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Juan Soto Has Found His Stride After Slow Start

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Early in the year, there was a decent amount of trepidation about Juan Soto. The Padres superstar was still reaching base at an excellent clip but was clearly performing below his established level. Soto carried a .202/.373/.384 line across 126 plate appearances through the end of April. That came on the heels of a .236/.388/.390 showing in 52 games last summer after one of the biggest deadline trades in MLB history.

For most players, those numbers wouldn’t be cause for concern. While the batting averages weren’t eye-catching, consistently excellent walk tallies kept the on-base mark at an elite level. Among qualified hitters, Soto ranked 12th in the majors with a .382 OBP between the time of the trade and the start of this May.

By Soto’s standards, though, that production was a disappointment. He’d been a top-five hitter in MLB virtually from the moment he was promoted as a 19-year-old five seasons back. For him to hit only 11 homers with a .388 slugging percentage through his first 81 games as a Padre was a surprise. A .254 average on balls in play certainly didn’t do him any favors, but the three-time Silver Slugger also seemed relatively out of sorts. In mid-April, he told Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post he felt he was pulling off too many pitches, resulting in weak ground-ball contact to the pull side.

As the season has gone on, Soto has more consistently found his power stroke. He caught fire in May, hitting .333/.482/.632, resulting in a 202 wRC+ that ranked third among qualified hitters that month. While he’s slowed down in June, he still carries a .302/.433/.524 line over the past six weeks. He’s drawn 29 walks against 28 strikeouts while hitting 13 doubles and five home runs over his last 36 contests.

That’s essentially the kind of production we’ve come to expect from Soto. He’s a career .282/.422/.520 hitter in just under 3000 plate appearances. He’s played essentially at that pace for a month and a half. The beginning of May is an arbitrary endpoint, of course. There’s nothing more meaningful about May 1 than there would be about April 26. It’s nevertheless encouraging to see Soto performing at his typical Nationals level for an extended stretch.

Soto is still pulling the ball on the ground a little more often than he had in prior seasons. That’s not ideal given his April comments about getting out in front of too many pitches. When he puts the ball in the air, though, he’s hitting it harder than he did at the start of the year.

The contact quality was the only potential concern. His strike zone discipline has never wavered. Soto sustaining this level will be crucial for a club that still hasn’t kicked things into gear. His hot stretch coincided with a Manny Machado injury and a dismal recent run of play from Xander Bogaerts. The offense as a whole has yet to get going, leaving the Padres with a 31-34 record heading into tonight’s series opener with the Guardians.

Fortunately for San Diego, few teams in the National League have separated themselves from the pack. The Padres are looking up at a 9.5-game deficit on the Diamondbacks in the NL West, which will obviously be difficult to close, even with more than three months remaining on the schedule. However, they’re only two and a half games behind the Giants and Brewers for the Senior Circuit’s last Wild Card spot. Aside from the Dodgers, no team in the Wild Card mix has a better run differential than San Diego’s +19 figure. Despite the mediocre start, there’s still plenty of time for the Friars to play their way into the postseason picture.

Soto should be a central part of that effort. His start in San Diego raised some eyebrows, but he’s looked much more like himself over the last six weeks. Continued production like that should quiet questions about whether his camp had made a grave mistake turning down a reported $440MM extension offer from Washington before the trade. He has a chance to make last summer and this April look like a blip. He looks on his way to doing so.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Big Hype Prospects: Encarnacion-Strand, Lawlar, Perez, Merrill, Amador

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Last week, I described how the Reds might muck about with Elly De La Cruz’s service time – if they chose to do so. Instead, they promptly promoted him. It’s always a relief to see deserving prospects promoted in a timely manner.

To date, De La Cruz is batting .364/.481/.636 in 27 plate appearances with a home run and three steals. His 37 percent strikeout rate is the lone blemish. Like the rookie version of Fernando Tatis Jr., De La Cruz has the capacity to perform despite a high strikeout rate.

Five Big Hype Prospects

Christian Encarnacion-Strand, 23, 1B/3B, CIN (AAA)
199 PA, 17 HR, .362/.427/.734

Next up in the Reds developmental pipeline is Encarnacion-Strand. Known as CES to those who like to write about him without using 28 characters, the powerful corner infielder has punished opposing pitchers to the tune of .542/.633/1.042 (1.675 OPS) in his last six games. He hit seven singles, three doubles, and three home runs over the span.

There are aspects of his game that can temper enthusiasm. There’s a risk his plate approach and high swinging strike rates could lead to high strikeout rates. At this point, he’s utterly eviscerated Triple-A. It’s time to see if those concerns are warranted. The Reds have a minor issue to resolve when it comes to selecting CES’s promotion date. Joey Votto’s rehab will end in about 12 days. His recovery in Triple-A is progressing at a slow pace. Fitting all three of CES, Votto, and Spencer Steer in the regular lineup could prove challenging – and would cost Tyler Stephenson playing time too. Such impediments shouldn’t block Encarnacion-Strand for much longer.

Jordan Lawlar, 20, SS, ARI (AA)
215 PA, 8 HR, 15 SB, .238/.335/.443

Considered one of the top athletes in the minors, Lawlar’s time in Double-A hasn’t been all that impressive. However, in the last week, he’s hitting .407/.429/.704 in 28 plate appearances. He has a 1.029 OPS over his last 73 plate appearances. It would seem he’s made an adjustment. Reports from public sources note concerns about his hit tool. Every other aspect of his game is expected to be above average. Lawlar is the penthouse apartment of prospects – he has a high floor and higher ceiling. Presently, he is on pace to debut in 2024.

Eury Perez, 20, SP, MIA (MLB)
29 IP, 9.31 K/9, 4.03 BB/9, 2.17 ERA

Perez is a big part of the Marlins recent success. Already 3-1 in just six starts, Perez hasn’t missed a beat since skipping from Double-A to the Majors in mid-May. His only truly sub-par outing occurred at Coors Field. While ERA-estimators (4.34 FIP, 4.68 xFIP) suggest he’s had some luck with run prevention, this is still an impressive performance from a young 20-year-old (he has a mid-April birthday).

A peek under the hood suggests Perez still has a thing or two to learn about using his repertoire. He’s regularly using all four of his pitches. Hitters have performed well against his 97.5-mph heater, but they’ve struggled versus the offspeed stuff. Perez features a “big” fastball. It shouldn’t perform as a below-average offering. It’s possible he’s trying to make pitches that would work in Double-A but not the Majors. As he acclimates, I expect his fastball to grade out better.

Jackson Merrill, 20, SS, SDP (A+)
206 PA, 4 HR, 8 SB, .257/.296/.387

The third-highest ranked “Jackson” on most prospect lists, Merrill was a contender for Top 10 prospect status over the offseason. He’s backed up a bit in the early going. The Midwest League happens to be one of the more difficult hitting environments in the minors. While the above triple-slash probably looks bad, it’s only six percent below the league average. Merrill is a hit-over-power prospect who produces high-quality, low-angle contact. The left-handed hitter draws a Michael Brantley comp from the folks at FanGraphs. Though injuries have reduced his developmental opportunities, he remains on pace to debut by his age 22 season.

Adael Amador, 20, 2B, COL (A+)
228 PA, 8 HR, 12 SB, .306/.392/.510

Last season, Amador profiled as a flexible utility fielder. While there’s never been any question about his feel for contact, the quality of that contact often raised eyebrows in a bad way. Amador looks “small” on the field, and that likely colored scouting reports. He’s strengthened over the last year to the point where he’s no longer seen as an ideal utility candidate. He’ll likely plant at second base for the long haul – especially with defensively adept Ezequiel Tovar ahead of him at shortstop. The switch-hitting Amador still has adjustments to make if he’s to make full use of spacious Coors Field. He taps most of his contact on the ground, though the quality of said contact has continually improved over time. Amador has more walks than strikeouts in his professional career and is running a 4.4 percent swinging strike rate this season. He should reach Double-A before much longer.

