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The Twins Are One Of The Keys To The Trade Deadline

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The Twins have looked like sellers for much of the season, but as we’ve seen in recent years, most clubs prefer to wait until closer to the deadline to chart a course. As noted here recently, Minnesota faces almost exclusively AL Central clubs leading up to the July 30 trade deadline. If there was a 2019 Nationals-esque surge in this group, now would be the time to set it in motion.

The Twins started off taking two of three against an Indians club whose rotation is in tatters, but they’ve dropped their first two against the White Sox to fall 13.5 games out of first place in the division. For a team that needs to be nearly flawless over this pivotal stretch of divisional opponents — particularly versus Cleveland and Chicago — dropping three of the first five games isn’t a great start.

Given that this was a team most expected to contend for the Central, at the very least, it’s not at all surprising that there are several players who’d interest contenders. In fact, ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote in yesterday’s 20 Questions column that the Twins are “the team almost every contender is waiting on.” Minnesota still plays the White Sox eight times, the Tigers a whopping 11 times and the Royals three times before the trade deadline, so maybe they can pull off the macro version of last night’s staggering Angels comeback, but it’s becoming increasingly likely that this goes the direction most onlookers have expected for awhile now.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what the Twins could do as the deadline draws nearer…

The Rentals

Michael Pineda, RHP ($10MM salary): Pineda is currently on the shelf with inflammation in his right elbow. He’s been out since June 14, but he’s slated for a rehab start in Triple-A today. Assuming there are no setbacks, Pineda would be one of the most attractive options on the rental market. He’s an established mid-rotation arm who has performed well with the Twins when he’s been able to take the mound (3.86 ERA, 3.92 FIP in 228 2/3 innings over 42 starts). Pineda did get hit with a PED suspension in 2019, although it was one of the rare instances where the league seems to have believed some of his plea of innocence, as MLB reduced his ban from 80 to 60 games. Many undoubtedly recall Pineda’s pine tar-covered hat in his Yankees days and will wonder about him in connection to the current crackdown on foreign substances. On that note, it’s worth pointing out that his spin rates were below-average in the first place and had actually decreased since signing with the Twins. We can’t know anything for sure, of course, but on paper he doesn’t look like your typical “Spider Tack” case.

Nelson Cruz, DH ($13MM): Happy 41st birthday, Nelson! The Boomstick is still swinging it as well as ever, slashing .307/.378/.585 with 18 home runs, 11 doubles and his first triple since 2018. Cruz has been 57 percent better than a league-average hitter, per wRC+, and he’s cut his strikeout rate from 25.7 percent in his first two years with Minnesota down to 19.1 percent in 2021. His market will be limited to AL clubs unless some NL GM really, really wants an interleague/World Series DH and an occasional pinch-hitter. (We’ve all learned never to rule anything out with A.J. Preller by now.) AL contenders who could use an upgrade at DH include the A’s, Blue Jays, Rays and White Sox. Of course, Cruz’s salary may be steep for the A’s and Rays, and it’s hard to imagine the Twins shipping Cruz to their top division rival.

Andrelton Simmons, SS ($10MM): Simmons hasn’t been great with the bat in Minnesota — .245/.316/.328, 81 wRC+ — but the defense looks sharp. Simmons’ defensive metrics took a tumble in both 2019 and 2020 after he suffered a Grade 3 ankle sprain and then re-sprained that ankle a second time. In 2021, he’s third among all players, regardless of position, with 12 Outs Above Average, per Statcast. He’s also notched a plus-2 mark in Defensive Runs Saved after registering minus-2 in that regard in just 265 innings last summer. The ankle appears healthy, and his range has seemingly improved as a result. If you want to upgrade your infield defense, they don’t come much better than this.

Alex Colome, RHP ($6.25MM): Colome was the Twins’ biggest offseason pickup in the bullpen, but the outstanding fortune he had on balls in play with the White Sox went up in smoke in 2021. Teams were surely wary of Colome’s .211 average on balls in play over the past two seasons with the ChiSox, which quite likely why the Twins were able to wait him out and get him for just a year and $6.25MM. Colome immediately stumbled out of the gates in Minnesota, blowing a game in his first appearance and floundering through a poor overall showing in April. He’s posted a respectable 3.60 ERA with a huge 58.1 percent grounder rate in 20 innings since, but he doesn’t look anywhere near as impressive as he did for the South Siders. Presumably, the asking price here wouldn’t be too high.

Hansel Robles, RHP ($2MM): Robles’ numbers would’ve looked better had this breakdown been written before his past two appearances, when he’s been tagged for four runs in two innings. But the right-hander is still sporting a 3.63 ERA and 48.3 percent ground-ball rate — albeit with a slightly below-average strikeout rate and a bloated 13.6 percent walk rate. He’s also experienced a rebound in fastball velocity after a dip in 2020, and he’s on a cheap enough contract that a contending club with luxury tax concerns might be particularly intrigued.

J.A. Happ, LHP ($8MM): Happ got out to a decent start in 2021, but he’s been shelled for most of his past nine appearances. His best performance in that stretch was his most recent, when he held Cleveland to a pair of runs on six hits and no walks with seven punchouts in six innings. If he can string together a few more nice outings like that, maybe some club would pick him up for a negligible return (i.e. partial salary relief) to try to stabilize the back of its rotation.

More Controllable Possibilities

Jose Berrios, RHP ($6.1MM, controllable through 2022): If the Twins were to make Berrios available, he might be the most coveted name on the market. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported recently that the Cardinals have inquired and, unsurprisingly, found the asking price to be quite high. Still, Passan writes that a growing number of executives around the game expect the Twins to be willing to seriously consider a trade. That’s likely indicative of the level of interest in Berrios, as the Twins don’t seem likely to embark on a total rebuild even if they do sell. They’d likely seek young controllable, big-league ready talent in a trade of Berrios, who boasts a 3.41 ERA and matching 3.40 FIP with a career-best 26.5 percent strikeout rate and a 6.4 percent walk rate (the second-lowest of his career). His current salary is eminently affordable, and even with an aggressive raise in arbitration, he’d still be a bargain next year. Any contending club would love to have Berrios — it’s just a matter of how strong the offers are and whether the Twins are willing to compromise their 2022 roster by trading the best pitcher they’ve developed in the past decade.

Taylor Rogers, LHP ($6MM, controllable through 2022): Rogers has put a shaky (by his standards) 2020 season behind him. Through his first 32 innings, he’s sitting on a 2.53 ERA that’s actually higher than his FIP, xFIP and SIERA. Rogers’ 32.6 percent strikeout rate is back in line with his 2019 level, and this year’s 3.9 percent walk rate is the best of his career. He has the fifth-best chase rate of any qualified reliever in MLB. As with Berrios, Rogers could play a key role for the 2022 Twins, so the offer would need to  be strong. But relievers with this combination of swing-and-miss ability and command — particularly lefties — are tough to come by, so the demand will be sizable. This is also a Twins front office that generally hasn’t been keen on committing too much to any individual reliever, and Rogers’ final arbitration raise will push his salary into the $8-9MM range. A trade to a contender is very plausible. (As an aside, it’d be quite the fun story to see twin brothers co-closing games for a contending club. We’re all looking at you, Giants.)

