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A Costly Draft Decision

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It’s draft season in the National Football League, whose three-day festivities got underway Thursday. That got me to thinking about recent No. 1 draft picks in Major League Baseball. If we turn back the clock seven years to 2013, we find one of the biggest disappointments the event has seen in its history. With the top overall choice, the Astros selected Stanford right-hander Mark Appel. It was the second straight year in which Appel went in the first round of the draft, as the Pirates took him at No. 8 in 2012. Appel didn’t sign with Pittsburgh, which at least proved to be the right financial move. He was unwilling to accept the Pirates’ $3.8MM offer, but the Astros’ $6.35MM proposal the next year got the job done.

Unfortunately for Houston, it didn’t get sufficient return on its lofty investment. However, that’s not to place blame on the Astros for betting on Appel. After all, as MLBTR’s Jeff Todd wrote when the Astros signed him: “Appel was ranked as the top prospect in the draft by ESPN’s Keith Law and MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo. Baseball America had him pegged as the second-best prospect in his class, behind Oklahoma right-hander Jonathan Gray, who went No. 3 to the Rockies.”

Appel clearly wasn’t some out-of-the-box pick for Houston, but he has nonetheless been a disappointment. While Appel did advance to the Triple-A level with the Astros organization in 2015, when he pitched to a 4.48 ERA over 68 1/3 innings, that was the end of the line with the Houston franchise. The Astros subsequently used Appel as part of the five-player package they sent to the Phillies to acquire reliever Ken Giles in December 2015. The change of scenery didn’t work for Appel, who battled arm injuries and failed to log quality production in the Phillies’ system from 2016-17. He then decided to step away from baseball in the winter of 2018. The 28-year-old hasn’t pitched since.

Thanks in part to Appel’s struggles, the Phillies haven’t gotten much from the trade they made to land him. Three of the other players they received – lefty Brett Oberholtzer and righties Tom Eshelman and Harold Arauz – contributed either little or nothing as members of the organization. Righty Vince Velasquez has had his moments, though the 27-year-old has generally had difficulty preventing runs in Philadelphia.

The Astros at least got some good years from Giles, who pitched to a 3.57 ERA and amassed 61 saves in their uniform. Giles was also part of the Astros’ first-ever World Series-winning team in 2017, but the team’s title hardly came on account of him – he allowed 10 earned runs in 7 2/3 innings that postseason. In July 2018, the Astros traded Giles to the Blue Jays in a deal for fellow closer Roberto Osuna. Changing teams has worked out well for both pitchers, though Osuna’s not exactly a fan favorite. His acquisition came as he was in the midst of a 75-game suspension for a violation of the MLB-MLBPA Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy.

Philadelphia and Toronto are among the teams that have felt some effect from the Astros’ Appel pick, but maybe no one has benefited more than the Cubs. They held the No. 2 selection in the Appel draft and ended up selecting a University of San Diego third baseman named Kris Bryant. If the Cubs had it their way, they’d have come away with Appel, as Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote in September 2016. Bullet dodged. Bryant won the NL MVP that year, his second of three All-Star seasons thus far, and helped the Cubs to their first World Series in 108 years. He has consistently been one of the premier players in the majors since he debuted in 2015, and has been a member of five teams that have won anywhere from 84 to 103 games per regular season.

For the most part, the Cubs have been wildly successful since they grabbed Bryant. But it’s interesting to wonder how well they’d have done from 2015-19 had Appel fallen to them instead. And what of the Astros? Yes, there were sign-stealing violations involved, but despite missing on Appel, they were an elite team from 2017-19. How much scarier would they have been (and would they be now) had they taken Bryant No. 1? Would they have still selected third baseman Alex Bregman at No. 2 in the 2015 draft?

It’s fun to consider the what-if scenarios, but it’s unfortunate how Appel’s career has gone. Unless he returns to baseball and makes a considerable impact, he’ll be remembered as a No. 1 pick gone wrong. He’s on track to become just the third top selection to retire without ever having played in the majors.

2020-21 MLB Free Agent Class: Right-Handed Relievers

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In recent days, we’ve run through the most notable catchers, second basemen, shortstops, first basemen, third basemen, center fielders, corner outfielders, and lefty relievers who are slated to reach the free-agent market once the offseason rolls around in several months. Now we’re on to the right-handed relievers (players’ ages for the 2021 campaign are listed in parentheses).

Top of the Class

All four of these hurlers ranked in the top-ten leaguewide in fWAR in 2019. But can they all repeat that showing in their platform seasons?

  • Ken Giles (30): There have been some ups and downs, to say the least, but Giles was a beast again in 2019. He worked through some arm issues and spun 53 frames of 1.87 ERA ball with 14.1 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. And he’s younger than the other major options.
  • Liam Hendriks (32): Dropped from the MLB roster in 2019, Hendriks emerged as … arguably the game’s best reliever last year. He was not only exceptionally dominant but did it over a hefty 83-inning workload.
  • Brandon Workman (32): Ramping up his curveball usage sure did work out. Workman broke out with a 1.88 ERA in 71 2/3 innings. While walks (5.7 per nine) pose a concern, he only allowed one home run all season long, generated a 51.1% groundball rate, and produced 13.1 K/9 despite a less-than-astronomical 12.7% swinging-strike rate.
  • Kirby Yates (34): Think some of those above numbers popped? How about these: 1.19 ERA, 15.0 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, 47.9% groundball rate, 0.30 HR/9. Yates was an animal in 2019 and has a few seasons of proof that he is very hard to square up — if you can make contact at all. He’s the odds-on favorite to be the top free agent target (though Giles arguably has the most earning upside given his age).

Upside Plays

It’s possible any or all of these three could be big-time open-market targets … but each has much to prove in 2020.

  • Dellin Betances (33): If he bounces back to his pre-injury form, Betances will take a $3MM buyout from the Mets and head back to free agency in search of the major deal he had hoped to pursue the last time. His ceiling on the mound is about as high as any reliever in baseball.
  • Blake Treinen (33): The stuff is absolutely monstrous and Treinen made it play in a huge 2018 season. But he stepped back last year and has had a lot of trouble with consistency over time. The Dodgers placed a pretty big bet on his ability to put it all back together.
  • Keone Kela (28): He has consistently produced double-digit K/9 rates and ran up a 2.12 ERA in 29 2/3 innings last year. There’s a clear path to ninth-inning responsibilities in Pittsburgh and Kela is pretty young. Could he fully emerge in 2020?

Certified Closers

But are the certifications out of date? All of the players listed in this section have more than one hundred career saves, though odds are most won’t be considered first-option closers in the 2020-21 offseason.