Three More

Andrew Painter, PHI (20): Painter was on pace to debut as a 19-year-old when a sprained UCL ended his Spring Training bid. He threw a 20-pitch bullpen on Saturday. The coming weeks mark an important step in his recovery.

Marcelo Mayer, BOS (20): Mayer’s time in Double-A isn’t going so hot. The shortstop is batting .154/.227/.333 in 45 plate appearances. A recent report on FanGraphs noted a mechanical shortcoming similar to Jarred Kelenic and Spencer Torkelson – namely, an issue with lifting balls low in the zone.

Connor Norby, BAL (23): There’s no question the Orioles have a lot of infield depth. I’m often asked whom I believe they’ll trade from that depth. Norby is my answer. The short right-handed hitter doesn’t have the utility of others in the system. He’s Major League adjacent and primed for a regular role within the next year. However, he profiles more like a core performer than a high-ceiling star.

Did I miss a detail or nuance? DM me on Twitter @BaseballATeam to suggest corrections.

MLBTR Poll: Will Lack Of Extension Interest From Cubs Lead To Marcus Stroman Trade?

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A little over six weeks from the trade deadline, contending clubs are beginning to identify target areas for midseason upgrades. Pitching is always in demand in the middle of the summer. D-Backs’ GM Mike Hazen has already gone on record about his desire to upgrade the staff; virtually every playoff contender surely feels they could use another arm or two.

On the rotation front, few candidates stand out more than Cubs’ righty Marcus Stroman. The sinkerballer has a $21MM player option for next season. Given his current trajectory, re-testing free agency seems the likeliest course of action. Stroman is pitching well enough he’s on pace to handily top a one-year, $21MM contract as a free agent. He’s angled publicly for an extension that’d take the opt-out off the table, though recent comments from the player cast doubt on that possibility.

Over the weekend, Stroman tweeted the Cubs currently “(weren’t) interested in exploring” an extension despite multiple attempts from his camp at Roc Nation Sports to initiate talks. He followed up in a chat with Patrick Mooney of the Athletic, saying “there’s been nothing from (the Cubs’) side. No offers, no talks, really, at all.” While there were reports that preliminary conversations had taken place during Spring Training, those evidently haven’t progressed. Stroman made clear the lack of negotiations haven’t resulted in any animosity towards the organization and stated he’s still hopeful talks will get off the ground.

“Yeah, I have no problem with them. There’s no problem. It’s just, like I said, there’s been no offer. There’s been no extension talks,” he told Mooney. “My agent and I have been very open, pretty much multiple times a month, saying, ‘Hey, let’s sit down. Let’s talk. Let’s get something done.’ There’s been nothing from their point (of view). … Yeah, I would truly love to stay a Cub. You never know how it’s going to play out. I’m also very aware of that, too. That tweet wasn’t like a shot.”

The situation has some parallels with last summer’s Willson Contreras saga. Contreras had angled publicly for an extension for months but the Cubs never seemed keen on getting a long-term deal done. Chicago wound up holding onto the catcher beyond the trade deadline but allowed him to depart in free agency, recouping a compensatory draft choice once Contreras declined a qualifying offer.

Of course, the team isn’t obligated to pursue an extension simply because the player is seeking one. Chicago wasn’t alone in having questions about Contreras’ defense. There’d similarly be risk in a long-term investment for a pitcher who recently turned 32. One can make a reasonable case for the Cubs preferring to go in different directions in both instances.

Yet the lack of extension talks raises real questions about whether Stroman will be donning a Cub uniform in August. Few viable rotation trade candidates are having as productive a season. Over 14 starts, Stroman has pitched to a 2.42 ERA across 85 2/3 innings. His 21.7% strikeout rate is narrowly a career high and almost exactly league average for a starting pitcher. Average swing-and-miss is more than enough for Stroman, who’s one of the sport’s premier ground-ball specialists at his best.

This season, the 5’7″ hurler has kept the ball on the ground 61% of the time opponents have put it in play. That’s back in line with the peak numbers he posted as an upper mid-rotation arm for the Blue Jays. Stroman’s grounder rate had dipped to a “merely” very good 50-54% range between 2019-22. It has been elite again this year, tops among the 102 starting pitchers who’ve tallied at least 50 innings.

Stroman’s arsenal isn’t much different than it was in prior seasons. He’s averaging a career-low 91.3 MPH on his sinker, while the velocity on his breaking ball and cutter aren’t much changed. He’s more consistently locating at the bottom of or below the strike zone than he had over the past few seasons, however. Hitters are having a tough time elevating the ball, diminishing the amount of damage they can do. No starter has allowed a lower slugging percentage than Stroman’s .277 mark.

Even in the absence of eye-popping whiff rates, Stroman would be an upgrade for any contender seeking starting pitching help. He’s at least better than any team’s back-of-the-rotation options and would be a strong candidate for a postseason start elsewhere.

A playoff appearance looks unlikely to come with the Cubs this year. Chicago enters play Monday carrying a 28-37 record. The dismal NL Central picture leaves them within shouting distance — they’re six and a half games behind the first-place Pirates — but they’ve dropped 24 of 38 since the start of May. They haven’t looked much better than last year’s 74-88 club. Projections from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference and Baseball Prospectus place their playoff chances between 8% and 14%. The season isn’t over, but the Cubs are longshot contenders as things stand.

The Chicago front office isn’t going to pull the plug yet. President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said last week the team was still uncertain about its deadline direction, no surprise with a month and a half of intervening games to potentially crystalize their position (link via Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times). Selling looks likelier than buying barring a surge from the team in the next few months.

If the Cubs are reluctant to engage in extension discussions with Stroman, there’s little reason not to put him on the trade market if they fall out of contention. Whether the Cubs made the right call in holding onto Contreras last summer is debatable, but they at least weren’t left empty-handed when he departed. The QO ensured they’d receive a compensatory pick, which landed 68th overall in the upcoming amateur draft.

That fallback isn’t available in Stroman’s case. The collective bargaining agreement prohibits players from receiving multiple qualifying offers in their careers. Stroman received and accepted the QO from the Mets over the 2020-21 offseason. That prevents the Cubs from making one. If Stroman tests free agency and signs elsewhere, Chicago wouldn’t get any compensation.

The player option complicates his trade status somewhat. Teams considering a Stroman deal would have to anticipate him declining and going to the open market. He’s not a true rental, though, as the option looms as a potential downside for clubs in the event his production collapses or he gets injured down the stretch. That’ll diminish the return the Cubs could’ve expected were Stroman simply in the final year of his contract. Still, there should be plenty of interest from contenders given his current form and a potentially lackluster trade market.

There aren’t many slam-dunk rotation trade candidates. The likes of Lucas Giolito, Jordan Montgomery and Jack Flaherty could wind up being available. Perhaps things eventually become dire enough for the Phillies or Padres to entertain moving Aaron Nola or Blake Snell, respectively. Eduardo Rodriguez has a tougher version of the Stroman option issue; the Detroit southpaw is guaranteed three years and $49MM beyond this season but can opt out at the end of the year. Corbin Burnes, Dylan Cease and Shane Bieber are all controllable beyond 2023.

Stroman may wind up being one of the summer’s biggest names to watch. Unless the Cubs change course — either by playing well enough to get back into the postseason mix or showing a genuine interest in an extension — he figures to find his name in plenty of rumors during deadline season.

What does the MLBTR readership anticipate happening? Will Stroman still be a Cub two months from now?