Tyler Duffey, RHP ($2.2MM, controllable through 2022): Duffey hasn’t been the dominant setup man he was in 2019-20, but he’s controlled another season on a cheap salary and has still been effective in 2021. There’s no sugar-coating that his strikeout and walk rates from 2019-20 have dropped from 34.2 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively, to 22 percent and 12.6 percent in 2021. He’s improved both a bit over his past 15 outings, though, and only allowed two runs in that time. Overall, he has a 3.52 ERA and 3.84 FIP in 30 2/3 innings. As with Robles, if you’re a contending team with luxury tax concerns, taking a chance on a cheap reliever with a bigger track record probably has some appeal.

Caleb Thielbar, LHP ($700K, controllable through 2024): A Minnesota native and feel-good comeback story from 2020, Thielbar can be controlled another three years beyond the current campaign. That might make dealing him counterintuitive should the Twins be looking for a quick turnaround after a theoretical summer sale, but Thielbar will turn 35 this offseason and relievers are volatile in the first place. The Twins brought him back from indie ball last year, so there’s a “playing with house money” element to marketing him. He’s pitched 50 1/3 innings of 2.86 ERA ball with a 30.1 percent strikeout rate and an 8.1 percent walk rate since returning last summer. Fielding-independent metrics largely support the ERA. With multiple contenders sitting right on the luxury-tax precipice, Thielbar could be an under-the-radar but highly attractive chip for the Twins.

Longer Shots

Like Berrios, Rogers and Duffey, Byron Buxton is controlled only through the 2022 season. However, Buxton is on the injured list after an errant fastball fractured his left hand in a recent at-bat, and it’s nearly impossible to envision the Twins moving their most talented player at such a low point. The durability concerns with Buxton are understandable, and his repeated absences in 2021 have been a major factor in the Twins’ current predicament, but trading him doesn’t feel realistic.

It’s a similar story with righty Kenta Maeda, who has been hit hard this season and spent time on the injured list with an adductor strain. The Twins control him into 2023, and even if his struggles as a starter continue, his $3.25MM base salary is plenty reasonable if he’s in a bullpen or hybrid role. He doesn’t need to be the ace-caliber arm he was in 2020 to justify his contract, and the flexibility he provides the Twins moving forward carries more value than what they’d receive by selling low in a trade.

Right fielder Max Kepler and second baseman Jorge Polanco would no doubt attract interest thanks to their long-term deals, but Kepler is in the midst of his own down season and controlled affordably all the way through 2024. Polanco had a dismal three-week slump to open the year but has hit quite well (.275/.345/.483) since that time. He’s signed through 2025, so there’s little reason for the Twins to consider anything there.

Josh Donaldson is hitting .299/.382/.662 over the past month and has homered in three straight games, but he’s also 35 years old and only in the second season of a four-year, $92MM contract that affords him limited no-trade protection. It’s tough to see something coming together with all the money still owed to him.

The Twins might welcome a taker for strikeout-plagued slugger Miguel Sano, who is hitting .195/.280/.435 this season with a 37 percent punchout rate. But Sano is making $11MM this year, $9.25MM in 2022, and is also owed a $2.75MM buyout on a $14MM option for the 2023 season.

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With a deep reserve of enticing position prospects, headlined by current big leaguers Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach, plus several key pieces under long-term control and plenty of payroll space this winter, the Twins shouldn’t be expected to completely tear the roster down. It’d make sense to target some controllable arms, however, as they’ve dealt with injuries to several of their top pitching prospects in 2021 (Jhoan Duran, Jordan Balazovic and Matt Canterino among them).

At the end of the day, the Twins might prefer to hold out a bit longer before waving the proverbial white flag, but they’d need a historic rally to overcome a 13.5-game deficit in the division or a 12.5-game deficit in the Wild Card race at this point in the season. It increasingly feels like a matter of time before they start moving some short-term veterans, with the greater question being how aggressively they’ll sell rather than whether they’ll sell at all.

The Cubs’ Deadline Dilemma

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The 2021 season hasn’t gone as the Cubs expected after trading away their ace and listening to offers on several other highly regarded players over the winter. Trading Yu Darvish, non-tendering Kyle Schwarber and generally avoiding any additions until some bargain pickups late in the winter, the Cubs appeared ticketed for a transition year. With Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo set to become free agents after extension talks failed to bear fruit, a retooling of some extent appeared nigh.

Perhaps the Cubs didn’t count quite so much on the inactivity throughout the rest of the division. The Cardinals eventually added Nolan Arenado in a blockbuster trade with the Rockies, and the Brewers made some nice late moves, most notably signing Kolten Wong to a two-year pact, but the NL Central was a wasteland in terms of hot stove activity. The Reds dumped their two best relievers to trim payroll and now have MLB’s worst bullpen. The Pirates, setting out on a lengthy rebuild, obviously made little effort to improve. Even the Cardinals, beyond their acquisition of Arenado, opted not to address some spotty pitching depth.

The result was an eminently winnable division for anyone other than the rebuilding Pirates. (Sorry, Pittsburgh fans.) And with all the focus on the looming turnover in Chicago after Theo Epstein stepped away and Jed Hoyer ascended to the top baseball operations spot, it almost became easy to forget that the Cubs won the division by three games during last year’s shortened season. Subtracting Darvish and Schwarber hurt, but the Cubs added some complementary veterans to round out the roster a bit: Zach Davies, Joc Pederson, Trevor Williams, Jake Marisnick, Andrew Chafin and old friend Jake Arrieta all entered the mix. It was at the very least a competent roster in a lackluster division.

Add in varying levels of resurgences not only from Bryant, Rizzo and Baez but also from written-off closer Craig Kimbrel, and the Cubs suddenly find themselves in the thick of the division race. Bryant was playing at a near-MVP level for much of the season until a recent slide. Rizzo’s bat isn’t back to peak levels but is much improved over 2020. Ditto Baez. And Kimbrel? The right-hander is sitting on a 0.59 ERA with a 46.4 percent strikeout rate against an 8.9 percent walk rate — both the third-best single-season marks of his career. He’s played so well that the $16MM option on his contract for next season suddenly looks like a bargain.

The result is a second-place Cubs team that finds itself in a gray area with just over one month until the trade deadline. Entering the year, the predominant question regarding Bryant was: “Where will he be traded this summer?” Now, it’s shifted to: “How can they trade him when they’re only a few games out of first?”