  • Alex Colome (32): You can’t argue with thirty saves and 61 innings of 2.80 ERA ball. But Colome’s 2019 peripherals (8.1 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 45.2% groundball rate) weren’t nearly as exciting.
  • Wade Davis (35): Davis is looking to bounce back after an absolutely brutal 2019 season. His $15MM mutual option would convert to a player option if he finishes thirty games … so the Rockies might be wise to utilize recently extended hurler Scott Oberg in the 9th (if they weren’t already so inclined).
  • Mark Melancon (36): He threw well enough to get the value-focused Braves to take over the back end of his hefty free agent contract, so obviously the veteran still has some gas in the tank. He was tough to take deep and ran up a big 62.1% groundball rate last year while averaging better than a strikeout per nine.
  • David Robertson (36): Still working back from Tommy John surgery, Robertson is likely to be sent back to the open market with a $2MM buyout rather than playing on a $12MM club option for the Phillies. Robertson has been very good for a very long time, with a lifetime 2.90 ERA in 663 2/3 innings.
  • Steve Cishek (35): Though his days as a ninth-inning stalwart are probably over, Cishek is still a quality hurler and the experience doesn’t hurt. He could end up remaining with the White Sox ($6.75MM club option, $750K buyout) if he turns in a strong campaign.
  • Sergio Romo (38): Here’s another established vet who could remain with his current team (Twins) via club option ($5MM; $250K buyout).
  • Joakim Soria (37): The results weren’t there in 2019, but Soria still ran up 10.3 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9. He still throws as hard as ever and generated swinging-strikes at a rate (13.1%) above his career average.
  • Fernando Rodney (44): Are you going to bet against Rodney launching arrows into his mid-forties? I didn’t think so.

Established Setup Options

  • Pedro Baez (33): He has been a steady presence for the Dodgers, spinning 339 innings of 3.03 ERA ball since the start of the 2014 season.
  • Jesse Chavez (37): Things didn’t go well last year but Chavez will have a chance to bounce back in the final season of his deal with the Rangers.
  • Tyler Clippard (36): Clipp seemed on the decline before turning things back on. He was good for 62 innings of 2.90 ERA ball last year.
  • Chris Devenski (30): He’ll need to tamp down on the long balls (1.7 per nine in each of the past two seasons) in order to rediscover his early-career, sub-3.00 ERA form.
  • Shane Greene (32): Though he blossomed as a closer early in 2019, Greene struggled in the second half with the Braves and lost the ninth to Melancon. As usual, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.
  • Kelvin Herrera (31): If he can rediscover his form the White Sox could pick up a $10MM club/vesting option rather than paying a $1MM buyout, but Herrera has a long ways to go after a brutal 2019.
  • Yoshihisa Hirano (37): Though he ramped up his strikeout rate, Hirano went from a 2.44 ERA debut to an ugly 4.75 ERA mark in 2019. If he can return to something like his 2018 results, the veteran Japanese hurler could have another year or two in the majors.
  • Jeremy Jeffress (33): The roller coaster has continued, as Jeffress went from a dream 2018 showing (1.29 ERA) to a rough 2019 (5.02 ERA).
  • Brandon Kintzler (36): The sinkerballer recovered from a brutal 2018 second half. If he’s able to carry forward the good work of last season, he’ll be a pretty easy pick up at a $4MM club option ($250K buyout).
  • Trevor May (31): There’s some possible upside potential here, as May has shown real strikeout capabilities since returning from Tommy John surgery and ramped up to a career-high 95.9 mph average fastball last year.
  • Brad Peacock (33): The useful swingman wasn’t at his best in 2019 but could end up featuring as an appealing volume inning contributor.
  • Yusmeiro Petit (36): He’s aging like a fine wine, with a 2.83 ERA in 267 1/3 innings since the start of his age-32 season.
  • David Phelps (34): 2019 was about getting back to full health after a Tommy John layoff. Phelps is controlled by a $4.5MM club option ($250K buyout).
  • Hector Rondon (33): Another veteran late-inning stalwart who can be controlled at a pretty low price ($4MM club option, $500K buyout), Rondon’s strikeout rate fell off quite a bit last year but he still managed a 3.71 ERA.
  • Bryan Shaw (33): After two brutal seasons, there’s almost no chance the Rockies are picking up his $9MM club/vesting option rather than paying a $2MM buyout. Shaw had experienced nothing but success before landing in Colorado, so perhaps there’s a chance he rediscovers it.
  • Pedro Strop (36): The long-time workhorse ran into hard times in 2019 but had delivered year after year of sub-3.00 ERA ball for the Cubs before that.

MLBTR Poll: Red Sox Punishment

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After a long wait, we finally learned of the official outcome of the Red Sox sign-stealing investigation. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred docked the team its 2020 second-round pick. He also suspended the club’s replay coordinator, J.T. Watkins, after determining that Watkins had at times used a TV feed during games to figure out an opponents’ signs and then conveyed that information to “a limited number of Red Sox players,” who could then attempt to apply it if they reached second base. There was evidently no evidence of a broader effort by team leadership, which (per Manfred) had in fact “consistently communicated MLB’s sign-stealing rules to non-player staff and made commendable efforts toward instilling a culture of compliance in their organization.”

Manfred took a much harsher view of the conduct of the Astros, whose World Series-winning 2017 club was judged to have engaged in a broad-based, long-running, and rather expansive effort to ascertain signs and convey them in real time to batters. The Houston organization was docked four top draft choices and $5MM, while its manager and general manager were hit with year-long suspensions.

A slightly lesser (season-long) ban has now been applied to former Astros bench coach and Red Sox manager Alex Cora, though Manfred made clear it was for his conduct while in Houston. Cora lost his job in Boston over the offseason after the Astros fired A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luhnow. Former Astros player Carlos Beltran also departed his managerial gig with the Mets before it really even started.

Since the actions against Cora didn’t stem from his time with the Red Sox, it wasn’t really part of the punishment. The team will have to fill in for Watkins, though that action was obviously targeted primarily at him personally. As for the lost draft pick, Manfred made clear he levied the punishment because the Red Sox may have benefited, not because of any organizational failing.

When we polled the MLBTR readership on Manfred’s handling of the Astros case, most felt it was either on the mark or too light. How do you feel about his actions with regards to the Red Sox? (Poll link for app users; response order randomized.)

Offseason In Review: Chicago White Sox

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The White Sox made clear their three-year rebuild is over, aggressively pursuing veteran free agents and landing several of them.  They also locked up multiple core pieces with extensions.

Major League Signings

Trades and Claims

Extensions

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

Though the White Sox’ offseason got off to an inauspicious start with the shedding of international bonus pool money in the Welington Castillo trade, they quickly made that deal a footnote by signing catcher Yasmani Grandal to the largest contract in franchise history.  Grandal may be the best hitter and pitch framer among all MLB catchers, and he could represent a four-win improvement over incumbent James McCann (who moves into a backup role).  The signing also allowed the White Sox to move past last winter’s failed pursuit of Manny Machado, proving they actually were willing and able to win the bidding on a top free agent.