(poll link for app users)

Will The Cubs Trade Marcus Stroman This Summer?
Yes. 72.44% (2,324 votes)
No; they'll play out the season and reevaluate next winter. 15.24% (489 votes)
No; eventually they'll talk extension. 12.31% (395 votes)
Total Votes: 3,208

 

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Best Deadline Rental Returns In Recent History, No. 4: Twins Get Baseball’s Hardest-Throwing Reliever

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With the trade deadline now less than two months away, we at MLBTR are setting our sights backwards for a bit to highlight past trades of rental players to provide a loose guideline of what sort of returns fans can expect with their teams’ current rental players. With an arbitrary cutoff point of 2017-21, we’re counting down the top 10 returns that a team got when selling a rental player. We’ve already published some honorable mentions as well as entries No. 10, No. 9, No. 8, No. 7, No. 6 and No. 5. If you disagree with our rankings, let us know! It’s all part of the subjective fun! Onto No. 4…

The 2018 season marked the end of an era in Minnesota. Former No. 1 overall pick, six-time All-Star, three-time batting champion and American League MVP Joe Mauer was playing out the final season of his contract and of his career. That $184MM deal didn’t go at all as hoped, as a series of concussions forced Mauer from behind the plate to first base and surely contributed to a decline at the plate as well. The Twins hoped to bolster the roster with a series of what looked to be solid veteran pickups in the 2017-18 offseason, adding veterans Addison Reed, Lance Lynn, Jake Odorizzi, Zach Duke, Logan Morrison and Fernando Rodney via free agency and trade.

Any hopes of contending were dashed with a catastrophic start to the season, however. Minnesota started out with a solid 8-5 showing to begin the year but dropped 11 of the next 12 games, falling all the way to 9-16 on just May 1. By the time July rolled around, Minnesota was 10 games under .500 and nine games out of first place in the division.

Unsurprisingly, as the deadline approached, the Twins took the general position of sellers. Veterans Lynn, Brian Dozier and Ryan Pressly were traded away. Both Lynn and Dozier were rental players, but the returns on those deals proved negligible before long, and they were never under consideration for this series. There was one more veteran on an expiring contract that the Twins traded away, however: utilityman Eduardo Escobar.

The affable switch-hitter, then 29 years old, was in the midst of a career-best season at the plate. The D-backs, needing an upgrade in the infield and eyeing Escobar’s .274/.338/.514 batting line and 15 homers, put together a package of three players that won the bidding for Escobar: 19-year-old outfielder Gabriel Maciel, 22-year-old outfielder Ernie De La Trinidad … and a 20-year-old righty named Jhoan Duran. Given the ages of the players acquired, the Twins knew this was a long-term play at best. Only De La Trinidad, the “third” piece in the deal, was anywhere close to contributing in the Majors, and even he was just in A-ball at the time of the trade.

The D-backs got what they were hoping for out of Escobar — and then some. He slashed a solid .268/.327/.444 in Arizona following the trade but also enjoyed his time there to the point that he opted to forgo a trip to the open market in favor of a three-year, $21MM extension just days before he was slated to officially become a free agent.

Escobar was again quite good with the Diamondbacks in 2019, popping a career-high 35 home runs, 29 doubles and an MLB-best 10 triples in what’s now commonly referenced as the juiced-ball season. He struggled in the shortened 2020 campaign but rebounded nicely in 2021 — earning the lone All-Star appearance of his career to date. The D-backs were out of contention themselves in ’21 and traded Escobar to the Brewers for catcher/outfielder Cooper Hummel and infielder/outfielder Alberto Ciprian. Hummel has since been flipped to the Mariners in exchange for oft-injured former Rookie of the Year Kyle Lewis.

Looking at the Twins’ side of the deal — just as with No. 7 entry Alex Lange and the Tigers, it’s taken a few years for the results to manifest. However, the Twins have to be thrilled with Duran’s emergence as a premium reliever. The flamethrowing righty is a human highlight reel thanks to a heater that can run up to 104 mph and a splitter/sinker hybrid (“splinker”) that averages 99.1 mph and regularly crosses the plate at triple-digit velocities. Unlike many of his flamethrowing counterparts, Duran has also shown strong command. This year’s walk rate is higher than his stellar rookie campaign, but overall Duran has walked a better-than-average 7.7% of his big league opponents.

Since making his debut with the Twins early last season, Duran owns a superlative 1.75 ERA with a 33.8% strikeout rate, that 7.7% walk rate and a massive 62.6% ground-ball rate. He’s baseball’s hardest-throwing reliever and ranks at or near the top of leaderboards in opponents’ chase rate, swinging-strike rate and “expected” batting average and wOBA (per Statcast). He’s tallied 18 holds and moved into the primary closer role for Minnesota, adding 16 saves since being given the lion’s share of opportunities.

Rather quickly, Duran has thrust himself into the conversation for baseball’s best reliever. He ranks sixth among all qualified MLB relievers in ERA dating back to the beginning of the 2022 season. His strikeout rate sits ninth in that same group, and his K-BB% is 13th. Only Clay Holmes and Andre Pallante have induced ground-balls at a higher rate. Only Edwin Diaz, Andres Munoz and the previously mentioned Lange induce swinging strikes at a higher rate than Duran’s 18.2%, and only six relievers have induced chases on pitches out of the strike zone at a higher clip than Duran’s 40.3%.

Duran is the only one of the three prospects acquired for Escobar who’s panned out, but he’s panned out in a massive way and is under club control all the way through the 2027 season. Neither Maciel nor De La Trinidad is in the Twins organization anymore — and neither even climbed as high as the Triple-A level in Minnesota’s system. Had either amounted to even a fourth outfielder at the big league level, the Escobar trade could well rank even higher in this series.

Instead, it can largely be viewed as a win for both clubs, even if the Snakes would surely love to have Duran in their bullpen at present. The D-backs got a productive couple months from Escobar, extended him for three more years at a reasonable rate, got some good production from him and eventually traded him for more minor league talent. The Twins keyed in on a series of high-upside but high-risk prospects rather than lower-upside players who might’ve been closer to the big leagues. We regularly see teams acquire low-level position players with loud tools or low-level pitchers with huge arms in rental trades. The success rate on players who are that far from the Majors is understandably quite a bit lower — but the Twins’ acquisition of Duran is the exact type of jackpot all teams are trying to hit in these scenarios.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Missteps In Minor Trades Hurting The Cubs In 2023

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After ending their century-long championship drought in 2016, the Cubs struggled to maintain that level of competitiveness despite their talented roster, resulting in a massive sell-off at the 2021 trade deadline that is currently yielding promising results as the club works its way back towards contention. Though the club added quality players like Marcus Stroman, Seiya Suzuki, and Yan Gomes ahead of the 2022 season, it was nonetheless a clear rebuilding year for the Cubs as they looked to turn the page on the previous core and begin to build around younger players like Nico Hoerner and Justin Steele.

After a surprisingly strong finish to the 2022 campaign where the club posted a 40-31 record over the season’s final ten weeks, the Cubs looked to jump-start their return to contention with a significant financial outlay over the offseason. While the club downgraded at catcher by swapping out three-time All Star Willson Contreras for Tucker Barnhart, the club shored up the rotation with multiyear deals for Jameson Taillon and Drew Smyly and plugged a hole in center field by landing Cody Bellinger on a one-year deal.

Most importantly, the Cubs acquired a new face of the franchise by offering Dansby Swanson a seven-year deal worth $177MM. Early in the season, the club also extended both Nico Hoerner and Ian Happ through the end of the 2026 season, a further sign the team is committed to its current core of Swanson, Hoerner, Happ, Suzuki, and Steele. Unfortunately for Cubs fans, those deals have done little to pull the Cubs back into contention, as the team sports a 27-36 record as they sit 6.5 games out of a playoff spot while looking up at the Pirates, Brewers, and Reds in a weak NL Central division.

Still, the club has struggled to stay in the race, thanks in part to the struggles of many of those signings. Taillon has struggled through injuries and ineffectiveness in ten starts this season, Barnhart sports an OPS of just .433 and appears to have been supplanted by Miguel Amaya as Gomes’s primary backup, and the club’s offseason bullpen signings of Brad Boxberger and Michael Fulmer have combined for a whopping 27 earned runs in 41 innings of work.

