The Guardians announced that they have traded left-hander Anthony Banda to the Dodgers in exchange for cash considerations. The southpaw was not on Cleveland’s 40-man and therefore won’t need to be added to the Dodgers’ roster.
Banda, 30, signed a minor league deal with the Guards in January. He has been pitching for their Triple-A club, throwing 17 innings over 12 appearances. He has a 2.12 earned run average in that time, striking out 37.9% of batters faced, giving out walks at a 9.1% rate and getting grounders on 67.9% of balls in play. It’s a small sample but it seems to have intrigued the Dodgers enough to put some cash on the barrel to get a deal done.
The lefty was once a notable starting pitching prospect but underwent Tommy John surgery in 2018, which wiped out the remainder of that season and most of the following year as well. Since that time, he’s spent more time as a reliever but has struggled to establish himself in that role.
He has bounced to the Mets, Pirates, Blue Jays, Yankees and Nationals since the start of 2021. That’s partly due to him burning his final option year in 2020 but also his struggles in recent seasons. He has thrown 67 1/3 big league innings over the past three years with a 5.48 ERA, 21.1% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate. He also threw 126 1/3 innings in the minors during the 2021-23 period with a 6.91 ERA, though that’s likely somewhat misleading. His 20.9% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate were both similar to his major league work, but his .345 batting average on balls in play and 51.7% strand rate were both on the unlucky side for that stretch.
The Dodgers will see if the recent improvement in his results can be continued. If it does, they can reap long-term benefits. Banda came into this year with three years and one day of major league service time. There’s not enough time left in this season for him to get to the four-year mark. That means he could potentially be retained for three seasons beyond this one.
First, he will have to get a spot on the Dodgers’ roster. They already have Alex Vesia, Ryan Yarbrough and Nick Ramirez as southpaws in their bullpen but Banda will give them some non-roster depth in that department.
Banda was not their manda.
Banda joined a new band yeah!
Banda on the run once again
Strike one!
Leaving a crappy team for a championship contender has to instantly motivate a player, Not to mention their world class player development I’m sure he’ll get some useful Coaching
Don’t know what you’ve been watching. I wouldn’t exactly call the Guardians a crappy team. The White Sox and Rockies are crappy teams.
Wait the first place Guardians are a crappy team? Maybe watch or follow some baseball before making dumb comments next time, shadow.
They’re good this year but they’ll go 52-110 next year
Because the Guardians great young core will suddenly become old and washed up next year?
Tony Banda, knew his great uncle Jimmy two times. Think he’s going to get the papers, get the papers.
You’re a funny guy.
Funny how. Funny like a clown? Am i here to amuse you?
No..no..not at all Tommy, just the way you tell the story.
Reaping long term benefits? Maybe it’s time to figure out Friedman’s roster management system. The vast majority of players, especially relievers they acquire this way make only a few appearances and are gone within a week or two.
Apparently his biz model is not to pay for relievers and to use the reliever role to bring back his injured starters slowly. This has cost them games during the regular season, but not sure they care. They will have to get it figured out by the time the playoffs come. Most of these guys would be risky in high leverage situations.
Figuring it out in time for the postseason hasn’t been a strong point, to say the least. The offseason acquisitions really gave me hope that a new approach was being tried. In some ways it is, but in others it seems more like rinse-repeat.
@Blue
Where’s the risk? If one of these long-shot guys sticks, great. If not, so what?
The risk is losing games b/c of failure to put resources in a pen. Their philosophy appears to be we’re going to the playoffs so let’s take a load management approach and et’s cycle through guys hoping we find a gem. Ok, that’s fine for now, but when they reach the playoffs whom do you trust beyond Hudson and Phillips? Stakes are higher, less margin for error.
I agree with this. They go through so many they don’t have enough top guys. Evan Phillips and?? Joe Kelly or Dan Hudson? They are total wild cards. Yes they have a thousand starters to coast through the season but maybe invest more in the pen or make some of these guys relievers late so they get used to it?
Treinen can hopefully get better command because his pitches still have a lot of movement. A healthy Joe Kelly and Brasier can be right below high leverage situations. And Graterol needs to get healthy. A lot of options, just need to stay healthy. Age and injury profiles certainly risks. My guess is that they’ll add at least one bullpen arm at the deadline. Banda provides non-40 depth. Hard to fault Friedman’s ROI when it comes to bullpen.
That’s the risk in my opinion too, pretty much. Stability is worth something, especially when you get closer to the end of the season to a place where everybody should know their roles. The constant auditioning of no-hopers just to soak up some workload during the regular season is a theory that hasn’t exactly come up as a winner in the postseason.
We still have more than 70% of the season left. Way too early to panic. There are guys in place to succeed. Between Phillips, Treinen, Hudson and Graterol that’s plenty of high leverage options with Joe Kelly and Brasier ready to fill in. Health will be most important factor.
Bullpen is usually not the reason the Dodgers lose in the postseason. Last year it was starting pitching and hitting.