In reality, it’s hard to envision the Cubs trading anyone if they’re this close to the front of the division. To the contrary, this team looks more like a buyer than it does one that should be expected to dangle Bryant, Baez, Rizzo, Kimbrel, Davies, Pederson, Chafin or any of its impending free agents. The front office may have envisioned the Darvish trade as a launching point for similar deals down the line — clear payroll, add some young talent to lay the groundwork for the next generation — but instead the 2021 season now has the feel of one final hurrah with the 2016 core.

The context of the division and the schedule plays an important role, too. The Cubs have dropped nine of their past thirteen games, including series losses to the Dodgers and Mets. Normally, that might’ve begun to shift the team away from potential buying status, but their Central-division competition hasn’t exactly been thriving, either (outside of the first-place Brewers).

The Cardinals have dropped eight of their past 10 games as they try to weather major rotation injuries. They were recently swept by both the Cubs and by a Reds team that put its two best relievers, Lucas Sims and Tejay Antone, on the injured list. Cincinnati has now dropped seven of ten themselves. There’s plenty of talent on both the Cardinals and the Reds, but injuries have impacted both clubs quite a bit in recent weeks.

The schedule in July will be pivotal for the division as a whole. Chicago plays three games in Milwaukee and three in Cincinnati before hosting the struggling Phillies for four and the Cardinals for three. Coming out of the break, the Cubs will play six of their first 14 games against MLB’s worst team, the Diamondbacks; the others are, again, against Cincinnati and St. Louis. It’s probably not what the front office envisioned, but given all that context it’d take a somewhat of a faceplant, primarily against a series of .500-or-worse opponents, for the Cubs to really be in position to sell.

The Darvish trade, of course, looks all the more egregious now that starting pitching is precisely what the Cubs need. Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic took a thorough look at the Cubs’ rotation needs this morning, noting that executives around the league don’t expect them to make an aggressive, blockbuster style acquisition. The likelier focus, per Sharma and Mooney, would be on pitchers with reasonably affordable salaries and/or relatively low costs of acquisition.

Fans are never going to be excited by any report suggesting that their team’s primary targets are middle-of-the-road pitchers who can simply keep them in the game for five or maybe six innings at a time, but given where the Cubs are versus where they likely expected to be, it’s also not a huge surprise. A Darvish-caliber arm isn’t walking through that door, but someone like Merrill Kelly (D-backs), Chris Flexen (Mariners, if they sell pieces controlled beyond ’21) or Tyler Anderson (Pirates, if the Cubs don’t mind sending a prospect elsewhere in the division) are all speculative names that fit that general mold.

The next few weeks of games are going to be pivotal to most clubs around the league; there aren’t many clearly defined sellers. Even underperforming clubs like the Twins and Cardinals have so many games left against division rivals and/or rebuilding teams that they’ll probably wait to definitively commit to a course of action. But there might not be a team whose long-term outlook will be so closely tied to the fate of its July performance than the Cubs.

There are long-term implications for every team this time of year, but the Cubs have a slew of short-term veterans to market if they wish to sell — several of whom are longtime cornerstones. This could be a month in which they genuinely jumpstart an accelerated rebuild — not unlike the one the Yankees engineered in 2016 when they traded away Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman.

On the flip side, if the Cubs continue to exceed expectations, the pendulum would swing in the other direction, likely leaving the team with some draft compensation (via qualifying offers for Bryant, Rizzo and/or Baez). Not only would they lose the opportunity to add to a thin farm via trade — they’d perhaps further deplete the current system to make a measured push to remain in the division hunt.

A few clubs always find themselves performing something of a tightrope walk this time of year, but the Cubs are among the more prominent examples in recent memory. The clubhouse probably relishes the fact that they’ve upset the front office’s expectations to date; every group of players wants to win, after all. If they can keep it up a month longer, we’ll likely be looking at a much different deadline than most expected for the Cubs after they shipped Darvish to San Diego in exchange for Davies and a handful of lottery-ticket teenagers who might not make it to the Majors before the entire roster turns over.

The Marlins’ Trade Deadline Outlook

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At 33-42, the Marlins have dropped nine games back of the division-leading Mets in the National League East. They’re even further behind in the Wild Card picture, and they’d also need to jump each of the Nationals, Braves and Phillies to make a run at the division. That’s decidedly unlikely, with FanGraphs’ updated playoff odds giving the Fish just a 0.2% chance of making the postseason. With their hopes of competing in 2021 all but dashed, the Marlins look to be one of a few teams (the Diamondbacks, Rockies, Pirates, Rangers, Tigers and Orioles are among the others) who are virtually certain to move players off the big league roster before the July 30 trade deadline.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem the Miami front office is inclined to relaunch a full teardown. The Marlins are expected to hold onto their young, controllable starting pitchers this summer, reports Joe Frisaro of Man On Second Baseball (Twitter link). Instead, the team is more likely to trade position players on expiring contracts and relievers.

That’s not a particularly surprising development. The Marlins have been amidst a rebuild for the past few seasons, and they’ve started to see the fruits of that effort at the major league level. Miami made last year’s expanded playoff, although they never looked especially likely to compete for the division title over the course of a 162-game season. Still, the development of the controllable young pitching gives plenty of hope for 2022 and beyond.

Each of Pablo López, Trevor Rogers and Sandy Alcantara have had fantastic campaigns to date; López and Alcantara are controllable through 2024, Rogers through 2026. Shoulder troubles have kept Sixto Sánchez from making his season debut, but the Marlins were surely never considering moving the promising 22-year-old even before his series of injuries.

Even without Sánchez, Miami’s rotation has been one of the league’s better units. Marlins starters rank sixth in ERA (3.37) and groundball rate (45.1%), eleventh in SIERA (3.92) and twelfth in strikeout/walk rate differential (15.7 percentage points). Obviously, that hasn’t been reflected in the standings, but the team has been more competitive than its .434 winning percentage would suggest.

Miami has outscored their opponents by 21 runs over the course of the season (which is tied with New York for the fifth-best run differential in the NL). A 6-16 record in one-run games has tanked their postseason chances, but their Pythagorean record (essentially a team’s estimated place in the standings based on run differential) is a much better 41-35. That’s largely a moot point this year, but the encouraging underlying numbers lend additional support to the front office’s apparent belief that they needn’t move core players under long-term control.

Turning to players the Marlins do look likely to move in the coming weeks, none stands out more than star center fielder Starling Marté. A left rib fracture sidelined Marté for a few weeks in April and May, but he’s been stellar when healthy. The 32-year-old is hitting .301/.411/.486 with six home runs across 175 plate appearances this season. Marté has been a productive player for years, but his current offensive output is the best of his career. Most notably, he’s chasing pitches outside the strike zone less than ever, helping to drive a 13.7% walk rate that’s far and away his best mark.