That isn’t to say the moves president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and his front office made this past offseason were all mistakes; in fact, many of them have proven savvy in the early going. Swanson leads the quarter of star shortstops who hit free agency over the offseason in terms of both wRC+ and fWAR this season despite signing the smallest contract of the group, Bellinger has bounced back from two difficult seasons in LA to post above-average offensive numbers for the Cubs while Smyly has proven to be a stabilizing force in the club’s rotation with a 3.27 ERA (136 ERA+) in 13 starts for the Cubs this season.

The club has faced particularly significant issues on offense, with 267 runs scored in 2023, a figure that places them tied with the Padres for fourth-worst in the NL. With Bellinger, Happ, Suzuki, and Mike Tauchman posting strong numbers in the outfield while Swanson and Hoerner have been largely successful up the middle, the biggest culprits in the club’s lack of offense are the infield corners and the DH slot. The Cubs rank 22nd in the majors in terms of wRC+ at DH, 27th at third base, and 29th at first base.

With three key spots most lineups rely on to generate offense doing so at a well below-average rate, it’s no wonder the Cubs have frustrated with offensive struggles despite significant individual successes in 2023. To make matters worse, the club shipped out a pair of players in recent years who have proven to be major assets for their current clubs and would have surely shored up Chicago’s offense had they stuck on the roster.

Prior to the 2022 campaign, the Cubs traded right-handed slugger Harold Ramirez to the Rays for minor league infielder Esteban Quiroz just months after acquiring Ramirez from Cleveland. This move paved the way for the club to roster the likes of Michael Hermosillo and Clint Frazier as the 2022 season began, though both players struggled mightily, posting wRC+ figures of 16 and 87 during their time with the Cubs, respectively. Since joining the Rays, meanwhile, Ramirez has blossomed into a phenomenal slugger, with a .298/.342/.436 slash line (125 wRC+) in 170 games while playing first base, DH, and the outfield corners.

Had the Cubs held onto Ramirez, it seems likely they wouldn’t have felt the need to sign Mancini to fill a similar role this past offseason, opening up resources that could have been used to address a bullpen that ranks bottom four in the NL with a 4.53 ERA while improving significantly on Mancini’s own 83 wRC+ in 51 games this season.

As for third base, the Cubs entered spring training this season with a trio of infielders in consideration for two Opening Day roster spots: Nick Madrigal, Miles Mastrobuoni, and Zach McKinstry. Ultimately, McKinstry was shipped to Detroit in exchange for minor league reliever Carlos Guzman. That decision has proved to be another significant mistake, as Madrigal and Mastrobuoni have combined for -0.4 fWAR for the Cubs this season, with Madrigal’s 60 wRC+ in 35 games leading the duo offensively.

McKinstry, meanwhile, has gone on to post a breakout season for the Tigers. While playing second base, third base, shortstop, and both outfield corners, the 28-year-old utility player has posted a solid .256/.360/.388 slash line in 54 games that’s good for a wRC+ of 115. Had McKinstry remained with the Cubs, he could have shored up third base alongside Patrick Wisdom, who has struggled to a .149/.253/.310 slash line since the beginning of May, while also filling in elsewhere around the diamond during stints on the injured list for regulars like Suzuki and Hoerner.

In addition to the assistance both Ramirez and McKinstry could have provided the Cubs this season, each is controllable beyond the current campaign. The duo is expected to hit free agency after the 2025 and 2027 seasons, respectively, meaning both could have be key pieces in the lineup or on the bench with Chicago for years to come.

Many of the bigger moves the Cubs have made in recent years, such as the signings of Swanson, Stroman, and Suzuki, have worked out well to this point. Despite those successes, however, missteps regarding Ramirez and McKinstry have highlighted the importance of making the right moves at the margins when attempting to return to contention. Unless Wisdom, Christopher Morel, Trey Mancini, and Matt Mervis can collectively provide the internal improvements necessary at the infield corners to spark the offense going forward, the Cubs figure to enter the 2023-24 offseason with improving at the infield corners at the top of their to-do list.

Best Deadline Rental Returns In Recent History, #5: Pirates Get A Shortstop With Elite Tools For Tony Watson

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With the trade deadline now less than two months away, we at MLBTR are setting our sights backwards for a bit to highlight past trades of rental players to provide a loose guideline of what sort of returns fans can expect with their teams’ current rental players. With an arbitrary cutoff point of 2017-21, we’re counting down the top 10 returns that a team got when selling a rental player. We’ve already published some honorable mentions as well as entries No. 10, No. 9, No. 8, No. 7. and No. 6. If you disagree with our rankings, let us know! It’s all part of the subjective fun! Onto No. 6…

The Pirates endured a long postseason drought that spanned the changing of the millenium. They made the postseason in three straight years from 1990 to 1992 but then didn’t return for over 20 years. They had another three-year run beginning in 2013, qualifying for the Wild Card game that year as well as the next two. They couldn’t keep it going in 2016, dropping to 78-83 and missing the postseason.

The club had many star players in that time, particularly Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, Russell Martin, Gerrit Cole, Francisco Liriano and others, but one fixture of those Pittsburgh clubs was left-handed reliever Tony Watson. Drafted by the Bucs in 2007, he made it to the majors in 2011. He tossed 41 innings in his debut season with a 3.95 ERA, securing 10 holds in the process.

He would get even better in the seasons to come, his peak coinciding with those postseason years for the Pirates. He had a miniscule 1.63 ERA in 77 1/3 innings in 2014, striking out 26.6% of batters faced while walking 4.9% and getting grounders on 47.7% of balls in play. He only notched a couple of saves as Mark Melancon was in the closer’s role, but Watson tallied 34 holds.

Watson’s effectiveness would fade a bit in the subsequent seasons, hardly a surprise given that his excellent 2014 campaign would be almost impossible to maintain. His ERA climbed to 1.91 in 2015 and then 3.06 in 2016. His strikeout rate also fell to 21.2% and 21.3% in those seasons. Nonetheless, he was still a very effective relief pitcher.

The Pirates weren’t able to bounce back from their down season in 2016. At the end of July 2017, they were sporting a record of 51-54, fourth place in the National League Central and 8.5 games back in the Wild Card race. Watson was pitching fine that year, with a 3.66 ERA at the time. But since he was just a few months away from free agency and the club was struggling, it made sense to move on.

Watson had spent his entire career with the Pirates up until he was traded to the Dodgers on July 31, 2017. He made 24 appearances for his new club with a 2.70 ERA as they finished 104-58, the best record in the majors. He made 11 more appearances in the postseason with a 2.70 ERA. The Dodgers eventually lost the World Series in what will go down as a major “what if” since it was the now-infamous sign-stealing Astros club that emerged victorious in seven games.

In exchange for Watson, the Pirates got a couple of younger players from the Dodgers. One of them was 21-year-old right-hander Angel German. He wasn’t considered a top prospect but had a 1.91 ERA in Single-A that year. Unfortunately, he bumped that to a 6.92 ERA in High-A in 2018 and then a 4.33 in Double-A in 2019. He reached free agency and signed a minor league deal with the Rays going into 2020, but was released in May of 2020 amid the pandemic shutdown. He hasn’t pitched in an official capacity since.

The other player in the deal was 18-year-old infielder Oneil Cruz. He had signed with the Dodgers in July of 2015 as a 16-year-old international amateur, securing a bonus of $950K. He played in the Dominican Summer League in 2016, hitting .294/.367/.444 in 211 plate appearances and stealing 11 bases.

Going into 2017, Baseball America ranked him the #27 prospect in the Dodgers system and their report highlighted something that has been a subject of interest in the years since: his size. “Cruz is a great example of the challenges unique to international scouting,” the report states. “As a 15-year-old working out for clubs in the Dominican Republic, Cruz was a 6-foot-1 shortstop. By the time he signed with the Dodgers for $950,000 as a 16-year-old, Cruz had shot up to 6-foot-4. He grew taller after signing, and by the time the 2016 Dominican Summer League season began, he was pushing 6-foot-6.”

Cruz actually was slumping in the first half of 2017, as he was hitting just .240/.293/.342 in 89 Single-A games. He had eight home runs and eight stolen bases but was striking out at a 29.3% clip. Nonetheless, the Pirates decided to take a gamble on him and brought him aboard in the Watson deal.

