Nationals Preparing For Possibility Of Selling At Deadline
The Nationals are engaging in discussions with rival organizations regarding the possibility of moving several veteran players, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (Twitter links). Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic hears similarly, writing in a subscription post that ownership is increasingly inclined to cut its losses (including the financial ones) to the extent possible.
Notably, the Nats have not yet committed to any particular direction at the deadline. But they appear to be getting the process started in case they decide to move rental pieces. According to the report, the D.C. organization has indicated it will set its course by the end of the weekend — at which point we’ll be just two days away from the trade deadline.
While the Nats are one game under .500, there is still a glimmer of hope. Neither of the two leading teams in the division — the Phillies and Braves — have run away with things, or (to this point) made any significant deadline improvements. Projections still tend to see it as a closer race, as they presume the Nationals will receive enhanced production from some key players down the stretch.
Of course, the long-awaited spark has yet to occur for the Nats. And the team just received another gut punch today with the news that Stephen Strasburg is headed back to the DL. It doesn’t help that the Wild Card race includes quite a few contestants, meaning it isn’t an obviously better path into the postseason.
It would certainly be difficult for the Nationals to give up on the current season — and not just because that’d be a bitter pill to swallow for a club that entered the season as a clear division favorite that hoped finally to advance through the postseason. The team would also face a less-than-clear situation in deciding what assets to move.
Passan suggests that the focus would likely be on rental relievers. Ryan Madson ($7.5MM salary), Kelvin Herrera ($7.9375MM), and Shawn Kelley ($5.5MM) are all potential chips who’d be of interest to other organizations, perhaps bringing back some prospects and trimming some salary obligations. But whether it makes sense to stop there would make for a tough question.
For his part, Rosenthal says expressly what Passan more or less implies: the Nats aren’t much interested in moving star outfielder Bryce Harper even if they part with other pieces. President of baseball operations/GM Mike Rizzo has indicated that a move on Harper would only be considered in an “extreme” scenario, though presumably that’s much the same situation that would justify the parting with relief assets.
Bidding adieu to Harper now might be difficult, but it’d also be the best possible way for the club to begin a new era without him on good footing. Of course, if the Nats intend to make a full run at bringing him back from the open market, they may well prefer not to set him free now. And it’s also fair to wonder whether the return will be all that great given Harper’s struggles and hefty ($21.625MM) salary.
Harper really isn’t the only established non-reliever who could conceivably be viewed as a trade chip if things head in that direction. For instance, starter Gio Gonzalez and infielder Daniel Murphy are also slated to reach free agency at season’s end, though certainly neither is in top form. Slugger Matt Adams has been excellent and would seem to be an interesting target for some clubs, particularly those in the American League. Other players are nearing the end of their arb years, though there’s no indication at all that the club is thinking of blowing up its near-future core.
All told, it’s clearly an undesirable situation for the Nationals organization. Perhaps the club won’t need to face these difficult questions if it can reel off a few wins in quick succession and its division rivals stumble a bit. Even if the Nats give up on the present season, they hold the promise of bouncing back next year. But it now seems realistic that the team could end up largely giving up on the race in 2018, an outcome that was hard to imagine at the start of the campaign.
Astros Acquire Martin Maldonado
The Astros have struck a deal with the division-rival Angels to acquire backstop Martin Maldonado, as Jeff Fletcher of the Southern California News Group first reported (via Twitter). Young lefty Patrick Sandoval will go to the Angels along with $250K in international pool money.
With the move, Houston has bolstered its catching unit as it awaits the return of veteran Brian McCann from the DL. Maldonado will displace Tim Federowicz, who has been designated for assignment, per Jake Kaplan of The Athletic (via Twitter). The Astros’ new catcher will pair with the emergent Max Stassi to split up the work behind the dish for at least the next several weeks.
Maldonado is earning $3.9MM this year before qualifying for free agency at season’s end. He originally came to Los Angeles in the deal that sent fellow receiver Jett Bandy to the Brewers before the 2017 season.
Over the past two years, Maldonado has performed at the plate much as he did in his prior MLB action. He’s a weak on-base threat who only partially makes up for that with some pop. For his career, Maldonado owns a .219/.291/.347 batting line — good for a 72 OPS+ that he has matched almost exactly in both 2017 and 2018.
Clearly, the appeal lies more in Maldonado’s work with his gear on. The 31-year-old is a well-regarded all-around performer behind the dish. In particular, though he has not earned prime grades for his framing in 2018, Maldonado has in years past rated as one of the sport’s best at winning strikes for his pitchers.
