starter and their pitching development wasn’t strong.
Love Lange. His stuff is absolutely nasty and he’s established himself as one of the best relievers in the game. This trade was one of the rare Al Avila W’s!
Al actually had good luck trading with the Cubs. Getting Paredes and Candelario turned out good.
Avila is good/great young talent scout but abysmal free agent signer. Zimmerman contract is best represent for his GM tenure. We are still digging our way out from the poo poo mess he left. Yes, looking at you Javy Baez. Ouch. Stinks!
Agreed. His trades weren’t the problem. His FA signings were. He needed Verlanders permission which limited who he could trade with. JDM returned more than any other OF dealt that deadline. There just was no demand, and a qualifying offer would have only gotten them a pick at the end of the 4th round, due to their payroll level. He did fine in his other trades. He had a way of finding FA pitchers who would immediately spend the contract on the injured list.
Castellanos had a higher WAR in his 2 months with the Cubs than Lange has in his career. Sure, the Cubs missed the playoffs that year, but it was hardly Castellanos’s fault. The only real regret Cubs fans have on this deal is that they didn’t even try to re sign him that winter
WAR for relievers is not a great stat to use.
Probably because they don’t play enough to have the same value as a productive position player. Which is kind of my point
Alex Lange is a stud
I think it was a mistake by the Phillies giving Castallanos a $100m 5-yr deal coming off the best season of his career, which was worth only 3.4 WAR, when his total WAR in his career to that point was only 13.3 over 9 seasons. He’d need to play to 2.6 WAR every year to give them break even value on $100m, but since he stunk last year, he was actually worth – 0.8 WAR which translates to -$6.4m (fangraphs), and just to break even on the deal, he’d need 13 WAR over the course of the 5 years and so far he’s at 0.3 nearly a year and a half into it, so he needs to average 3.6 WAR per season for the rest of the deal. Considering he has never done that once, I think they overpaid him by $25-30 million and obvious overpays like that hinder a team’s chances at being competitive. For the Tigers, getting rid of the guy and not overpaying him was huge, getting Lange too was one of the only moves Avila actually got right during his awful tenure.
Castellanos has been darn good this year.
He is. He is also due for regression to mean. He’s playing much better than he has previously shown capable. Hopefully for his sake and the Phillies, he can crack a 4 WAR for the first time, I’m always rooting for the best for everyone.
Given a Corner OF that kind of money is always silly when the sport is full of poor defenders who play corner OF. Really don’t ever need to sign those guys for more than 1-2 years
The crazy thing was Castellanos was better down the stretch than anybody could’ve ever hoped for, but it didn’t matter cuz the whole Cubs team except for him just forgot how to hit for 2 whole months. And then Castellanos was interested in coming back but there wasn’t enough scratch in Tommy Ricketts’ couch cushions, so it ended up being a pure rental.
I dont regret this trade at all as a cubs fan. In those final 2 months Castellanos won us like 10 games with clutch hits. He was the only one showing up for the entire end of that season, and he the moment he slowed down the team collpased. I would do that trade again.
Cubs went 25-26 with Castellanos in the lineup. Are you really saying they would have went 15-36 without him?
yes.
And for the 3rd game in a row the Tigers have been no-hit thru 6 innings. UGH! You can have all the pitching in the world but a team still needs to hit the ball!
At this point, I think Baez would likely swing at the first pitch by 50 cent.
What recent deadline rental trade can beat Brian Reynolds for Andrew McCutchen? I’d be surprised if that’s not #1.
Plus the Bucs got Kyle Crick in that trade who was solid for a couple of years.
Crazy part about it was out here in SF no one was really talking about Reynolds’s. We were all PO about Crick. He was supposed to be the next big thing in a line of great pitchers the Giants put out from Cain to Bumgarner. After giving up wheeler a few years earlier most Giants fans I knew were not thrilled with the move. Funny that Reynolds ended up being the best part of the trade and the Giants have been unable to put a home grown starting OF out of Sacramento ever since.
Its hard to believe that Wheeler trade was 12 years ago. Sabean had a lot of magic going on with so many homegrowners emerging as stars with some ultra crafty trades, waiver claims and signings. He was the architect of 3 very different teams winning championships in 5 years. When Sabean stepped back and let Evans have more of a handprint things began to go south as they signed their late 20’s core to long term contracts and made some poor trades, signings and drafts.
A lot of Giants fans are nostalgic for the Sabean days but call me crazy I am seeing the same pattern emerge with the Giants this year. I know the Giants are just 2 games above .500 but I have seen so many talented rookies come up and make a big impact this season and they still have Matos and Harrison to debut this year. Conforto has gone off, LaMonte is insane, JD Davis is making spectacular plays at third every night and Casey Schmitt is un-effing-believable. After his third game he had the 4 hardest thrown balls by any major league position player this season and he makes one great play after another at third, short and second.
Maybe the Tigers/Houston trade for Verlander?
“line midway through a ’19 campaign that had seen a home run explosion around the league”
Like please call the homerun explosion what it was… Manfred playing with the balls of everyone
You know what keeps those homerus that should go out in the playoffs from going out? Juiced ball vs Humidor…
Lange is coming off a couple of really bad outings. Hope he gets straightened out soon.
Yeah, I think this is a bit premature for a guy with 10 saves on his resume. Probably need a full year or 2 to evaluate Lange. That being said, Lange wasn’t going to help the Cubs that year and Castellanos wasn’t going to help the Tigers.