Six years later, it certainly seems like it was a worthwhile gamble. Cruz has risen through the ranks over the years, becoming a top 100 prospect thanks to his elite tools. He got a very brief two-game cup of coffee in the majors at the end of 2021 but then was sent back to the minors at the start of 2022. He was recalled in June and showed both the reasons for his prospect hype but also the concerning parts of his game.

Cruz has arguably the best raw athletic traits of any player in the league. His 122.4 mph maximum exit velocity was tops in the majors last year. His sprint speed was in the 98th percentile. His arm strength was in the 97th percentile. In short, he can hit for power, run and throw among the best in the world.

But one of the major questions around Cruz as a prospect was whether his height, now 6’7″, would prevent him from playing shortstop. No one that size had ever successfully played the position before. The other question was whether or not his penchant for strikeouts would become too much of a problem. Neither of those questions were definitively answered last year.

Despite hitting 17 home runs in 87 games, Cruz went down on strikes in 34.9% of his plate appearances. Among players with at least 350 trips to the plate, only Joey Gallo and Chris Taylor were punched out at a higher rate. On the defensive side of things, the reviews were mixed. Defensive Runs Saved gave him a grade of +1, but Ultimate Zone Rating came in at -7.5 and Outs Above Average at -9.

2023 was going to be an important season for Cruz, still just 24, to show the Pirates if he were capable of improving in either of those areas. Unfortunately, after just nine games, he suffered an ankle fracture during an awkward slide in a close play at home plate. The estimated timeline on that injury was four months, meaning he could be back in August if that prediction holds.

It’s still unknown whether Cruz will reach his full potential or not. Despite the injury setback, the Pirates have time to find out, as Cruz isn’t slated for free agency until after 2028. He and the club have also discussed an extension that could potentially keep him around even longer. Regardless of how it plays out, the Pirates have a player who arguably has one of the highest ceilings in the sport. If he takes a step forward in terms of defense and plate discipline, his tools will give him the chance to be one of the best players in the league.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Best Deadline Rental Returns In Recent History, #6: The Cubs’ Fire Sale

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With the trade deadline now less than two months away, we at MLBTR are setting our sights backwards for a bit to highlight past trades of rental players to provide a loose guideline of what sort of returns fans can expect with their teams’ current rental players. With an arbitrary cutoff point of 2017-21, we’re counting down the top 10 returns that a team got when selling a rental player. We’ve already published some honorable mentions as well as entries No. 10, No. 9, No. 8 and No. 7. If you disagree with our rankings, let us know! It’s all part of the subjective fun! Onto No. 6…

The 2021 season marked a turning point in Cubs franchise history. Half a decade had elapsed since the team’s curse-breaking 2016 World Series run. The “dynasty” chatter that followed that seven-game victory over Cleveland never really manifested into reality. Chicago was a perennial contender, but that vaunted Cubs core never reached the World Series again and only won one game beyond the National League Division Series before the group was suddenly nearing the end of its time together.

Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, Willson Contreras, Kyle Schwarber, Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks was a sensational group of talent around which to build, but Hendricks was the only one of the bunch to put pen to paper on an extension. The group continued inching closer to free agency, and as Lester and Arrieta declined in their latter years in Chicago, some of the shine wore off. The Cubs were a good team, but year after year, the season ended with now-former president of baseball operations Theo Epstein making similar comments about how the “offense broke” or something else went wrong.

Following a 2020 season that saw the Cubs swept out of a three-game Wild Card series against the Marlins in the expanded playoff format, Epstein stepped down from his role as president and turned baseball autonomy over to Jed Hoyer. It was baptism by fire in every sense of the cliche, as Hoyer faced a series of unenviable decisions, beginning with Schwarber. Fresh off a .188/.308/.393 showing in 244 plate appearances in 2020, Schwarber was non-tendered rather than offered a raise heading into his final year of arbitration. Not four weeks later, Yu Darvish was traded to the Padres in a salary-motivated deal that has to date produced just one prospect of any note (Owen Caissie).

Decision time was only just beginning for Hoyer and his staff. The Cubs would need to determine how to proceed with the trio of Bryant, Rizzo and Baez, each of whom were slated to become free agents following the 2021 season. Prior extension talks had never resulted in a deal — though Baez was reportedly quite close to signing before baseball grinded to a halt with the Covid pandemic in 2020. Chicago made one final effort to extend Rizzo that spring, but he spurned their five-year, $70MM offer (and has since banked three years and $56MM in guaranteed money with the Yankees).

The Cubs could’ve traded any of the bunch that offseason, and Bryant’s name in particular echoed throughout the rumor mill as much as it ever had. Ultimately, all three stayed put, and thus the ensuing narratives that would dominate the 2021 Cubs season were set into motion. Would any of Bryant, Baez or Rizzo stay? Was the core finally breaking up? Was this the team’s last chance?

The lackluster offseason headlined by trading the prior season’s Cy Young runner-up should’ve answered that final question on its own, but the Cubs surprised plenty of onlookers by not only fielding a competitive team but vying for first place in the division for much of the first few months. As late into the season as June 24, the Cubs were eight games over .500 and in a first-place tie for the NL Central lead with the Brewers.

A subsequent 11-game losing streak — the first of two 11-game losing streaks for that year’s Cubs — removed all doubt, however. By July 8, the Cubs were below .500, and the surging Brewers had remained hot. They held a 9.5-game lead over the second-place Reds, with Chicago and St. Louis tied for third in the division. The fire sale was coming, and virtually everyone knew it.

Rizzo was the first to go. A July 29 deal sent him to the Yankees in exchange for 19-year-old outfielder Kevin Alcantara and 24-year-old righty Alexander Vizcaino. A day later, Baez was following Rizzo out of Wrigley. Traded alongside right-hander Trevor Williams, Baez went to the Mets in exchange for 19-year-old outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong. For the next 24 hours, there were serious questions about whether a trade for Bryant would ultimately come together, but in a buzzer-beating deal, Bryant was shipped to the Giants in exchange for 21-year-old outfielder Alexander Canario and 24-year-old righty Caleb Kilian.

You can perhaps call the inclusion of Baez cheating a little bit for the purposes of this series, because Williams’ inclusion meant it wasn’t *technically* a rental. The Mets acquired two months of control over Baez and a year-plus of Williams in this swap. That extra year of control over Williams surely factored into the decision to part with Crow-Armstrong to an extent, but this was a trade about acquiring Baez first and foremost. Baez caught fire down the stretch for the Mets, too, posting a huge .299/.371/.515 slash in 186 plate appearances. The Mets still missed postseason, however, and the trade surely stings when looking at what’s become of the player they surrendered.

Fast forward less than two years, and “PCA” is regarded as one of the sport’s top outfield prospects. He’s ranked within the top-30 overall prospects in the sport on the most recent lists Baseball America, MLB.com, FanGraphs and Keith Law of The Athletic. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel has the “low” ranking on Crow-Armstrong… at No. 39 in the game. Regarded as plus-plus defender in center field with plus speed, Crow-Armstrong has opened the season with a .278/.345/.513 showing in Double-A (131 wRC+). He’s knocked eight homers, seven doubles and three of triples while going 13-for-17 in steals.

Obviously, the Cubs haven’t yet gotten any big league value out of Crow-Armstrong, but it’s rare for a team to acquire a prospect in exchange for a rental and see him almost immediately ascend to the point that he’s regarded as one of the top 15 to 30 prospects in all of baseball. If the Cubs wanted to do so — they surely don’t, to be clear — they could use Crow-Armstrong as a headline piece to acquire just about any controllable veteran who hits the market this summer or next offseason. The likelier path for PCA is that he’ll be given every opportunity to become a franchise center fielder for a still-retooling Cubs club.