Back in August, Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times quoted White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu as saying through an interpreter, “[Owner] Jerry [Reinsdorf] several times has told me and my family that I am not going to wear a jersey other than a White Sox jersey.”  Though Abreu was briefly on the open market after the White Sox issued a one-year, $17.8MM qualifying offer, he later told reporters he didn’t consider other teams.  With multiyear extension talks underway, Abreu chose to accept that one-year qualifying offer when the decision came due on November 14th.

In a cold and calculating sense, the White Sox could have exploited the situation and simply let the one-year deal stand, covering Abreu’s age-33 season.  Pragmatically, restructuring the one-year, $17.8MM deal as a three-year, $50MM pact to snag Abreu’s age 34 and 35 seasons was not a good baseball decision by White Sox Senior Vice President/GM Rick Hahn.  But clearly Abreu means more to the team’s owner and the franchise than just his WAR, and there’s no reason for fans to object to his contract unless it hamstrings the club from making other improvements.

That was certainly not the case in the short term, as the White Sox aggressively pursued the next item on their winter shopping list: a major starting pitching addition.  There’s no evidence they were in the mix for Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg, who signed record deals for $324MM and $245MM, respectively.  So there was an expected level of restraint from a White Sox franchise that has always balked at the idea of guaranteeing more than five years to a starting pitcher.

Instead, the White Sox did about all they could to sign the third-best starting pitcher on the free agent market: hard-throwing righty Zack Wheeler.  Wheeler ultimately signed with the Phillies for five years and $118MM, with the White Sox rumored to have reached $120MM.  As Jim Margalus of Sox Machine put it, “For the first time in documented history, the White Sox reportedly finished with the highest bid for a free agent who landed a nine-figure contract…only it wasn’t good enough to actually land the player.”  Wheeler reportedly had a strong preference to remain close to New Jersey.  As Margalus noted in his post, it’s true that the White Sox could have pushed up into the $125-130MM range, but “at some point in the negotiations the losing party has to take the hint.”  Plus, if the White Sox had overwhelmed Wheeler’s geographic preference by overpaying, there’s no telling how that kind of mercenary arrangement would have worked out in terms of Wheeler’s performance.

Veteran lefty Cole Hamels might have been second on the White Sox’ wish list, but he wound up with the Braves on a one-year, $18MM deal.  If you look back to the December 4th scoops from Marc Carig of The Athletic and Jeff Passan of ESPN, news of the Wheeler agreement came two hours after Hamels’ deal broke.  Both sets of negotiations involved the Phillies and White Sox, but it seems possible that the White Sox wanted to see what happened with Wheeler before signing Hamels – perhaps because they didn’t feel comfortable landing both and paying them more than $40MM in total in 2020.  The end result: the White Sox continued going further down their starting pitcher preference list.  Though there was sufficient time to pivot to a pursuit of Madison Bumgarner, it’s unclear whether the Sox had interest or if geography would have again rendered Chicago the bridesmaid anyway.  So who was going to take the White Sox’ money?

Not Jordan Lyles, as he went to the Rangers a few days later for two years and $16MM.  The White Sox were among the runners-up.  Perhaps Lyles was intended as the secondary rotation piece, which eventually became Gio Gonzalez on a one-year deal.  It will be a homecoming for the 34-year-old lefty, who was drafted 38th overall by the White Sox in 2004 but traded to the Phillies in the Jim Thome deal in ’05.  Gonzalez then rejoined the White Sox, along with Gavin Floyd, in the December ’06 Freddy Garcia trade.  Yet the Sox would trade Gonzalez again a year later, this time to Oakland in the Nick Swisher deal.  Only then did Gonzalez make his MLB debut, so the 12-year veteran has yet to don a White Sox uniform in a regular season game.  The lefty has often outperformed his peripheral stats, perhaps due to his success in limiting hard contact.  An ERA in the low 4.00s would be sufficient to term the one-year contract a success.

By the latter half of December, the White Sox had turned to Scott Boras clients Dallas Keuchel and Hyun-Jin Ryu by necessity.  It seemed that both pitchers were willing to sign with the highest bidder.  The White Sox wound up with Keuchel, who commanded a lesser commitment.  The 32-year-old comes with a lower ceiling than Ryu but may also be the safer choice based on their health records.  Keuchel is not nearly as exciting as Zack Wheeler, but it’s difficult even with hindsight to say the White Sox should have chosen a different free agent hurler.  Perhaps the trade market could have offered a more interesting addition, with Corey Kluber and David Price eventually changing teams.  But the Indians may not have been willing to move Kluber within the division, and the White Sox were in contact with the Red Sox on Price.

Alongside this pitching pursuit, the White Sox were simultaneously trying to upgrade at right field and designated hitter.  They struck first on right field, adding Nomar Mazara straight up for center field prospect Steele Walker.  Walker was expendable for the suddenly win-now White Sox, as the 23-year-old might top out as a fourth outfielder and has yet to play at Double-A.

Mazara, 25 this month, has logged almost 2,200 plate appearances for the Rangers but is mostly appealing for his potential.  In his four seasons with Texas, Mazara has never exceeded a 95 wRC+ (100 is league average).  The White Sox and new hitting coach Frank Menechino must believe they can find another gear in Mazara.  The club explored alternatives before settling on Mazara, reportedly including Marcell Ozuna, Joc Pederson, Kole Calhoun, Nick Castellanos, and Yasiel Puig.

The White Sox made a solid addition at the DH spot with Edwin Encarnacion.  Even at age 37, Encarnacion remains capable of a 120 wRC+ season.  He’s cranked at least 32 home runs in each of the last eight seasons.  No matter how the 2020 season shakes out, the White Sox will have the chance to try again with Encarnacion by exercising a $12MM option for 2021.

In late December, the White Sox turned their focus to augmenting their bullpen, which is anchored by Alex Colome, Kelvin Herrera, and Aaron Bummer.  With most of the top free agents already off the board, Hahn snagged sidearmer Steve Cishek.  The 33-year-old will jump across town after two successful seasons out of the Cubs’ bullpen.  Though this group has had success at times, it’s still easy to picture the bullpen as a weak spot for the 2020 White Sox.

With most of their offseason shopping done, the new year was about locking down core pieces for the White Sox.  First came uber-prospect Luis Robert, whose $50MM deal is a record for a player who has yet to appear in the Majors.  The contract shuts down potential service time manipulation of Robert, and the Sox now figure to put him on the Opening Day roster.  Other potential top 2020 rookies like Nate Pearson and Jo Adell, without big league contracts, are in a position where they will fail to gain any big league service in 2020 should the season be canceled.  Robert wouldn’t gain service time either, but the result would be his first club option covering his last arbitration season and his second club option covering his first free agent year.