Marté is in the final year of his contract, still due the balance of a $12.5MM salary that’s a bargain relative to his current level of production. Earlier this month, he expressed an interest in signing an extension that would keep him in Miami for the remainder of his career. General manager Kim Ng said there’d been no extension talks to date, though, and it’s certainly possible the Marlins prefer to move Marté for young talent rather than offer a player his age a long-term deal. The M’s could theoretically hold onto Marté through the end of the season and make him a qualifying offer, but they’ll likely be offered a midseason prospect return more valuable than the compensatory draft choice they’d receive if Marté rejects a QO.

Few of the Marlins other realistic trade candidates figure to bring back as much as Marté would, but there’s a handful of players who could attract interest. Corner outfielders Corey Dickerson and Adam Duvall are having passable seasons. The shape of their production differs (Dickerson’s hitting for average and getting on base but not hitting for much power, Duvall has slugged sixteen homers but has a lowly .266 OBP), but they’ve both been average offensive players in aggregate.

Dickerson’s due the remainder of a $9.5MM salary, while Duvall is making $5MM this year (including a $3MM buyout of a 2022 mutual option). The Marlins might have to pay down some of that respective money to facilitate trades, but each player could hold modest appeal to an outfield-needy club. (Dickerson is currently on the IL with a left foot contusion). First baseman Jesús Aguilar is having a solid season, hitting .260/.321/.453. He’s controllable through 2022 via arbitration, but Miami could move him, particularly if they’d be disinclined to offer him a raise on his current $4.3MM salary next year.

The Marlins also have a host of affordable relievers who could hold appeal to other clubs. Dylan Floro and Richard Bleier are veteran ground-ball specialists. Ross Detwiler and John Curtiss are missing bats at above-average rates. Yimi García and Anthony Bass have had fine, if unexciting, seasons.

Perhaps most interestingly, rookie Anthony Bender has been a revelation. The 26-year-old hasn’t allowed an earned run over his first 21 1/3 MLB innings. He’s averaging 97.5 MPH on his sinker, missing bats (29.9% strikeout rate), inducing tons of grounders (53.2%) and avoiding walks (6.5%). Miami controls the righty for six-plus seasons, so they could certainly elect to hang onto him in hopes that he cements himself as one of the sport’s top relievers. His breakout isn’t all that dissimilar from Nick Anderson’s in 2019, though, and the Marlins elected to move Anderson at the deadline that year. (Notably, that was under previous general manager Michael Hill, not Ng).

Even if the Marlins don’t listen to offers on their cornerstone rotation pieces, contending teams figure to be in touch with Ng and her front office in the coming weeks. The Marlins have plenty of complementary veterans and quality relievers who could help contenders down the stretch.

MLBTR Poll: How Should The Royals Proceed With Danny Duffy?

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Royals left-hander Danny Duffy made his return from the injured list this evening, starting tonight’s game against the Yankees. The 32-year-old tossed two scoreless innings in a purposely brief appearance, his first action in a little more than a month. Before going on the IL with a left flexor strain, Duffy had gotten off to a very strong start to the season. Through seven starts totaling 41 2/3 innings, he worked to a pristine 1.94 ERA/2.35 FIP/3.65 SIERA.

Over the season’s first month-plus, he punched out a well above-average 28.2% of opposing hitters, a career-best mark, while walking only 7.1%. On a pitch-by-pitch basis, Duffy generated swings and misses at a 14.2% clip, also a career-best figure that’s well above the league average of 11.4%. His average fastball, slider and curveball velocity were all up between one and two ticks relative to last season. He held that increased pitch speed in today’s start, a welcome development considering there could’ve been some concern about potential lingering effects of the injury and accompanying layoff.

Because of the injury, his body of work remains a fairly small sample. Duffy’s had better month-plus stretches in his career, but he hasn’t had a seven-start run at this level since late in 2017, his last season posting an ERA below 4.00. Duffy’s not going to sustain an ERA below 2.00, but he certainly looks to have bounced back from his middling 2018-20 form. Between 2016-17, the veteran worked to a 3.64 ERA with above-average strikeout and walk numbers- solid mid-rotation production. Given his improved raw stuff and early-season peripherals, it’s not unreasonable to think he can approximate that kind of performance moving forward.

If Duffy continues to pitch at an above-average level while building back towards a starter’s workload, contending clubs figure to reach out about his potential availability. The Royals got off to a strong start but they’ve fallen off rather precipitously since the start of May. Now 33-39, Kansas City has fallen ten games back in the American League Central. They don’t seem like plausible postseason contenders in 2021. With Duffy slated to be a free agent at the end of the year- and the trade market for starting pitching shaping up to be thin- he’d be a fairly straightforward trade candidate in most organizations.

The Royals operate differently than many MLB teams, though. The front office has a reputation for being more loyal than most, and they’ve re-signed or reacquired many of the players who contributed to their pennant-winning clubs of the last decade. Trading away marquee players midseason hasn’t been their M.O.

In the past, Duffy has expressed a desire to stick in Kansas City for his entire career. In response to 2017 trade rumors, he rather famously tweeted “bury me a Royal” and expressed a strong affinity for the organization and the city. Even if the front office were willing to consider moving him near the deadline, Duffy could end those discussions. He entered the season with 9.085 years of MLB service, meaning he’ll have eclipsed ten years by July 30. Players with ten years of service, the most recent five with the same team, are granted full no-trade rights under the terms of the CBA. If Duffy has no interest in moving elsewhere midseason, he could exercise his 10-and-5 rights and block a move.

The Royals’ record and Duffy’s impending free agency could open a mutually-beneficial opportunity for a midseason deal, though. Trading Duffy (with his permission) before July 30 could give him an opportunity to play in a pennant race in 2021 and allow the organization to bring in some young talent. A midseason trade wouldn’t foreclose the two sides reuniting next winter. It’s not common for teams to sign players whom they traded away midseason in free agency the following offseason, but it’s not completely unheard of, either (the Cubs’ 2014 deal with Jason Hammel and the Yankees’ 2016 reunion with Aroldis Chapman being prominent examples). A trade would result in Duffy forfeiting his 10-and-5 rights, but the sides could agree on a no-trade clause as part of a free agent deal if he’s concerned about being moved again in the future.

It’s certainly possible the two sides work out a long-term deal during or after the year, with Duffy never changing uniforms. While it seems unlikely, there’s some chance the Royals hang onto Duffy all season but allow him to depart in free agency. But the opportunity also seems to exist for a trade that could appeal to both Duffy and the Royals, even if both sides want to continue the relationship over the long term.

