Last week, MLBTR's Anthony Franco ran through a handful of under-the-radar trade candidates for teams on the hunt for bullpen help. It was a simple enough premise. While there's rightly a heavy focus placed on high-quality relievers on bad teams (e.g. Mason Miller, Tanner Scott, Carlos Estevez), MLB teams will be casting a wider net than just those obvious trade candidates.
I wanted to do something similar with hitters -- and may still do so -- but as I parsed through some potential options, I was also struck by the likelihood that there are a number of current and former (more of the latter) top prospects who increasingly look like they'll have an uphill battle to earning a role with their current club. Oftentimes, this is due to other prospects leapfrogging them on the depth chart, the team extending a current key player and/or injuries. While today's front offices tend to hoard depth as much as possible the finite number of minor league options a player possesses can put an inherent clock on that depth's shelf life.
Not all of the players highlighted in this exercise are teetering on being out of options, nor is this intended to be an exhaustive list of names in this situation. (If there's anyone you feel I missed, by all means, let me know in the comments and bring them to the discussion!) I'm also not going to focus much on former prospects who've already been passed through waivers/released or those who are performing poorly enough in the minors that they're now DFA candidates themselves.
The aim here is to find some interesting, controllable names still on the 40-man roster who have decent minor league (and in some cases, big league) track records but lack a clear path to an everyday role on their current roster. That sort of player ought to have appeal to rebuilding teams or retooling sellers who are looking to take another shot at contending as soon as next year. Here are a few situations that seem worth monitoring as the deadline draws near:
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Think the Cards will part with Carlson and/or Herrera?
Cardinals farm system is a disaster right now. Time to rebuild!
Recently, the quote “disaster” has produced, Donaldson, Winn, Nootbarr, Burleson, Pages, Herrera, Palante, Gorman, and Edman. All still young and improving. They haven’t been very successful with pitcher development, although both Hence and Mathews aren’t far behind, and they have a secondary group of Saggese, Prieto, and Dunn who could be starting for a number of teams. Hardly a disaster.
er, Donovan not Donaldson.
Nothing really left except Hence who is a #3 or #4 guy in rotation type. Guys on the roster are just ok. Buying pitchers costs crazy $$$. Trading for top pitchers costs a lot of prospects the Cardinals don’t have right now.
Herrera might bring something decent back but Carlson probably only brings back a lottery ticket
Pittsburgh maybe.
Mets also have acuna in the infield mix for next year too
I think they were planning on using Jett primarily in OF right? They also have jeremy rodriguez and houck but both are years away
I think Baty’s bat will eventually develop in the majors (imo, they rushed him to the majors and in doing so, stunted his bat), but as someone who has seen him play 2B in person in Syracuse, he is painfully slow out there range-wise and turning double plays. Maybe he can figure it out as it is still super early in this experiment, but it’ll be an uphill battle.
Baty may end up being the Mets Bobby Dalbec
That’s a harsh comp. IMO, there would have been plenty of room in the Mets IF had they not panicked and signed JD Martinez so late and let Pete/Vientos/Baty cycle through the 1B/3B/DH spots. Iirc, all were looking solid in ST- Cohen just wanted to make a little splash going into the season.
On Tyler Black being a “potential long term” answer at 3B, he hasn’t played 3B this year, and was a total disaster there last year.
The Brewers currently have him playing CF in AAA, and that’s likely/hopefully his best position, as he hasn’t been close to average at any of 3B/2B/1B.
The organization seems to love Mitchell, he was called up first, and Murphy/Arnold have consistently talked about him as the starting CF.
TL;DR Black, Sal, and Blake Perkins are the gettable options for teams wanting OF help from MKE
I had no idea they were playing Black in the OF in AAA. That complicates matters further for sure. His middling power numbers never profiled on the corners tho. But neither do Ortiz or Frelick’s. Lots of directions to go here and plenty of speed to burn…
Odd that this article doesn’t appear in the main trade rumors thread.