Putting aside potential coronavirus effects, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic noted that “Robert will be paid at the top of the arbitration market, earning more than Anthony Rendon ($49.4 million), Harper ($47.9 million) and Manny Machado ($34 million) did before reaching free agency.”  As a rival executive termed it to Rosenthal, the White Sox paid “superstar insurance” on Robert.  Meaning that if Robert becomes one of baseball’s best players, he had a chance to exceed $50MM through arbitration, as Mookie Betts did and Kris Bryant and Francisco Lindor will.  There are certainly scenarios where the White Sox overpaid for Robert’s arbitration years – namely if he deals with significant injuries – but the contract could still be a wash for the team given the potential surplus value of the free agent year they bought out.

Next, the White Sox locked up Bummer.  This, too, seems to be designed to protect against the chance Bummer would have started racking up huge arbitration salaries — which is a bit odd.  He’s only accumulated one save so far in his career and wasn’t slated for the ninth inning in 2020.  So it’s hard to see how he might have earned more than $16MM through arbitration.  The White Sox still get club options on his first two free agent seasons, but trying to predict whether a reliever will be valuable five years out is a fool’s errand.  Perhaps the Sox feel Bummer is a pitcher who will perform the best knowing he’s set for life financially.

The club’s third extension of the offseason went to Yoan Moncada.  Like Robert, Moncada is a Cuban defector who had already banked a large signing bonus.  It’s a bit of a surprise Moncada jumped at this offer given the $31.5MM he already had in the bank from signing with the Red Sox five years ago.  Moncada didn’t reach the heights of Alex Bregman’s extension, which makes sense since his accomplishments didn’t quite stack up.  But with all arrows pointing upward on Moncada, another season similar to his 2019 campaign would have set the bar above $100MM.  So the White Sox did well to lock him up at $70MM and buy out two free agent years.

Perhaps the White Sox would benefit from a shortened 2020 season, as MLBTR’s Jeff Todd has suggested.  For example, their rotation was set to get a boost this year, with Carlos Rodon and Michael Kopech potentially returning from Tommy John surgery in June.  I imagine the White Sox are kind of like someone who spent three years restoring a car in their garage and is now itching to take it out for a drive.  While uncertainty reigns during this stage of the coronavirus pandemic, the White Sox are now built for an extended run of success.  Even without a long-term deal in place (yet) for ace Lucas Giolito, the White Sox control him through 2023.  Moncada is controlled through 2025, Eloy Jimenez through ’26, and Robert through ’27.  And we haven’t even discussed prospects like Andrew Vaughn and Nick Madrigal.  Things are looking up for the White Sox, whenever they are able to take the field.

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How would you rate the White Sox’ offseason? (Link to poll for Trade Rumors mobile app users.)

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Standing Up For Stripling

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Right-hander Ross Stripling has been a member of the Dodgers organization since going in the fifth round of the 2012 draft, but he came close to joining one of the majors’ other Southern California-based teams over the winter. Back in February, the Dodgers were on the cusp of a trade that would have sent Stripling to the Angels in a deal headlined by Joc Pederson (more on Pederson here). That plan fell through, however, and Stripling is still a member of the Dodgers. Frankly, that doesn’t look like a bad thing at all for the club.

Set to enter his age-30 season (that’s if we get one), Stripling has established himself as a valuable Swiss Army knife for the Dodgers’ pitching staff. Whether as a starter or a reliever, Stripling has gotten the job done since he debuted in the majors in 2016. He’s the owner of a 3.51 ERA with an almost identical 3.60 FIP across 387 career innings. He continued his sturdy pitching last season, a 90 2/3-inning effort in which he posted a matching 3.47 ERA/FIP across 32 appearances and 15 starts.

With 9.23 K/9 against 1.99 BB/9, Stripling finished 21st among all pitchers who threw at least 90 innings in K/BB ratio in 2019, sandwiching him between the Indians’ Mike Clevinger and teammate Clayton Kershaw. Stripling also induced grounders at a little better than a 50 percent clip, and despite well-below-average velocity (90.5 mph on his fastball), Statcast was generally a fan of his work. He limited hitters to a .294 weighted on-base average, essentially turning them into the 2019 version of light-hitting White Sox utilityman Leury Garcia, and managed an even better .278 expected wOBA. Stripling ranked in the majors’ 84th percentile in the xwOBA category, and that’s nothing new for a pitcher who has held batters to a nonthreatening .284 xwOBA during his time in the majors.

Assuming Stripling does remain a Dodger going forward, it’s unclear how many starts he’ll be in position to rack up. Some of Kershaw, Walker Buehler, David Price, Julio Urias, Dustin May, Alex Wood, Jimmy Nelson and Tony Gonsolin are locks to wind up in their 2020 rotation or, if there is no season, the ’21 version. Others are at least solid candidates to pick up starts. But one of the juggernaut Dodgers’ greatest strengths is their ability to build depth just about everywhere on the diamond. Stripling’s part of that, even if he doesn’t have a defined role, and the fact he’s under affordable control via arbitration for the next three seasons should only make him more appealing from the club’s perspective.

Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has made one shrewd move after another since he took the helm of the team’s front office after the 2014 season. It’s hard to second-guess him, so maybe he was on to something with his willingness to move on from Stripling. Based on what Stripling has done to date, though, keeping him has a chance to go down as a blessing for LA.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

The Sale Of An Elite Outfield

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Myriad issues have weighed down the Marlins during their 16-year playoff drought, but it wasn’t that long ago they at least boasted an elite outfield. Back in 2017, the trio of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna led the Marlins to a first-place ranking in fWAR in the grass (16.8). Stanton enjoyed an NL MVP-winning, 59-home run season; Yelich continued to post underrated production (he’s not underrated anymore); and Ozuna recorded a career year that he hasn’t replicated since. Of course, those players’ contributions weren’t enough to even get the Marlins to the .500 mark, and that season proved to be all three outfielders’ last hurrah in Miami.

Prior to the 2018 season, the non-contending Marlins and a new ownership group headed by Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter went on a campaign designed to slash payroll they inherited from predecessor Jeffrey Loria and build up a bottom-of-the-barrel farm system. To achieve those goals, the Marlins decided all three of their star outfielders were expendable, and they moved each of them on the heels of their standout 2017 showings.

Stanton, then 28 years old, was the most accomplished member of the trio at the time. He was also the owner of a historic, franchise-record contract worth $325MM over 13 years that he signed in November 2014. Stanton still had $275MM left on the deal three years ago, making him ripe for a change of scenery from the Marlins’ perspective.

The Giants, Cardinals and Dodgers were among those that pursued Stanton when the Marlins put the slugger on the block. Both San Francisco and St. Louis reportedly agreed to acquire Stanton, but he used his full no-trade clause to block moves to those cities; meanwhile, his hometown Los Angeles club didn’t make a good enough offer for Miami’s liking. That created an opening for the Yankees, Jeter’s team for all of his Hall of Fame playing career, to swoop in and grab Stanton to pair with fellow hulking corner outfielder Aaron Judge.