We’ll turn things over to the MLBTR readership: how should and how will the Royals handle Duffy’s impending free agency? (poll links for app users)

How Should The Royals Proceed With Danny Duffy?
Trade Him Midseason And Attempt To Re-Sign Him This Winter. 74.85% (3,459 votes)
Discuss A Midseason Extension. 15.28% (706 votes)
Let Him Walk. 9.87% (456 votes)
Total Votes: 4,621

 

How Will The Royals Proceed With Danny Duffy?
Trade Him Midseason And Attempt To Re-Sign Him This Winter. 47.92% (1,346 votes)
Work On A Midseason Extension. 27.66% (777 votes)
Let Him Walk. 24.42% (686 votes)
Total Votes: 2,809

 

Cedric Mullins’ Emergence In Baltimore

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The Orioles have torn their roster down as part of a massive rebuild over the past few seasons. The organization has acquired a collection of highly-regarded prospect talent the fanbase is certainly hoping will comprise the core of a contender down the line. In the interim, though, the MLB product has been quite poor. The Orioles went 126-258 (32.8% winning percentage) between 2018-20, and their 23-48 record this season is the worst in the American League.

This kind of rebuild does offer an opportunity for less-heralded players to get some run at the major league level, though. Most won’t take advantage, resulting in a lack of teamwide success, but an underrated player will occasionally perform at a high enough level to cement himself as a building block of the organization’s long-term future. This season, Cedric Mullins has done exactly that.

A 13th-round pick out of Campbell University in 2015, Mullins performed well enough in the minors to generate a bit of attention. Baseball America twice ranked him among the O’s top 30 prospects, suggesting he was most likely to settle in as a fourth outfielder. In 2018, Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs noted that he had an intriguing toolset and minor league track record but suggested the consensus opinion among talent evaluators was that he’d be more of a role player than a true regular.

Mullins made his MLB debut late that season and performed in line with those expectations over the next couple seasons. Between 2018-20, he hit .225/.290/.342 (73 wRC+). He was always a good baserunner and made some improvements at the plate last season, but he still looked like more of a placeholder than a core piece entering the year.

Over the past few months, Mullins has changed that outlook by outperforming even the most optimistic projections. He’s hitting .319/.389/.552 (158 wRC+) with thirteen home runs across 304 plate appearances. Not only has he emerged as a force at the plate, he’s been one of the game’s rangiest defenders. Statcast credits Mullins with seven outs above average this season, tied with Brett Phillips for second among outfielders (Manuel Margot is plus-9). Advanced metrics that take arm strength into account (like Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating) have been a little less enthused, but all agree that Mullins has at least been above-average in center field this year.

Factoring in his contributions on both sides of the ball, Mullins has been one of the most valuable players in the sport. FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement metric places Mullins third among position players (fourth if you also include Shohei Ohtani’s pitching value), trailing only Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Ronald Acuña Jr. Baseball Reference’s version of the statistic slots Mullins seventh.

There’s room to debate where Mullins truly fits among players like Guerrero, Ohtani, Fernando Tatís Jr., Marcus Semien, Carlos Correa and Matt Olson this year. That he’s even in that conversation, though, is a testament to the campaign he’s had. Mullins will almost certainly be elected to the All-Star Game, and he’s tracking towards appearing on MVP ballots if he can continue to produce like this in the second half of the season.

Mullins probably won’t remain this good. His .363 batting average on balls in play is 73 points higher than the .290 league average. A quality runner, he should be expected to run a slightly better than average BABIP, but he’ll have a hard time keeping it quite so high. Statcast’s batted ball metrics suggest his results have outpaced the quality of his contact a bit, and his prior track record of subpar hitting can’t be completely discounted.

There’s plenty of room for Mullins to take a bit of a step back while remaining a decidedly above-average player, though. His defense gives him a strong floor to begin with, and the 26-year-old has made some substantive changes that suggest he’s turned a corner at the plate. Most notably, Mullins abandoned switch-hitting this year, hitting left-handed permanently. He’s been much better at hitting opposing southpaws left-on-left than he was stepping into the right-handed batter’s box. But that’s only come in 97 plate appearances, and he’s posting career-best production against righties this year too.

Mullins is striking out less than he did last year against pitchers of both handedness (albeit with a more significant drop against lefties), making more contact when he swings, and drawing walks at a career-best rate. He’s also almost completely stopped popping the ball up on the infield, even as his overall fly ball rate is higher than ever. Perhaps abandoning his right-handed swing to focus solely on hitting lefty has made Mullins more comfortable with his mechanics overall. Maybe his strong production against righties is completely unrelated to that decision. Whatever the reason, he’s made significant strides as a hitter.

There’s been plenty of attention on which players the still-rebuilding O’s might move before the July 30 trade deadline. Mullins, though, looks like a safe bet to stick around. He’s controllable through 2025 and won’t reach arbitration-eligibility until after next season. Even if there’s some regression forthcoming, he’s made enough process improvements to believe he’s truly taken his game to another level as he enters his prime years. Mullins looks to have legitimately broken out in 2021, and he’s the type of player the Orioles can build around as their top prospects matriculate to the big league level. Baltimore fans haven’t had much to celebrate in recent seasons, but Mullins’ emergence is a reason to continue to watch as the team scuffles in the near-term, and a sign of hope for the future.

The Pirates Have One Of The Best Bullpen Chips On The Trade Market

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There are plenty of clichés about the usefulness of a closer on a rebuilding and/or last-place team, and for the most part they hold true. Locking down victories on the path to 100 losses — even if you’re doing your job well — often goes somewhat overlooked. A high-leverage reliever on a team that has few high-leverage chances isn’t going to get much national love.

Richard Rodriguez | Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

This time of year, however, they should get plenty of love around the league as contending clubs look to bolster their relief corps. Enter relatively anonymous Pirates closer Richard Rodriguez, who has solidified himself as one of the most effective relievers in the game over the past few seasons.

Rodriguez, 31, is nowhere near the top of the saves leaderboard in MLB or even in just in the National League, which isn’t much of a surprise given the Pirates’ 23-44 record. He’s only had nine save chances all season, and he’s converted seven of them. He’s sitting on a 1.71 ERA through 26 1/3 innings so far in 2021, and dating back to his Pirates debut in 2018, he has a 2.83 ERA in 184 1/3 frames.

Of course, teams in 2021 aren’t going to be particularly wowed by a shiny ERA or a player’s save total/save percentage. Rodriguez shines in other areas, however. His 21.1 percent strikeout rate in 2021 is the lowest it’s been in parts of four seasons in Pittsburgh, but he’s also sporting a career-best 3.2 percent walk rate and has yet to hit a batter in 2021. It’s also important to note that while his punchouts are down in ’21, Rodriguez has shown in the past that he can miss bats in bunches.

Rodriguez whiffed 31.5 percent of his opponents in 2018 and a whopping 36.6 percent in 2020. In both of those seasons, Rodriguez threw his breaking ball roughly one in four times and his four-seamer the other 75 percent of the time. So far in 2021 — as was the case in 2019 — he’s throwing roughly six times as many heaters as breaking ball. Fewer sliders, fewer strikeouts — but also fewer walks.