There’s no nitpicking with the other two swaps in this three-for-one entry. Rizzo and Bryant were shipped out as two-month mercenaries in exchange for a quartet of prospects, although Rizzo took to the Bronx quite nicely and is now locked in as a Yankee through the 2024 season. There was plenty for the Yankees to like, as Rizzo hit .249/.340/.428 (113 wRC+) down the stretch, swatting eight homers and seven postseason doubles before tacking on another dinger in that year’s Wild Card loss to the Red Sox. In parts of three seasons as a Yankee, Rizzo is a .245/.344/.468 hitter with 51 home runs.

I doubt the Yankees regret making this swap, but it’s worked out nicely for the Cubs as well. Alcantara, now 20 years old, isn’t as highly regarded as Crow-Armstrong, but he entered the season ranked No. 91 on Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect rankings. He’s dropped off that list after a slow start in High-A (.250/.281/.389), but he still sits at No. 75 at FanGraphs and is generally a very well regarded prospect.

It’s worth bearing in mind that those pedestrian High-A numbers have been posted against competition that is, on average, nearly two and a half years older than Alcantara. The towering 6’6″ toolbox is also just a season removed from a much heartier .273/.360/.451 showing in Class-A, where he was nearly two years younger than the league’s average player. He’s a ways off, but like Crow-Armstrong, Alcantara has significantly elevated his stock since that 2021 trade. If the Cubs were so inclined, he too could be a significant piece in any potential deadline trade for controllable big league help. That’s not likely to happen — granted, it’s a bit more plausible with Alcantara than with Crow-Armstrong — but Alcantara has become a reasonably high-profile prospect.

That’s not the case with the now-26-year-old Vizcaino, though the circumstances surrounding his departure from baseball remain unclear. The Cubs placed Vizcaino on the restricted list in 2022  after he failed to report to spring training. He spent the entire year on the restricted list. The Cubs non-tendered him last offseason, and he didn’t sign with another team. Details surrounding Vizcaino’s abrupt departure from the game are basically nonexistent. The obvious hope is that he’s happy and healthy wherever he’s at, but it’s a disappointing outcome for the Cubs.

As for the third and final chapter of this deadline trio, Bryant proved an important pickup for the Giants. True, San Francisco would’ve made the postseason regardless, evidenced by their MLB-best 107 wins that season, but they edged out the division-rival Dodgers for that NL West crown by a margin of just one game. Bryant’s solid .262/.344/.444 slash may not have been in line with his peak form, but he contributed a meaningful presence in the Giants’ lineup down the stretch. They’d go on to fall to those same Dodgers in the National League Division Series, but not through any fault of Bryant’s. He delivered an 8-for-17 performance in the NLDS, adding a homer and a walk with only three strikeouts in 18 total trips to the plate.

Unlike with the other two trades, Cubs fans have at least gotten a look at one element of this return, although the now-26-year-old Kilian’s big league work to date hasn’t been pretty. The 6’4″ righty is still widely regarded as one of the organization’s best pitching prospects, but he’s been tagged for 20 earned runs in 14 2/3 innings through a pair of very limited auditions. He’s pitched 148 Triple-A innings as a starter over the past two seasons, logging a 4.32 ERA with a 24.2% strikeout rate against an 11.1% walk rate.

Command wasn’t an issue for him prior to reaching Triple-A, but he struggled with walks last year. It’s encouraging that he’s walked just 6.8% of his opponents over his past seven Triple-A starts, pitching to a 3.09 ERA along the way, but Kilian has also plunked six hitters in that time so he’s not out of the woods with his shaky location just yet. He’s in the mix to come up and make some starts this year still, and depending on how he fares, Kilian could be a candidate for a rotation spot either later this season or in 2024.

As for Canario, he finished second among all minor leaguers with 37 home runs in 2022 and hit .252/.343/.556 across High-A, Double-A and Triple-A. He added 23 steals (in 26 tries) and walked at an 11% clip, though his 27.5% strikeout rate was more concerning. Baseball America calls him a potential low-average slugger with plenty of walks, above-average speed and above-average defense in right field. He hasn’t yet gotten a chance to build on last year’s breakout, as he dislocated his shoulder while playing in the Dominican Winter League.

We’re just shy of two years removed from the Cubs’ deadline fire sale, and while it’s still early to grade the overall strength of their return, things are looking promising. To trade three rental players and come away with a pair of top-100 prospects — including one who’s widely ranked in the top 25 — as well as a near-MLB starting pitcher and a strikeout-prone but prodigious slugging outfielder with power, speed and defensive upside is objectively impressive.

On the one hand, it’s a testament to the caliber of the players the Cubs were trading, but not all trades of star players result in this type of return. The Orioles have still barely gotten anything from the Manny Machado trade nearly five years after its completion. The Rangers’ trade of Darvish to the Dodgers netted them one immediate top prospect, but two years after the deal that prospect (Willie Calhoun) was already looking like a questionable big leaguer.

The tail-end of the development phase for the prospects acquired here — particularly Crow-Armstrong — will define this series of trades. But four of the five prospects acquired in this slate of trades have enhanced their stock since joining the Cubs, who now have a handful of near-MLB-ready talent and/or trade chips to show for parting with a trio of popular veterans. The 2021 trade deadline was a dark few days for Cubs fans, but there’s a good chance it’ll wind up leading to some brighter times ahead.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Best Deadline Rental Returns In Recent History, #7: Tigers Land A Closer For Castellanos

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With the trade deadline now less than two months away, we at MLBTR are setting our sights backwards for a bit to highlight past trades. With an arbitrary cutoff point of 2017, we’re counting down the top 10 returns that a team got when selling a rental player. We’re on to #7 in our series, looking back four years to a last-minute 2019 swap.

The Cubs entered deadline season nearing the end of their contention window. Chicago had snapped their World Series drought three years prior. While the Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Báez, Willson Contreras and Kyle Hendricks core never returned to the Fall Classic and fell short of dynastic expectations some observers had heaped on them, Chicago remained a good club. They went to the NL Championship Series in 2017 and made the playoffs again the following season, losing to the Rockies in the Wild Card game.

Nicholas Castellanos

Chicago’s then-Theo Epstein led front office set out to bolster the roster further in hopes of securing a fifth straight playoff berth. They sat at 56-50 heading into play on July 31, a game back of the Cardinals in the NL Central. The Cubs looked to inject some life into an offense that had ranked 14th in run scoring to that point. The addition: corner outfielder Nick Castellanos in a swap sending prospects Alex Lange and Paul Richan to the Tigers.

Castellanos was amidst a relative down season at the time of the trade. While he’d hit .298/.354/.500 the prior year, the right-handed hitter was carrying a .273/.328/.462 line midway through a ’19 campaign that had seen a home run explosion around the league. The Cubs looked past that comparatively slow start.

In return, they dealt a pair of fairly recent high draft choices to a Detroit club that was midway through a full-scale rebuild and en route to one of the worst seasons in history (47-114). Lange had been the 30th overall pick in 2017 after helping LSU to the College World Series finals. Richan was a second round draftee the next season out of the University of San Diego. Lange had posted middling minor league numbers up through Double-A; Richan had a solid but not overwhelming High-A performance.

It was a bit of a buy-low situation for the Detroit front office. Both pitchers had seen their prospect stock hit a down ebb. The Tigers immediately moved Lange from the rotation to the bullpen, hoping that a simplified repertoire and shorter stints would mitigate longstanding questions about his delivery and command. Detroit surely believed he’d be a viable MLB reliever but probably didn’t anticipate this level of dominance.

Lange debuted in 2021 and posted a 4.04 ERA in 35 2/3 middle relief innings. He took his game to a new level last season, significantly upping his swing-and-miss to force his way into higher-leverage spots. Lange tossed 63 1/3 frames of 3.41 ERA ball while punching out more than 30% of opposing hitters. An absurd 19% swinging strike rate — bettered only by Edwin Díaz and Andrés Muñoz among qualified relievers — suggested the potential to push the strikeouts even further. Paired with an absurd 55.6% ground-ball rate, Lange demonstrated an ultra-rare combination of whiffs and unthreatening contact. He was one of just five relievers (min. 30 innings) to record both a strikeout rate above 30% and a grounder percentage north of 55%.