Stanton and Judge had combined for 111 home runs during the prior season, and the Yankees no doubt had designs on them leading them to championships in the future. Thanks in part to injuries to both players, that hasn’t happened yet, and when healthy, Stanton hasn’t been the same player he was in 2017. While he has been good, the Yankees probably want more out of Stanton going forward with him still guaranteed an exorbitant amount of money through 2027.

As for the details of the trade, the Yankees took on the vast majority of Stanton’s money (the Marlins paid $30MM) in exchange for second baseman Starlin Castro and two prospects in right-hander Jorge Guzman and infielder Jose Devers. Castro had shown himself to be a roughly average regular with the Cubs and Yankees from 2010-17. The widely held belief was that the Marlins would end up flipping him and the $22MM left on his deal before he ever played in their uniform. As it turned out, though, Castro spent the last full two years on his pact in Miami, where he produced – you guessed it – roughly average production (3.6 fWAR in 1,323 plate appearances). He’s now a member of the NL East rival Nationals, who signed him in free agency last offseason.

The Marlins were never going to contend during the remainder of Castro’s contract, so the bigger motivation for them was getting as much of Stanton’s money as possible off the books and trying to bolster their system. Guzman and Devers have helped them do the latter to at least some degree. Now 24 years old, the hard-throwing Guzman ranks as the Marlins’ No. 19 prospect at MLB.com; he climbed to the Double-A level last season and registered a 3.50 ERA/4.37 FIP with 8.24 K/9 and 4.61 BB/9 over 138 2/3 innings. Devers, 20, checks in even higher than Guzman on MLB.com’s list (No. 11), though he failed to hit a homer in 138 plate appearances in High-A ball last season. FanGraphs then wrote that it only considers him “a lefty utility bench piece.”

Thus far, getting out from under Stanton’s onerous contract has been the biggest plus of that trade for the Marlins. Between his deal and his no-trade rights, it was obviously a challenge to find a trade partner for him. The team was in a better position with both Yelich and Ozuna, though.

Unlike Stanton, Yelich – on the cusp of his age-27 season, signed to a sweetheart contract and having combined for 10.0 fWAR from 2016-17 – should have commanded a king’s ransom in return. Yelich wanted out, so the Marlins were extra motivated to move him. Unsurprisingly, a significant number of teams – including the Padres, Cardinals, Rangers, Nationals, Diamondbacks, Athletics, Phillies, Blue Jays and Braves – were connected to him in the rumor mill. The Marlins aimed high in Yelich talks, reportedly asking the Jays for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Braves for Ronald Acuna Jr., but those teams predictably balked at those requests. Ultimately, the Marlins sent Yelich and the $43.25MM in guarantees he had left to the Brewers in January 2018 for a four-prospect package consisting of Lewis Brinson and Monte Harrison, infielder Isan Diaz, and righty Jordan Yamamoto.

Sure, the Marlins were letting go of an eminently valuable player, but they didn’t expect Yelich to turn into an all-world superstar as soon as he arrived in Milwaukee. But that’s what happened. He succeeded Stanton as the NL MVP in his first year as a Brewer, might have won it again last season if not for an injury, and is now the owner of by far the richest contract in Brewers history after inking an extension last month. His acquisition is one of the greatest the Brewers have ever made. The Marlins’ end hasn’t worked out nearly as well.

Brinson was the Marlins’ headlining pickup in the Yelich swap, among the absolute top prospects in baseball at the time, but hasn’t come close to living up to the hype so far. The 25-year-old managed a stunningly poor 25 wRC+ (.173/.236/.221) and failed to hit a homer in 248 trips to the plate as a Marlin last season. He has now accounted for minus-2.9 fWAR in 709 major league PA. Harrison’s still a solid prospect – FanGraphs ranks the 24-year-old No. 102 in the game – and has a chance to turn out as the best part of the return for the Marlins. Diaz, 23, hit well in Triple-A ball last year, but he was in over his head during his first MLB stint. And while it’s not saying much, Yamamoto has actually been the most valuable MLB contributor the Marlins have gotten from this trade to this point. After holding his own in the minors from 2017-19, the 23-year-old debuted in Miami last season and turned in 78 2/3 innings of 4.46 ERA/4.51 FIP ball while averaging better than a strikeout per frame.

Despite his unhappiness, tthe Marlins perhaps could have kept Yelich and tried to build around him. But they just about had to trade Ozuna, then a Scott Boras client who wasn’t going to sign an extension before his last two years of team control ran out. There was widespread interest in Ozuna, whom the Marlins wound up sending to the Cardinals for a quartet of young players – righties Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen, outfielder Magneuris Sierra and lefty Daniel Castano.

The Cardinals got two respectable years out of Ozuna before losing him to the Braves in free agency this past winter; because they gave him a qualifying offer beforehand, his departure netted the Redbirds a 2020 compensatory draft pick after Competitive Balance Round B. Perhaps that selection will morph into a valuable young player, as Alcantara and Gallen have at least shown themselves to be. Still just 24, Alcantara parlayed a 95 mph-plus fastball into an impressive MLB season last year, when he tossed 197 1/3 innings of 3.88 ERA/4.55 FIP ball. Gallen may have been able to join him as a long-term linchpin in Miami’s rotation, but the club instead flipped him to Arizona last July in a deal for shortstop prospect Jazz Chisholm.

While Gallen has already proven he can handle the majors – he made an eyebrow-raising 80-inning debut between the two teams in 2019 – Chisholm hasn’t gotten past Double-A ball yet. But the 22-year-old logged great production at that level after the trade and is generally regarded as a top 100 prospect. So, perhaps he’ll develop into a nice MLB consolation prize from the Marlins’ pre-2018 outfield fire sale. On the other hand, it seems less hopeful Sierra or Castano will amount to much. The light-hitting, speedy Sierra hasn’t posed a real threat in the minors. The 25-year-old Castano has prevented runs at a good clip since he joined the Marlins’ system, but he’s not regarded as a prospect of note.

Overall, these certainly aren’t the most inspiring results the Marlins could have hoped for when they sold off their top-notch outfield. The Yelich trade would still look particularly regrettable even if he hadn’t evolved into the superstar he has become since the deal. On the bright side, the Marlins have seen Yamamoto and Alcantara show well in the majors, and there’s also hope for some of the other players they received as products of these trades (especially Chisholm).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

What In The Sam Hill(iard) Do The Rockies Have In The Outfield?

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If the Rockies are to come anywhere near meeting the expectations of ownership, they’re going to need a lot of things to break right in the near term. More than anything, the club requires a few high-quality supplemental players to emerge (or, in the case of some expensive veterans, re-emerge) to supplement an enviable set of stars.

We reflexively think about concerns with pitching when it comes to the Colorado organization, but the team’s bats have been an even greater problem in recent years. The recent Rox outfield has consisted of Charlie Blackmon and a revolving cast of mostly replacement-level bandmates.