The strikeout rate is rather pedestrian this year, but that’s in large part because Rodriguez has excelled at inducing mediocre contact with his fastball that he hasn’t much needed to lean on his swing-and-miss breaking ball. Opponents have only “barreled” two balls against Rodriguez all season, per Statcast, and what he’s lacking in punchouts he makes up for with harmless infield fly-balls. A pop-up to the infield is nearly every bit as productive as a strikeout; for a pitcher’s purposes, they’re both effectively automatic outs.

So far in 2021, Rodriguez has induced seven pop-ups to the infield — tied for fifth-most among all MLB relievers. The four pitchers ahead of him have pitched an average of 7 1/3 more innings than Rodriguez this year. (Again, being a high-leverage reliever on a team that doesn’t get high-leverage opportunities can limit your workload.) Statcast pegs Rodriguez’s average opponents’ launch angle at 25.5 degrees — fifth-highest among relievers — due to the number of balls that are skied against him. This isn’t a new phenomenon either; dating back to 2019, Rodriguez is tied for 12th among relievers in pop-ups induced. Six of the names ahead of him on the list have more innings pitched.

Rodriguez’s fastball isn’t overpowering, sitting at 93.4 mph on average, and it doesn’t miss bats in droves despite being a high-spin offering. But that high spin rate and his willingness to work in the upper portion of the zone (or above it) helps to generate those pop-ups and the occasional whiff. Spin rate is an increasingly dubious term these days, as the league cracks down on the use of illegal foreign substances, but there’s been no noticeable drop in Rodriguez’s spin since the league began warning of sanctions. Rodriguez has ranked among the league leaders in fastball spin since 2018, and his most recent outing, in fact, saw his four-seamer reach its highest spin-rate mark of the season (2680 rpms). Either he’s brazenly and blatantly still using some form of substance, or he simply has a more innate ability to spin the ball than most pitchers.

Taken in totality, Rodriguez is a high-leverage reliever with a solid fastball, a breaking ball that misses bats (but isn’t always needed), some of the best control of any reliever in the game, and what appears to be a repeatable ability to generate infield flies. All of that on its own would be appealing, but then there’s the matter of his contractual status and remaining club control.

Rodriguez is in his fourth full season with the Bucs and will finish out the year just north of four years of MLB service time. That gives him two years of remaining club control beyond the 2021 season. He’ll be up for a raise via arbitration in both of those years, but the Pirates’ lack of leverage opportunities for him will actually work to his detriment (and to a new team’s favor) in that regard. This is only Rodriguez’s first full season as a closer for the Pirates, and his limited chances this year have left him with all of 12 career saves. That lack of saves left his first-year arbitration salary at a highly manageable $1.7MM, and it’ll likely limit his raises in 2022 and 2023 — particularly if an acquiring team puts him back into a setup role.

In other words, the Pirates this summer can market two and a half years of control over a pitcher who has quietly been one of the NL’s most effective relievers since 2018, and those two and a half seasons ought to come at a combined price in the $7.5MM to $9MM range. Even in an extreme scenario where a new team plugged Rodriguez into the ninth inning and he went on to lead the league in saves, he’s starting from a low enough point that the price would remain eminently reasonable.

There are going to be plenty of high-profile relievers on the market this summer. Many will throw harder than Rodriguez, more consistently miss bats than he does, and have more saves/holds than he’s amassed on a persistently cellar-dwelling Pirates club. But there are few relievers with this type of track record at such an affordable price point and with multiple years of control remaining beyond the 2021 season.

Obviously, the former Pirates’ front office regime made its fair share of missteps. There’s a reason the Buccos are in the position they’re in, after all. But the signing of Rodriguez as a minor league free agent after he was cast off by the Astros and Orioles alike is a move that deserves praise. It’s also a move that has left new GM Ben Cherington and his staff one of this summer’s most appealing trade candidates.

Will Trevor Bauer Opt Out After The Season?

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When Trevor Bauer signed a three-year, $102MM deal with the Dodgers back in February, he ensured flexibility by securing opt-outs after the first and second years.  However, the details suggest the contract was designed to keep Bauer in Los Angeles for the first two seasons.

Bauer received a $10MM signing bonus, $5MM of which was paid in March.  The other $5MM will be paid next month.  Beyond that, his 2021 salary is $28MM, but with the quirk that it’s all payable on November 1st of this year.  Here’s what happens if he opts out after the 2021 season, according to Cot’s:

Bauer may opt out of the contract after the 2021 season, receiving a $2M buyout, with Dodgers deferring $20M of 2021 salary without interest, paid in $2M installments each Dec. 1, 2031-40

In other words, if Bauer opts out after this season, he walks away with $12MM in hand, and then has to wait a decade until the Dodgers pay him again.  And even then, it’s $2MM per year for ten years, with no interest.  Your estimates may vary, but that deferred $20MM is worth a lot less than being paid now – most likely half as much.

Opting out after the 2022 season involves none of that deferred money stuff, and throws in a $15MM buyout.  Bauer would have earned $85MM for two seasons, foregoing a mere $17MM for ’23.  Barring injury, jumping out of the contract at this point seems like an easy choice.  As the best pitcher on the free agent market, Bauer landed a very flexible contract.  The Dodgers took on all the downside risk, which is the nature of opt-out clauses.

Bauer started this season strong enough to at least give another look to the possibility of opting out after ’21.  After an outing at San Francisco on May 21st, Bauer’s ERA sat at 1.98 through 12 starts, with a 36.2 K%.  If you had asked me at that point, I’d have said it’d make sense for Bauer to opt out after ’21, even if just to land the same three-year deal all over again.  But on the horizon was a hallmark date with a potentially large effect on Bauer and many other pitchers.  On June 3rd, Bob Nightengale wrote, “Major League Baseball informed owners Thursday that it is engaged in the next phase of league-directed enforcement banning the use of foreign substances by pitchers — which would include 10-day suspensions — two persons with direct knowledge of the meeting told USA TODAY Sports.”  Today, MLB announced its new enforcement plan, which starts Monday.

Through May 31st, Bauer averaged 2840 RPM and 93.8 miles per hour on his four-seam fastball.  In the two starts since, those numbers are 2630 RPM and 94.1 mph.  There are players who have lost more RPM on their four-seamers since the impending crackdown became known, without much velocity change, such as the Indians’ James Karinchak.  But Bauer’s 210 RPM loss on the four-seamer is significant, especially for a guy who throws the pitch 44% of the time.