Dodgers are currently 4th in MLB bullpen stats. Guys like Banda, Salazar, Crismat, Varland et al in OKC are there to take down an inning or two in the bigs when needed. If a big gun is needed for the stretch run I trust Friedman to go and get him. In the mean time with Graterol, Hurt and Brasier on the IL mix and match arms are gonna be needed. And I do include Treinen in guys to be trusted. Which is not to say Dodgers cannot stand to improve the pen. Of course they can.
Not panicking, but if you are familiar with Einstein’s definition of insanity you will understand my concern.
Despite all the coffee mugs attributing that insanity quote to Einstein, he wasn’t associated with the phrase until after his death. Sources say Civil rights campaigner and feminist writer Rita Mae Brown is the real author of the phrase. In her 1983 book Sudden Death, Brown attributes the quote to a fictional ‘Jane Fulton’. However, the idea of a link between repetition and insanity can be traced back to the 19th century. But I digress…
You certainly do!
didn’t want to repeat the same argument and be labeled insane.
Give the small sample sizes and high variance, I’d imagine that spending money on relievers in the long run doesn’t pay. I’d double dog triple down on that being true for a few weeks in October.
Ha. Like that stops anybody here!
Good move. 😉
“Friedman’s roster management system”…Friedman’s “roster management” system wins 100+ games every year and packs the stadium daily with overflow crowds, so I’m sure his owners are on board and believe in him.
Yes, we already know that the Dodgers management views success only in terms of revenue (Kasten has said almost exactly this), but it doesn’t mean we as fans are required to like it. In any case, your comment has naught all to do with my point, so try again if you wish.
“Views success only in terms of revenue”…I just detailed how they Dodgers win 100+ games every year(so they clearly value winning), but still you say “only in terms of revenue”. And the last time I checked, baseball is a for-profit business so making money is an integral part of every teams strategy.
Laughable. Best winning percentage in the last 10 years combined. It’s not even close. Yeah, the playoffs haven’t been as kind to the Dodgers but there is definitely a crapshoot element in there. All you can do is position the team to make a deep run. Some fans are just spoiled.
statmuse.com/mlb/ask/best-mlb-teams-winning-percen…
I am only paraphrasing Kasten, and not even by much. After one of the more recent postseason wipeouts he said he still considered the season to be a success because based on attendance the Dodgers could continue raising ticket prices. I suppose this is called saying the quiet part out loud, but it was still an insult to every fan who came out to see the Dodgers win in the postseason.
Not really — in fact, not at all. Teams finishing with the best regular season records are statistically much more likely to win it all than the others. The outlier is… you guessed it. And it isn’t like we’re talking just a few datapoints. Every baseball fan notices this. No reason for Dodger fans to wear blue tinted glasses and pretend otherwise.
As for being “spoiled” I don’t know what you mean. My guess is you don’t either. All I can say is I’ve owned season tickets to this team for decades now and the finishing first in the regular season then collapsing in the postseason bit is getting old. I just want to see them win it all for a change, while I’m still, like, you know, alive? Call me spoiled if it gives you some kind of jollies, but I can only shrug and wonder why you don’t get it. Because that’s what every fan wants. At least I thought so.
We’ve had this discussion before. Just because you’re a season ticket holder doesn’t mean they should listen to you anymore than any other fan. Dodgers are almost always the highest drawing MLB team. If you handed over your season tickets they’d gladly find a replacement.
You thinking that you have a say because you’re a season ticket holder is classic definition of entitlement. Until you own your own team you’re just as irrelevant as all of us.
Don’t know what to tell you. Spending money doesn’t guarantee a World Series. The way the Dodgers spend you’d think fans would be grateful instead of hurling complaints.
Probably we have, but still you might try telling me something different.
I bring up being a season ticket holder surely not because I think it gives me any special rights as a fan, but only to point out that this is where my entertainment dollars go and have gone year after year — all the way back to when the O’Malley family owned the team. I stuck with them through the awful Fox and McCourt years too. This is something few around here seem to be able to say, so I am not going to have my loyalty as a fan questioned by anyone, and not especially by anyone who can’t say the same. Follow me so far?
I also surely don’t need to be lectured on economics or business. In fact the more you do that the more you are simply endorsing what Kasten said. Which I will remind you is, essentially, so long as we can raise the tickets prices every year our season was successful. Agree or not? As a baseball fan, not as a pretend MBA working the Dodgers finance office. Still following me?
I honestly agree with your last statement. You don’t know what to tell me, and falling back on that sucky concept of “entitlement” to avoid trying only proves it.
These are low margin prospects where its to fill a roster spot till injured players come back. Perhaps it turns into something more, but if not the Dodgers move on.
Speaking of the Friedman model, anyone know anything on Crismatt’s situation. Surprising that no one wants to claim him.
Cool, he will pitch one game then get thrown in the wood chipper like the ten other interchangeable guys they used.
Once again, Cash Considerations gets a new uniform
“Cash considerations” has been traded more times than Juan Soto.
Banda traded for a band
Or a Banda brothers…
This tells me they think Nick Ramirez is awful.
Or they just want more triple A relief pitcher depth. He has actually pitched well in his brief time in the bigs.
Banda is good, comes from a solid family: Banda brothers