As Blackmon ages gracefully — he’s a continuing threat at the plate but has faded badly in the field and on the bases — there’s a glaring need for new talent. Actually, hold that: there has been some talent. The club paid big for Ian Desmond. It gave more chances to Carlos Gonzalez and even got one final ride with Matt Holliday. Some well-regarded prospects such as Garrett Hampson and Raimel Tapia have filtered up. And of course we’ve seen what David Dahl can do … when healthy. What this team needs is honest-to-goodness, consistent, real-live production from someone other than Blackmon.

The Rockies have allocated all their available payroll. They let Mike Tauchman go to the Yankees (not that it wasn’t plenty understandable at the time). They’re badly in need of an emergence from within.

That’s just what the team got late in 2019 from unheralded newcomer Sam Hilliard. His emergence largely flew under the radar as the Rockies limped to the end of a brutally disappointing campaign. While it’s always worth caution when it comes to a 27-game sample, Hilliard was a legitimately exciting performer down the stretch. Could the Rockies have something here?

Hilliard was known as a two-way player for most of his amateur career. He emerged as an interesting position-player target in advance of the 2015 draft, but the Rockies were able to wait until the 15th round to nab him. Hilliard is big, strong, and swift.

The results have been mixed since Hilliard hit the pro ranks. He put up strong homer and steal tallies on his way up the farm system, but always did a fair bit of swinging and missing. Hilliard hit a bit of a wall in 2018 at Double-A. And though his Triple-A output in the ensuing season looked big on paper — 35 long balls, 22 steals, .262/.335/.558 slash — it translated to a fairly modest 107 wRC+ since it occurred in an exceedingly offensive-friendly environment.

When he took to the majors late in the year, there wasn’t much cause for over-excitement. But the 26-year-old delivered well beyond expectations, sending seven balls over the fence in 87 plate appearances while turning in a .273/.356/.649 output. That, too, took place in an explosive setting for bats, but it worked out to a healthy 138 wRC+ output at the dish.

Here’s the thing about Hilliard: prospect watchers still have tempered expectations, despite the big debut. But there are some reasons to believe he could keep producing at an above-average rate in the majors, all while providing value in the field and on the bases. It seems promising that Hilliard actually reduced his upper-minors strikeout rate upon reaching the majors (to a palatable 26.4%) while walking in over ten percent of his MLB plate appearances (above league average).

The most recent Fangraphs assessment of Hilliard’s outlook notes that “his ability to identify pitches he can drive is impressive in context, but well-executed pitches can get him out.” Indeed, he took Noah Syndergaard deep twice in one game … then launched against high-grade lefties Hyun-Jin Ryu and Josh Hader. Perhaps Hilliard’s demonstrated capacity can be expanded more consistently. Given his former focus on pitching, it’s said he’s still maturing as a hitter.

The Rockies sure could use a pleasant surprise from Hilliard. They could also stand to see Dahl on the field for the entire season. That might give the team an all-lefty group of regulars, along with Blackmon, with Hampson and Desmond supplementing from the right side. There’s at least one other near-term player with potential, too. Yonathan Daza is already on the 40-man and is seen as a prospect of some note. His 2019 debut went in the opposite direction of Hilliard’s, with Daza turning in a .206/.257/.237 slash over 105 plate appearances. But Daza had a big showing at Triple-A and has hit well this spring.

It probably wouldn’t be wise for the Rockies or their fans to expect too much from Hilliard and the rest of the outfield unit in 2020 and beyond. But it seems they can at least hope for something more.

2020-21 MLB Free Agent Class: Left-Handed Relievers

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In recent days, we’ve run through the most notable catchers, second basemen, shortstops, first basemen, third basemen, center fielders, and corner outfielders who are slated to reach the free-agent market once the offseason rolls around in several months. Now we’ll turn to the pitchers, beginning with southpaw relievers (players’ ages for the 2021 campaign are listed in parentheses).

Top of the Class

  • Sean Doolittle (34): There’s no denying the 2019 downturn for a pitcher that had been among the game’s most dominant relievers for several years beforehand. His swinging-strike rate moved from 16.8% in the prior season down to 12.1%; his ERA shot up from 1.60 to 4.05. But most of the rough outings took place in the month of August, while Doolittle battled through a knee injury that ultimately forced him to the injured list. He returned to perform well late in the season and in the Nats’ World Series run (2 earned runs on 6 hits with 8:1 K/BB in 10 1/3 innings).
  • Brad Hand (31): The Indians closer would surely be the top southpaw on this year’s class, but he’s not going to make it to market unless he has a disappointing season. With a typical campaign, the club is sure to pick up its $10MM club option rather than paying a $1MM buyout — though we could still see Hand moved via trade in that event.

Solid Setup Options

  • Jose Alvarez (32): Not much jumps off the page here. Fielding-independent pitching metrics have never much loved Alvarez and were especially unimpressed in 2019 (4.21 FIP, 4.14 xFIP, 4.17 SIERA). He has never struck out more than a batter per inning or generated dominant groundball numbers. But Alvarez has kept turning in good outcomes. In 122 innings over the past two seasons, he carries a 3.02 ERA.
  • Andrew Chafin (31): Chafin could be the top setup option available this fall. He’s relatively youthful in comparison to the alternatives and has rather consistently gotten the job done in recent seasons. Last year, Chafin jumped to a career-best 11.6 K/9, though he also saw his groundball rate drop below 50% for the first time (42.9%) and allowed more than a home run per inning after permitting nary a long ball in 77 appearances in the prior season. Regardless, the results have been good.
  • Oliver Perez (39): The late-career renaissance has been something to see, but how long can it last? Perez owns a dominant 2.84 ERA with 11.2 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9 since the start of the 2018 campaign. But that was compiled over only 73 frames in 117 appearances. Right-handed hitters beat up on him last year, though that hasn’t been the case historically.
  • Tony Watson (36): We were very surprised to see Watson pick up his player option to return to the Giants rather than returning to the open market last fall. He has been so solid for so long that we felt teams would overlook his 2019 struggles, which were driven largely by a jump in home-run rate. He still maintained a typical 12.7% swinging-strike rate, 5.2% walk rate, and 93.5 mph average fastball velocity. And though he is no longer elite at limiting hard contact, as he once was, Wilson was still tough to square up (84th percentile hard-hit percentage; 79th percentile exit velocity).
  • Justin Wilson (33): Based upon the most basic 2019 results, Wilson is the top of the class: he worked to a 2.54 ERA. But that output came in only 39 innings and his peripherals — while solid — didn’t quite support it. Wilson gets strikeouts and groundballs, but his strikeout rate has dropped in each of the past two seasons. And he has continued to hand out too many free passes, averaging 5.2 per nine since the start of the 2017 campaign. Still, it wouldn’t be surprising if Wilson emerges as one of the most-pursued arms in this group.