All we can say definitively is that the average spin rate on Bauer’s four-seam fastball in two starts after June 3rd was 210 RPM lower than the average RPM in a dozen starts before that date.  That the RPM drop was caused by Bauer stopping the usage of foreign substances on the ball or changing what he uses is the implication, but not a fact.  It’d take a further leap to say that Bauer’s mediocre results in those two starts were caused by the RPM drop.  It should be noted that 2630 RPM still ranks sixth in baseball from June 3rd onward, and there’s nothing too meaningful about allowing seven earned runs in 12 1/3 innings.  It’s also worth pointing out that Bauer’s ERA was probably not going to stay around 2.00 even without a foreign substance crackdown.  Bauer certainly has not shied away from MLB’s sticky stuff drama, as he “demonstrated to reporters on the field before Tuesday’s game that a combination of sweat and rosin was sufficient to allow him to stick a baseball to his hand, palm down,” according to Bill Plunkett of the OC Register.  He showed this on Twitter, while also diving into Tyler Glasnow’s comments.

If you’re an MLB GM considering signing Bauer at some point in the future, you’re definitely going to try to determine how much of Bauer’s recent success was the result of the use of foreign substances, because you have to forecast how he’ll perform over the next several years.  If this was a major consideration for Bauer’s suitors in the 2020-21 offseason, I didn’t hear about it.  For Bauer and potential suitors, the calculus has changed.  So let’s get your opinions on when we’ll see him next on the free agent market.

When will Trevor Bauer hit free agency next?
He'll opt out after the 2022 season. 52.50% (4,502 votes)
He'll play out his three-year deal and hit the market after '23. 31.34% (2,688 votes)
He'll opt out after the 2021 season. 16.16% (1,386 votes)
Total Votes: 8,576

The Reds Could Be One Of The Deadline’s Most Interesting Teams

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We’re a little more than six weeks away from the trade deadline, and it appears July is going to be a month of difficult decisions for the Reds front office. Cincinnati sits at 32-31, third place in the NL Central. They’re slightly ahead of the Cardinals and five games back of the Cubs and Brewers, who are tied for the division lead. With the Giants surprisingly leading the star-studded Dodgers and Padres out west, the two wild card spots will be hard to come by in the National League.

By most measures, the Reds look like an average team. Their record is marginally above .500, while their -10 run differential is eighteenth among the league’s thirty clubs. FanGraphs’ rest of season projections have the Reds playing at an 80-82 pace; when coupled with their current record, they’d land right at 81-81 if they perform at that projected level from here on out.

Finishing .500 wouldn’t be enough to make the playoffs, but the Reds also aren’t that far away from the postseason picture. The Cubs and Brewers have played well to this point but each has some obvious deficiencies on the roster (starting pitching for Chicago, the bottom of the lineup in Milwaukee). It doesn’t seem either team will run away with the division. Indeed, FanGraphs’ playoff odds give the Reds a 14.6% chance of making it to the postseason- unlikely, but not out of the question.

It’s possible the team will just define itself one way or another in the coming weeks. They still have 40 games to play before the July 30 deadline. If they go 25-15, they’d look like legitimate division contenders. A 15-25 swoon would make them an obvious seller. But what if Cincinnati plays .500 ball over the next month and a half- as they have so far and as the projections expect them to the rest of the way? The Reds would still be a long shot at that point, with playoff odds likely a bit lower than they are now (since they’d have even less time to make up ground on the teams in front of them). But they wouldn’t be completely out of contention, and selling at the deadline would be a tough sell to the fanbase.

Cincinnati suffered through six consecutive losing seasons from 2014-19. The organization made a concerted effort to end that run late in the 2019 season, acquiring Trevor Bauer with an eye towards 2020 and signing Mike Moustakas and Nick Castellanos the following offseason. They did snap the streak of below-average records in last year’s shortened season, but it took a playoff expansion for them to get into the postseason, where they were swept by the Braves without scoring a run. (That marked the 25th consecutive season since the Reds last won a playoff series, the longest active draught in MLB).

They’ve already lost to Bauer to free agency, and Castellanos could soon depart himself. The 29-year-old is having a fantastic season, sitting on a .361/.416/.635 line with 13 home runs in 255 plate appearances. Given that level of performance, it’d take a massive collapse or injury for him not to opt out of the remaining two years and $34MM in guarantees on his contract. Castellanos opting out wouldn’t preclude the Reds from re-signing him, of course, but it’s not clear ownership would be willing to sign off on another significant outlay.

The Reds slashed payroll from $147MM in 2020 (prior to prorating) to $122MM this season on the heels of last year’s revenue losses. Next year, they’ll still be on the hook for substantial salaries to Joey Votto ($25MM), Moustakas ($16MM), Eugenio Suárez ($11.286MM) and Sonny Gray ($10.867MM), per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, before accounting for arbitration raises for a group including Jesse Winker and Luis Castillo. Unless ownership is willing to again increase spending on player payroll, it could be tough to commit to a raise for Castellanos.

If the Reds aren’t going to re-sign Castellanos, there’s a case they should field offers on him this summer. As the sport’s third-best qualified hitter (behind only Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Winker), he’d draw no shortage of interest. Castellanos would almost certainly command a prospect return greater in value than the compensatory draft pick the Reds would receive if they allowed him to depart as a free agent after making a qualifying offer. Trading away one of the game’s top bats would be a tough sell to a fan base that has seen very little recent success, though, particularly if the Reds remain only a handful of games back in the division race.

Maybe the team’s performance will make the Reds direction obvious by July 30. If they continue to play at the level they have been, however, their front office will have some very difficult decisions to make.

2021-22 MLB Free Agent Power Rankings

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It’s time for a fresh installment of our 2021-22 MLB Free Agents Power Rankings, where we rank players by their potential earning power should they reach the open market as scheduled.  For this exercise, I’m setting aside the uncertainty of the collective bargaining agreement expiring on December 1st.  For the full list of free agents, click here.

1.  Corey Seager.  Seager suffered a broken hand after getting hit by a pitch in mid-May, and seems likely to return around early July.  It will be interesting to see how Seager hits once he returns.  In 169 plate appearances to start the season, he sits at a 122 wRC+.  That’s strong work, but perhaps a bit short of Seager’s own standards, as he entered the season with a career mark of 130.

2.  Carlos Correa.  Correa is raking this season, with a 147 wRC+ that ranks second only to Xander Bogaerts among shortstops.  He’s also managed to play in all but three of the Astros’ games and hasn’t been on the IL since late in the 2019 season.  I debated Correa vs. Trevor Story back in mid-April…but can Correa move past Seager?  Correa’s Statcast hitting numbers are strong this year, and he even ranks fifth among shortstops in Outs Above Average on defense.  Plus, Correa is not set to turn 27 until September.

3.  Kris Bryant.  Bryant is having a monster season, posting a 160 wRC+ that ranks second among all free agents (assuming the Astros pick up Yuli Gurriel’s option).  Bryant is on pace for a six or seven WAR season.  That’s on par with the production of the first three years of his career, which netted him the 2016 NL MVP award.  Though Bryant once looked like an obvious trade candidate, the Cubs are currently clinging to first place in the NL Central.  FanGraphs puts their playoff odds at about 40%.  If that holds for the next month, trading Bryant won’t be a viable option for GM Jed Hoyer.  In that case, Bryant’s final overture from the Cubs may come in the form of a qualifying offer after the season.