In his second full MLB campaign, Lange has indeed upped the strikeouts. Entering play Thursday, he’s punched out 35% of batters faced. Lange carries a 2.55 ERA in 24 2/3 innings and been entrusted with the ninth inning by manager A.J. Hinch. The 27-year-old has saved 10 of 11 opportunities. He was blown up for four runs in a third of an inning by the White Sox in his most recent appearance, but Lange has made 17 scoreless outings and recorded multiple strikeouts on 14 occasions.

Lange’s control still comes and goes. He’s walked at least 9.9% of opponents in all three of his big league campaigns. That includes a lofty 13% walk percentage thus far in 2023. Yet he’s been so dominant at his best that he’s able to navigate the free passes. Since the start of the 2022 campaign, opponents are hitting .190/.298/.292 in 371 trips to the plate.

The Tigers didn’t get anything out of Richan. He topped out at Double-A and was released last September. Hitting to the extent they have on Lange has more than made up for Richan stalling out from Detroit’s perspective. They landed a high-leverage reliever who has shown impact talent. If Lange dials in his control, he could be one of the three to five best late-game arms in the sport. Even if he’s “only” an All-Star caliber hurler, that’s a great pull for a player who was two months from free agency. The Tigers forfeited the chance to recoup a draft pick via the qualifying offer for Castellanos’ departure but Lange has been far better than the expected value of a choice landing at the end of the first round.

Lange is under club control through the 2027 campaign. He entered this season with one year and 112 days of service time, so he’ll head into next offseason at 2.112 service years. That could leave him just shy of the cutoff for early arbitration as a Super Two player, which has landed between 2.115 and 2.134 years over the past five winters. Even if Lange does get to arbitration next season, four years of arb control for a pitcher of his caliber is a massive asset.

The Tigers’ rebuild has stagnated, leading to a front office shakeup last summer. While Detroit is only 3 1/2 games out in the AL Central right now, they’re seven games under .500 and have been outscored by 70 runs. This isn’t a likely playoff contender even in the sport’s worst division. As a result, other clubs have called on Detroit’s relievers (Lange included) about a potential deadline deal.

With their extended control window, there’s no pressure on president of baseball operations Scott Harris and his staff to pull the trigger. They dealt shorter-term relievers like Joe Jiménez and Gregory Soto over the winter but moving Lange would be at another level of boldness. The more probable outcome is that Lange will stick around into next season, hopefully anchoring a bullpen for the next competitive Detroit club.

From the Cubs’ perspective, the trade had mixed results. Had they anticipated Lange being this good, they wouldn’t have made him available for a rental. Castellanos validated their optimism, though, rebounding from his middle-of-the-road start with a torrid stretch. He slashed .321/.356/.646 with an absurd 16 home runs in 51 games. Castellanos earned a $64MM guarantee from the Reds the ensuing offseason. His Cincinnati deal afforded a post-2021 opt-out clause which he leveraged into a $100MM contract from Philadelphia on the heels of another excellent season.

Even with Castellanos hitting at a top 20 level down the stretch, the Cubs never kicked into another gear. They’d go 27-28 from August onward. Chicago ended third in the division and five games behind the Brewers for the last postseason spot. They returned to the playoffs during the abbreviated 2020 campaign but were swept in the first round by the Marlins. Chicago hasn’t gotten back to the postseason since and is going on six years dating back to their last playoff win.

Previous installments: honorable mentions, Drew Smith/Lucas Duda (#10), Steve Pearce/Santiago Espinal (#9), Lane Thomas/Jon Lester (#8)

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Best Deadline Rental Returns In Recent History, #8: Nationals Get Everyday Outfielder For Jon Lester

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With the trade deadline now less than two months away, we at MLBTR are setting our sights backwards for a bit to highlight past trades. With an arbitrary cutoff point of 2017, we’re counting down the top 10 returns that a team got when selling a rental player in recent years. We’ve already published some honorable mentions, the #10 entry and the #9 deal. If you disagree with our rankings, let us know! It’s all part of the subjective fun! Onto #8…

The Nationals were consistently competitive in the second decade of the millennium, finishing with a winning record in each season from 2012 to 2019. They qualified for the postseason five times in that stretch and won the World Series in that final year.

The next decade got off to a rough start, as they went 26-34 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. Nonetheless, they went into 2021 with some excellent players still on the roster, including Juan Soto, Trea Turner and Max Scherzer. They fortified that group by trading for Josh Bell and giving one-year deals to Brad Hand, Kyle Schwarber and Jon Lester.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t get things back on track that season and had a record of 48-55 on July 30. They were in fourth place in the National League East, seven games behind the Mets with Philadelphia and Atlanta between them. They were even further back in the Wild Card race, 11 games, as the West featured three excellent clubs in the Giants, Dodgers and Padres.

That put them into sell mode at the deadline and they did plenty of it. Each of Turner, Scherzer, Hand and Schwarber were traded, as were Yan Gomes, Josh Harrison and Daniel Hudson. The deal that sent Scherzer and Turner to the Dodgers technically wasn’t a rental trade, as Turner had another year of control, so we didn’t consider it for this series. Those other deals mostly yielded players that are still in the minors as of this writing. But in addition to all those, the Nats also made a trade that sent Lester to the Cardinals in exchange for MLB-ready outfielder Lane Thomas, who we will get to in a moment.

Jon Lester | John Hefti-USA TODAY SportsLester had already had a very impressive career that began back in 2006. He had many great seasons with the Red Sox and Cubs and already had three World Series rings. In 2021, he was 37 years old and had naturally fallen off a bit from his peak. His ERA went from 3.32 in 2018 to 4.46 the year after and 5.16 in the shortened 2020 season.

The Nats felt he still had something left in the tank and signed him to a one-year, $5MM deal. Lester made 16 starts for the Nationals with a 5.02 ERA. His 14.9% strikeout rate was a noticeable drop from his peak years but his 8.5% walk rate and 42% ground ball rate were around league average. In short, he was a back-of-the-rotation starter, which is just what the Cardinals needed.

Their rotation had been sliced up by injuries to Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas, Carlos Martínez, Dakota Hudson and others. Despite that, they were hovering above .500 and in the playoff race. They didn’t go after aces that summer, just guys who could take the ball and give them a chance, figuring that a modest stabilization of the rotation could be enough for them to improve their fortunes. They grabbed 36-year-old Wade LeBlanc, 38-year-old J.A. Happ and the 37-year-old Lester to fortify things alongside 39-year-old Adam Wainwright.

The gambit would pay off for St. Louis as they finished strong. Lester did his job by making 12 starts with a 4.36 ERA. The Cards ended the season at 90-72, securing a playoff spot, though they lost the Wild Card game to the Dodgers.

For the Nats, they weren’t able to make much use of Lester’s services, so it was a logical move to swap him out for a promising outfielder in Thomas. He had made his major league debut with the Cardinals in 2019 and hit an excellent .316/.409/.684 in 44 plate appearances but was nonetheless frequently optioned to the minors. Despite his strong results, he was squeezed out of the St. Louis outfield that also featured the likes of Dexter Fowler, Marcell Ozuna, Harrison Bader, José Martínez, Tyler O’Neill and others.

Thomas would continue to get sporadic playing time in the next couple of seasons. He only got into 18 games in the 2020 season and then 32 more in 2021 prior to the trade. He struggled badly in those two cups of coffee, hitting just .107/.235/.179, but continued showing his promise in the minors. He was slashing .265/.339/.451 in Triple-A at the time of the deal.

The Nationals likely hoped that Thomas would thrive with a better path to playing time, and that has largely proven to be true. He was briefly kept in Triple-A after the deal but was called up after just three games. He hit .270/.364/.489 at the major league level in the final few weeks of 2021, launching seven home runs and stealing four bases in just 45 games.