Looking for a Bounceback

  • Brett Cecil (34): He’ll need to get back on the mound after a lost 2019 season and then make up for a brutal showing in the season prior, but perhaps there’s still hope.
  • Jake McGee (34): There have always been a lot of ups and downs for McGee, who’s likely to be paid a $2MM buyout in favor of a $9MM club option unless he really bounces back strong in 2020. He did manage a 4.35 ERA last year at Coors Field, but that was probably fortunate. McGee was tagged for 2.4 homers per nine while logging a pedestrian 7.6 K/9 — well off his career peak.
  • Andrew Miller (36): And that brings us to the final, and most interesting, name on this list. Once one of the game’s ultimate late-inning weapons, Miller has now turned in two-straight marginal seasons. He coughed up 1.8 long balls per nine innings last year while working to a 4.45 ERA over 54 2/3 frames. Miller’s velocity has dropped below 93 mph for the first time since he was moved to the bullpen, and he has settled in with a ~13% swinging-strike rate after topping out much higher. He still managed 11.5 K/9 in 2019, but that came with 4.5 BB/9 and the aforementioned dingers. If Miller is able to return to something like his former self, the Cards could pick up a $12MM club option rather than paying a $2.5MM buyout. That’d take a major turn of events, but it can’t be ruled out for a guy with Miller’s pedigree.

A Mariners-Yankees Blockbuster That Busted

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If we go back eight years to January 2012, we’ll find a huge trade centering on two players who looked to be among the premier young building blocks in Major League Baseball at the time. The Mariners sent right-hander Michael Pineda and fellow righty Vicente Campos to the Yankees for catcher Jesus Montero and RHP Hector Noesi. As it turned out, though, the swap didn’t go according to plan for either side.

Pineda was the most proven major leaguer in the trade when it happened, and that hasn’t changed. Then 22 years old, he debuted in the majors in 2011 and fired 171 innings of 3.74 ERA/3.42 FIP ball with 9.11 K/9 and 2.89 BB/9 to serve as one of the majors’ top rookies. But that All-Star season wasn’t enough for the Mariners to keep Pineda. Instead, desperate for a big hitter to build around, they shipped Pineda to New York in an attempt to bolster their offense.

It was easy to dream on Montero when the trade occurred. He was a 22-year-old who was once grouped with the likes of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper and considered among the top-notch prospects in baseball. And Montero terrorized opposing pitchers during his first major league stint late in the 2011 season, hitting .328/.406/.590 with four home runs in 69 plate appearances (perhaps you remember the first two homers of his career). Expectations then mounted that Montero would hold his own in the majors, whether with the Yankees or someone else, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, as a member of the Mariners from 2012-15, Montero stumbled to an overall .247/.285/.383 line with 24 homers in 796 plate appearances. The big-bodied Montero was never an ideal fit for the catcher position, where he logged just 735 innings as a Mariner and accounted for minus-20 Defensive Runs Saved. Clearly not the savior they thought he’d be, the Mariners cut ties with Montero heading into the 2016 season. Montero has since spent time in the Blue Jays’ and Orioles’ system, not to mention stints in Mexico and Venezuela, but he has not appeared in the majors since his Seattle tenure concluded.

It’s still hard to believe Montero flamed out so quickly. After all, at the time of the trade, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman compared Montero to two of the greatest players of the past few decades, saying: “To me, Montero is Mike Piazza. He’s Miguel Cabrera.”

Not so much. New York didn’t lose out on another Piazza or Cabrera, and it did come out on the better side of the trade, but that’s not really saying a lot. Pineda missed what would have been his first season with the Yankees as a result of the April 2012 right labrum surgery he underwent. He also sat out the next season, but he did pitch to a solid 4.16 ERA/3.65 FIP with 9.09 K/9 and 1.8 BB/9 across 509 innings and 89 starts in pinstripes from 2014-17. Not bad at all, but Pineda underwent yet another surgery – Tommy John – in the last of those seasons and never took the hill for the Yankees again. His career’s still going, though, as he performed well enough for the Twins in 2019 to convince them to re-sign him to a two-year, $20MM guarantee last offeason.

Almost a decade after the fact, Pineda’s the lone quality big leaguer left from this trade. Noesi hasn’t amounted to much in the majors so far – he even spent time in Korea – and settled for a minors deal with the Pirates last December. But at least Noesi has actually pitched in MLB on a fairly consistent basis. The same can’t be said for Campos, a once-impressive prospect whom injuries have helped ruin. Now 27, Campos is a free agent who most recently pitched in the Mexican League last season. He totaled 5 2/3 frames as a Diamondback in 2016, but that’s the extent of his big league work.

On one hand, credit goes to the Yankees for getting more out of this trade than the Mariners. On the other, it’s fair to call it a disappointment for the two clubs, both of which thought they were getting at least one long-term cornerstone apiece. The Montero and Noesi tenures in Seattle didn’t work out at all. Pineda had his moments as a Yankee, but they were too few in number, and Campos didn’t come close to realizing his potential. In light of Pineda’s decent contributions as a Yankee, you can’t call this trade a complete disaster, but it certainly didn’t live up to the hype.

How Did The White Sox Trade Fernando Tatis Jr.?!

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You have to give the White Sox credit for signing Fernando Tatis Jr. in the first place.  They snagged the 16-year-old as an international signing out of the Dominican Republic back in 2015 for a bonus of $700K, years after Marco Paddy had restored credibility to the team’s efforts in Latin America following the David Wilder scandal.

At the time, MLB.com ranked Tatis Jr. 30th in his class, which also included Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Juan Soto, and Cristian Pache.  The biggest available international player was Cuban star Yoan Moncada, at a time when a team could elect to exceed its bonus pool and pay a 100% tax, as the Red Sox did.

Tatis’ father had played 11 years in the Majors, cracking 113 home runs, so the bloodlines were strong.  In their scouting report, MLB.com said, “Scouts like Tatis Jr.’s swing, his strong arm and his fluid actions on defense. He’s shown decent arm strength and raw power to his pull side. Tatis Jr.’s knack for barreling up balls and his repeatable swing have also impressed evaluators.”  Jeff Buchanan of FutureSox wrote, “Tatis clearly doesn’t have the same upside as [White Sox top 2015 international signing] Franklin Reyes, but his well-rounded skillset, high baseball IQ and professional mentality mean he likely comes with less risk than Reyes and is a better bet to maximize his potential as a possible everyday player.” 

Tatis Jr. was certainly an interesting July 2 international signing, but according to Dennis Lin’s excellent oral history in The Athletic, the Blue Jays, Indians, and Rays were the only other teams to attempt to sign him, which is why he didn’t land the multi-million bonuses others in his class did.  If teams had an inkling of what Tatis Jr. would become, he would have signed for ten times as much money.  Most of these players were six years away from the Majors, and projecting that far out is very difficult.  Many of these guys could have been traded for a veteran starting pitcher the year after signing and we would have never spoken of it again.