4.  Trevor Bauer.  After the season, Bauer must decide whether to opt out of the remaining two years and $62MM on his contract with the Dodgers (causing a large chunk of his ’21 salary to be deferred) or potentially opting out of only the 2023 season, leaving just $17MM on the table.  Bauer’s calculus may be changing in light of MLB’s impending crackdown on the use of foreign substances.  Through Bauer’s first 12 starts, his four-seam fastball had 2,840 RPM at a velocity of 93.8 mph.  But on June 6th in Atlanta, Bauer’s spin rate dropped to 2,612 while staying at virtually the same velocity.

Will Bauer continue to post Cy Young level numbers for the remainder of the season if MLB’s sticky stuff rules are fully enforced?  If he slips – even if it has nothing to do with foreign substances or spin rate – the perception might be enough to prevent him from opting out.

5.  Trevor Story.  Story owns just an 89 wRC+ through 50 games; he hasn’t had a stretch this bad since 2017.  Plus, he hit the IL with right elbow inflammation in late May.  He’s expected to be activated today, and has plenty of time to right the ship before the Rockies most likely trade him in July.

6.  Freddie Freeman.  In 2018, a season in which Freeman finished fourth in the NL MVP voting, he had a 58-game stretch during which he posted a .780 OPS, which is a bit worse than what he’s done this year.  I don’t think there’s anything to worry about with the reigning NL MVP, even with a wRC+ all the way down to 111.  But the timing isn’t great for Freeman, who turns 32 in September and may have to be content getting a bit past Paul Goldschmidt’s five-year, $130MM deal.

7.  Kevin Gausman.  Gausman has sustained his strikeout rate from last year, improved his control, and has benefitted from a 7.1% home run per flyball rate and .212 BABIP.  Since joining the Giants in 2020, Gausman has a 2.29 ERA in 137 1/3 innings.  Maybe his skills are more indicative of a 3.00 ERA, but that’s still top shelf work that may put him in the $100MM discussion.  Gausman bet on himself this year by accepting the Giants’ qualifying offer, and that decision is looking prudent so far.

8.  Javier Baez.  It’s tough to predict how the market will treat Baez.  The Cubs’ 28-year-old shortstop continues to do things you’ve never seen before on a baseball field, but he also owns a .240/.276/.480 swing-for-the-fences batting line with a 36.7 K%.  With potentially nine starting shortstops on the free agent market this winter, teams will have options.

9.  Clayton Kershaw.  Kershaw has thrown four clunkers in his last seven starts, sending his ERA from 2.09 to 3.66.  Overall, though, I don’t think his skills have changed.  The 33-year-old should still be able to land a three-year deal at a premium salary, even if he limits his potential destinations.

10.  Max Scherzer.  Scherzer turns 37 in July, and will be highly sought-after if the Nationals are willing to trade him this summer.  Normally a pitcher at Scherzer’s age has little chance at a three-year deal, but so far he has a 2.22 ERA, 36.1 K%, and 5.2 BB%.  I think someone might spring for the third year.

Honorable mentions

Nick Castellanos, J.D. Martinez, Mark Canha, Brandon Crawford, Chris Taylor, Marcus Semien, Buster Posey, Starling Marte, Craig Kimbrel, Lance Lynn, Carlos Rodon, Robbie Ray, and Marcus Stroman are among those having big years, though if we set the bar for the top ten at $100MM they’ll have a hard time getting there.

A couple of Mets, Michael Conforto, and Noah Syndergaard, have been bumped from the top ten.  Conforto has failed to hit for power thus far, while Syndergaard had a setback in his rehab from Tommy John surgery.  Dylan Bundy also fell off the list, as he’s given up 23 runs in his last 21 innings.  There are others who fall somewhere in-between, having a solid but not spectacular year, like Anthony Rizzo, Avisail Garcia, Zack Greinke, Anthony DeSclafani, and Wade Miley.

An Underrated Reliever Who Could Find Himself On The Trade Market

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Still amidst a multi-year rebuild, the Orioles are one of a handful of teams around the league certain to trade players off the big league roster in advance of the July 30 deadline. Much of the discussion about the club in the coming weeks figures to revolve around the potential availability of staff ace John Means and first baseman Trey Mancini, with good reason. But there’s a lower-profile Oriole whose excellent performance should draw plenty of attention from contenders: lefty reliever Paul Fry.

A former 17th-round pick of the Mariners, Fry was traded to Baltimore for international signing bonus space back in 2017. He made his MLB debut the following year. While Fry began as a rather nondescript middle reliever, he’s quietly been lights-out for the past two seasons. Since the start of 2020, Fry has pitched to a 2.22 ERA that ranks twelfth among big league relievers (minimum 40 innings).

Relievers can sometimes fluke their way into strong ERA’s given their generally small sample workloads, but that doesn’t appear to be the case with Fry. He’s among the top 25 bullpen arms in strikeout rate (33%), strikeout/walk rate differential (22.9 percentage points), SIERA (2.98) and ground ball rate (55.3%) over the last two years. Quite simply, he’s done almost everything teams want from a pitcher. He’s shown the ability to both miss bats and keep the ball on the ground, so it’s no surprise he continues to post scoreless innings. His 10.1% walk rate, while slightly worse than league average, is far from disastrous.

Fry was very good in 2020, and he’s seemingly taken his game to another level this season. Fry’s punching out hitters at a career-best 36.7% rate this year, helping him pitch to a 1.99 ERA across 22 2/3 frames. He’s averaging a career-high 93.5 MPH on his four-seam fastball, which is missing bats at an elite level. And Fry’s been equally dominant against hitters from both sides of the plate, holding left-handed and right-handed batters alike to a sub-.500 OPS.

That level of on-field dominance is interesting enough, but Fry’s contractual status makes him all the more appealing a trade target. He’s making just more than the league minimum salary this season and comes with three additional years of team control via arbitration. Even the lowest-payroll contenders would have no issue adding Fry to the books; the same is true of big-market teams seemingly set on staying underneath the luxury tax threshold (i.e. Astros, Red Sox and Yankees).

While that level of production and cost control certainly appeals to the Orioles as well, Baltimore figures to at least entertain offers on Fry. They’re not going to contend this season, and it’d be a stretch to envision them hanging around the postseason picture in 2022. The performance of relief pitchers can be volatile, and the late-blooming Fry will be 29 years old by deadline day. It’d make sense for the Orioles to move him to a more immediate contender if they’re offered high-end prospect talent to continue to stockpile the farm system. Contending clubs are seemingly always on the lookout for relief help at the deadline, so there should be no shortage of teams in touch with the Orioles about one of the game’s most underrated arms in the coming weeks.

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