2022 saw him finally get the everyday gig he didn’t get in St. Louis, as he tallied 548 plate appearances in 146 games. It wasn’t a spectacular showing, but he was serviceable. He hit 17 home runs and stole eight bases, though his 7.5% walk rate and 24.1% strikeout rate were both slightly worse than average. His .241/.301/.404 batting line amounted to a wRC+ of 96 and he was worth 1.1 wins above replacement on the year according to FanGraphs, 1.6 at Baseball Reference.

Things are going better here in 2023, as he already has nine home runs and five steals. His plate discipline numbers are fairly similar, but he’s hitting .281/.336/.455 for a wRC+ of 114. His .350 batting average on balls in play is much higher than last year’s .291, but that can’t be entirely dismissed as just good luck since his hard hit rate, barrel rate and average exit velocity have also increased compared to a year ago.

Defensively, Thomas isn’t considered an excellent fielder, which is surprising considering his 95th percentile sprint speed. Nonetheless, he’s capable of holding his own at any of the three outfield slots, which is useful for a rebuilding club that is rotating through various players on a regular basis. He qualified for arbitration for the first time in the most recent offseason and is making $2.2MM this year. He’ll be eligible for two more passes before he’s slated for free agency after 2025.

Whether the Nats can come out of their rebuild in that time frame remains to be seen. But even in the event that they linger outside of contention for a while, they could always market Thomas and his remaining control to other clubs around the league.

In the end, both teams got what they wanted out of the deal. The Cards firmed up their rotation as hoped and were able to make a late charge and earn a playoff spot, while the Nats turned a couple months of a veteran pitcher into four and a half years of a solid outfielder who has stepped into an everyday role.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Best Deadline Rental Returns In Recent History, #9: Blue Jays Get Santiago Espinal For Steve Pearce

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With the trade deadline now less than two months away, we at MLBTR are setting our sights backwards for a bit to highlight past trades. With an arbitrary cutoff point of 2017, we’re counting down the top 10 returns that a team got when selling a rental player in recent years. We’ve already rounded up a few honorable mentions and highlighted the #10 entry. Now let’s move on to #9, with eight more still to come. If you disagree with our rankings, let us know! It’s all part of the subjective fun!

In 2018, the Blue Jays were in between eras. The previous core that took them to the ALCS in 2015 and 2016 was essentially gone. José Bautista bounced from Atlanta to the Mets to the Phillies in what would eventually be his final season. Edwin Encarnación was with Cleveland. Josh Donaldson was still technically on the team but spent most of the year on the injured list and eventually got flipped to Cleveland in a waiver trade as the season was winding down. The Jays leaders in WAR at Baseball Reference and FanGraphs were Justin Smoak and Randal Grichuk, respectively. The club and its fans were looking forward to a new core formed by prospects like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette though they wouldn’t debut until the following season.

As the Jays got to June 29, they were sporting a record of 38-43. Though that was just a few games below .500, they were already well back in the postseason race. The Yankees were at 53-26 while the Red Sox were 55-28, leaving the Jays 16 games back in the AL East. One of those clubs was also a lock for a Wild Card spot, of which there were only two at the time. With the Mariners and Athletics also off to good starts, the Jays were already 13 games back in the Wild Card race.

The trade deadline was still a month away but there was little reason for the Jays not to consider selling. Steve Pearce was an obvious candidate to move, as he was an impending free agent in his age-35 season. The Jays had signed him to a two-year, $12.5MM deal going into 2017. Pearce had long been an effective role player in the majors, carrying himself well at the plate while also having enough defensive versatility to play first base or the outfield corners. He had also had brief spells at second and third base, though 2016 was the last year for him at either of those spots.

Of course, as a role player, there were weak points to his game as well. For one thing, he was best utilized in the weak side of a platoon, as a right-handed hitter who fared much better against lefties. He eventually finished his career with a robust .264/.347/.491 line against southpaws that translated into a 126 wRC+. His output against righties was .247/.324/.410 for a 100 wRC+, or league average.

Another issue with Pearce was health, as he had made frequent trips to the injured list for various ailments in his career. The 102 games he played with the Orioles in 2014 were the most he ever tallied. Those injury concerns continued into his time with the Blue Jays, as he only played 92 games in 2017 thanks in part to a calf injury that cost him over a month. In 2018, he landed on the IL in early May with an oblique strain and didn’t return until June 22.

Nonetheless, the Red Sox were intrigued enough by Pearce to acquire him just a week after he came off the injured list. The Jays included $1.66MM in the deal, a bit more than half of what Pearce was still owed for the remainder of the campaign. That was surely important to the Sox at the time as it kept them from going more than $40MM beyond that year’s luxury tax line, as doing so would have meant their top draft pick in the 2019 draft was pushed back by 10 spots. The club did eventually go over that line by acquiring Nathan Eovaldi and Ian Kinsler at the deadline, but the Jays eating some money in the Pearce deal kept the Sox shy of that line for the time being as they contemplated their options.

In exchange for giving up Pearce and a bit of money, the Jays received infielder Santiago Espinal. A 10th-round draft pick of the Sox in 2016, his prospect stock was on the rise at the time of the deal. In 2017, he had hit just four home runs in 123 Single-A games, slashing .280/.334/.358 for a wRC+ of 102. In the first half of 2018, he already had seven home runs in 65 High-A games, leading to a .313/.363/.477 slash and 136 wRC+.

Espinal then went through Double-A and Triple-A in 2019 before making his major league debut in the shortened 2020 season. His .267/.308/.333 line that year wasn’t especially impressive, but he got strong defensive grades playing mostly shortstop, as Bichette spent close to a month on the injured list with a knee sprain.

At the very least, Espinal seemed like a solid depth piece but he moved a bit beyond that in the next two seasons, earning fairly regular playing time. In 2021, he was frequently optioned to the minors and also spent close to a month on the injured list due to a hip flexor strain but still got into 92 games. The club had signed Marcus Semien to play second base and bumped Cavan Biggio to third, but Biggio made multiple trips to the IL due to back issues. Espinal filled in admirably with a .311/.376/.405 line, stealing six bases and getting good defensive grades at the hot corner. He finished that year with 1.9 wins above replacement in the eyes of FanGraphs and 2.4 according to Baseball Reference.

Going into 2022, Semien signed with the Rangers and the Jays acquired Matt Chapman to play third, moving the Espinal/Biggio tandem over to second base. Espinal ended up essentially as an everyday player, getting 491 plate appearances in 135 games. His .267/.322/.370 line amounted to a wRC+ of 99 while he also swiped another six bags and continued to be graded very well on defense. He was selected to the All-Star team that summer and eventually tallied 2.3 fWAR and 2.2 bWAR.

Espinal started 2023 slow and just came back from the injured list this evening, but the Jays have to be quite happy with how the trade turned out. They exchanged a 35-year-old role player and impending free agent for a prospect who has become a valuable supporting member of their new competitive window. He has already tallied 4.3 fWAR for his career and 5.0 bWAR and can be retained via arbitration through 2026.

Of course, the Red Sox have no regrets about their end of the deal. Pearce stayed healthy for the remainder of 2018 and went on a tear. He hit seven home runs in 50 games for the Sox down the stretch, slashing .279/.394/.507 for a wRC+ of 143 as Boston went 108-54, their best record in franchise history. They then cruised through the postseason, beating the Yankees 3-1 in the ALDS, the Astros 4-1 in the ALCS and the Dodgers 4-1 in the World Series. Pearce hit four home runs in that postseason run and produced a line of .289/.426/.658. Three of those home runs came in the World Series, including two in the final game, leading to Pearce being named MVP of the series.

The Sox re-signed Pearce for 2019, but he got into just 29 games while dealing with back spasms in what ultimately proved to be his final season. Nonetheless, this looks like a trade that worked out extremely well for both sides. The Sox got a complementary player who caught fire at the right time and helped them win a title. The Jays, meanwhile, weren’t in a position to take advantage of that explosion but turned it into a solid piece of their future.

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