11 months passed between the date of Tatis Jr. signing and the date of his fateful trade to the Padres.  How much height the infielder gained in the interim could develop into a tall tale one day, but in Lin’s article, the player himself said he added two inches.  Padres GM A.J. Preller, then a member of the Rangers’ front office, had seen Tatis Jr. multiple times before the player signed with Chicago.  Members of the Padres’ front office observed him at least twice after he joined the White Sox organization: during the Arizona Instructional League in the fall of 2015, and again during extended spring training in 2016.  So Tatis Jr. was on the Padres’ radar as the 2016 season progressed.

Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler told Lin that the team’s efforts to trade veteran starter James Shields “became accelerated” after the pitcher endured a May 31st, 2016 drubbing in Seattle in which he allowed ten earned runs while recording eight outs.  In the outing, Shields’ ERA jumped from 3.06 to 4.28.  The day after that start from Shields, Fowler went on the radio to term it an “an embarrassment to the team, an embarrassment to him.”  After trading both Shields and outfielder Matt Kemp, Fowler would throw shade in saying, “We made a conscious decision to ship them out because we want people that are prepared to improve.”

So if the James Shields trade talks picked up around June 1st, 2016, where did the White Sox stand at that point?  The club’s record stood at 29-25, two games behind the Royals in the AL Central and firmly in the Wild Card race as well.  According to FanGraphs, the White Sox had a 33.8% chance of making the playoffs, which was actually better than teams that sat ahead of them like the Royals and Orioles.  The White Sox hadn’t reached the playoffs since 2008, and GM Rick Hahn was justified in seeking reinforcements.

At the time, the White Sox starting rotation was fronted by Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, and Carlos Rodon.  Free agent signing Mat Latos held down the fourth spot, but had a 6.54 ERA over his previous six starts.  The club had recently released longtime rotation fixture John Danks, eating significant money in the process.  Miguel Gonzalez was able to step on and temporarily hold the fifth starter job, with Hahn looking to make an acquisition.

As Hahn put it to Jon Greenberg of The Athletic, “That was a move, in going out to get James, that was due to the lack of depth in the organization. We did not have internal answers when (John) Danks wasn’t getting back to a form that was serviceable and (Mat) Latos was taking on water and regressing back to his more likely form for the rest of the season. So we had to do something stem the flow here. And that’s very fair to say that transaction is sort of emblematic of that past way of doing things and trying to fix it on the fly.”  The team’s lack of rotation depth didn’t come out of nowhere, though, as depth seemed thin even prior to the season.

In just about every write-up of the Shields trade at the time, Tatis Jr. was listed after Erik Johnson, the other prospect the Padres acquired.  Johnson, a 26-year-old righty, had been drafted by the White Sox in the second round out of UC Berkeley back in 2011.  Coming through Chicago’s farm system, Johnson was seen as a potential No. 3 starter.  His value peaked prior to the 2014 season, when Keith Law (then of ESPN) ranked him as the 59th-best prospect in baseball. But Johnson failed to stick in the White Sox rotation from 2014 up until the trade.

Could the White Sox have acquired Shields for different prospects?  According to Preller in Lin’s article, “We talked about two of their top prospects. They weren’t going to move those guys. And we talked about Tatis as well. You got the sense that he might be the guy they would talk about in the initial conversations, just because he was further away and hadn’t played a game yet.”  The top White Sox prospects prior to the 2016 were Tim Anderson and Carson Fulmer, as they had shipped off Frankie Montas in the offseason in the Todd Frazier deal.  At the time of the Shields trade, Anderson was less than a week away from supplanting Jimmy Rollins to become the team’s starting shortstop.  Fulmer had been drafted eighth overall by the White Sox the previous year, and it would be ridiculous revisionist history to suggest they should have had the foresight to trade him instead of Tatis Jr.

Was it reasonable for the White Sox to expect a midseason boost from Shields?  MLBTR’s Charlie Wilmoth and Connor Byrne wrote at the time:

Shields, 34, isn’t the pitcher he was during his best years with the Rays and Royals, but he remains a competent innings eater who’s on pace to exceed the 200-inning plateau and surpass the 30-start barrier for the 11th straight season. That aside, Shields does come with red flags. After a dreadful final start with the Padres, Shields’ ERA (4.28) is at its highest since 2010. Further, his strikeout rate – which spiked to a personal-best 9.61 per nine innings last year – has regressed to 7.62 (closer to his 7.84 career average) and the control that he displayed in his earlier days has declined. Shields’ walk rate is at 3.61 per nine innings, which is in line with last year’s 3.6, and his velocity has dipped. To Shields’ credit, he has long been a capable ground-ball generator – at 48 percent this year, there’s no sign he’s slowing down in that area. That should help his cause as he shifts to the hitter-friendly confines of U.S. Cellular Field, but he does have the third-highest home run rate among qualified starters since last season (16.9 percent).

While Shields may have been an innings eater at that point in his career, no one expected him to post a 6.77 ERA for the remainder of the season.  It wasn’t crazy to view him as a useful veteran addition.  Plus, the Padres kicked in over $30MM, more than half of the money remaining on his contract.  To the White Sox, Shields looked to be an affordable rotation piece for the remainder of 2016 as well as the ’17 and ’18 seasons.

The White Sox pounced on Shields early, basically kicking off the 2016 trading season.  Later that summer, the Padres would also go on to trade their best starter, Drew Pomeranz, as well as Andrew Cashner.  The Orioles picked up Wade Miley, the Dodgers acquired Rich Hill, the Pirates snagged Ivan Nova, the Angels and Twins swapped Ricky Nolasco and Hector Santiago, and the Blue Jays got Scott Feldman.  There are many alternate universes where the White Sox acquire someone other than Shields, and who knows whether Tatis Jr. would have been involved.  They also could have plugged in Miguel Gonzalez in June, held off on trades for a month like most teams, and realized they should be sellers rather than buyers.

Hahn has owned the Tatis Jr. trade, calling himself a “jackass” in front of fans and telling MLB.com’s Scott Merkin, “That was probably the last deal we made with having a short-term mindset in mind.  Ultimately when this thing gets right, we are going to once again have a shorter time arising goal with our trades. It doesn’t mean you want to make a deal that haunts you for the long term, obviously.”  Every GM has a trade he’d like to take back.  Around that same time, the Marlins traded Luis Castillo, got him back due to a medical dispute, and then traded him again in the offseason.  It was also the summer where the Dodgers traded Yordan Alvarez, as outlined here.

Though Hahn admitted to Greenberg in 2017, “I probably physically cringe whenever I see a Tatis highlight,” the club embarked on what seems to have been a successful rebuilding effort after the ’16 season.  The White Sox brought in Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Eloy Jimenez, Dylan Cease, and Michael Kopech in subsequent trades and pounced on Luis Robert in the international market.  Tatis Jr. may always be the one that got away, but an extended playoff run should take the sting off for the White Sox.

For more on the topic of the Tatis Jr. trade, be sure to check out Jeff Todd’s video on our YouTube channel.

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