If nothing else, the addition of Maldonado will give the Astros some much-needed insurance with McCann still working back from a knee surgery. Just how things will be sorted out in the postseason remains to be seen, but the Astros will surely feel confident they’ll have solid options available the rest of the way.
Meanwhile, the Halos are more or less acknowledging the obvious: this won’t be the year they break back into the postseason. The 21-year-old Sandoval represents something of a consolation prize for a disappointing campaign.
Sandoval was an 11th-round pick in 2015. He has turned in an impressive campaign thus far, working to a 2.56 ERA in 88 frames — most of them at the Class A level but his more recently at High-A. Sandoval has struck out 9.9 and walked just 1.5 batters per nine on the year. Baseball America recently wrote up the young southpaw, characterizing him as a legitimately interesting prospect.
Fletcher tweeted Sandoval’s inclusion. Joel Sherman of the New York Post (via Twitter) and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (Twitter link) had the international money.
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Brewers Acquire Joakim Soria
2:46pm: Chicago will send just over $1MM, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter).
12:23pm: The Brewers have officially agreed to a deal to acquire righty Joakim Soria from the White Sox, as first reportedy by MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter). Former first-round pick Kodi Medeiros is one piece in the deal, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com (Twitter link), with Feinsand tweeting that righty Wilber Perez is the other.
Per the announcement, the White Sox will pay down an unstated portion of Soria’s contract. He’s earning $9MM this year — some of it still paid for by the Dodgers, as part of the three-team deal that sent him to Chicago — with a $1MM buyout still to come on a $10MM 2019 mutual option.
While his name hasn’t been circulated much around the rumor mill, Soria ranked 12th on MLBTR’s recent list of the top 75 trade deadline candidates on the basis of his strong showing thus far. He becomes the sixth of the first 13 names on that ranking to be dealt in the past week or so.
Soria, 34, has worked as the White Sox’ closer and carries a 2.56 ERA through 38 2/3 innings on the season. He’s sporting an impressive combination of 11.4 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9, buttressed by a career-best 14.6% swinging-strike rate.
There’s a lot to like about the way the veteran hurler is throwing right now. Soria is getting whiffs both by drawing quite a few more chases out of the zone (35.6%) than ever before and by holding opposing hitters to a 77.3% contact rate on pitches in the zone, which is also a career-best rate.
Soria carried sparkling peripherals last year, too, though he only ended the season with a 3.70 ERA, so he seems to be on something of a late-career run of excellence. The long-time late-inning hurler has tamped down on the home runs quite a bit over the past two seasons, allowing only three balls in total to leave the yard in that span.
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Rockies Acquire Seunghwan Oh
TODAY: The deal is now official. Former first-round pick Forrest Wall is also headed to Toronto, as Jon Heyman of Fancred tweeted just before the announcement. Bouchard is not in the pact, at least directly. In addition to Wall and Spanberger, the package includes a player to be named later, though it’s not known presently whether Bouchard is among the possibilities.
YESTERDAY, 8:02PM: Another first base prospect, Sean Bouchard, is also heading to Toronto in the deal, as per Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post.
7:54PM: Minor league first baseman Chad Spanberger is expected to be heading to the Blue Jays as part of the trade, Sportsnet.ca’s Shi Davidi reports (Twitter link). A sixth-round pick for Colorado in the 2017 draft, Spanberger is ranked 24th on MLB.com’s list of the top 30 Rockies prospects, with the scouting report noting Spanberger’s big power potential but also quite a few strikeouts.
7:22PM: The Rockies and Blue Jays have agreed to a trade that will see right-hander Seunghwan Oh join the Colorado bullpen, with The Athletic’s Robert Murray tweeting that the trade is “a done deal.” Steve Phillips of MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM reported earlier today that an Oh trade was close to happening, with MLB.com’s Jon Paul Morosi later adding the news that Colorado was the team involved in the deal.
Oh’s stock was down in the offseason, following a somewhat rough 2017 campaign that saw him lose his closer’s job with the Cardinals and struggle with the long ball to the tune of a 1.5 HR/9 rate. This led to Oh signing a low-cost one-year deal with the Blue Jays worth $1.75MM in guaranteed salary and a $2MM club option ($250K buyout) for the 2019 season.
That signing ended up being a nice bargain for the Jays, culminating in this flip of the 36-year-old for some prospect capital. Oh has posted a 2.68 ERA, 10.5 K/9, and 5.50 K/BB rate over 47 innings for Toronto, looking far more like his “Final Boss” form from the 2016 season (his first year in Major League Baseball) than his less-impressive 2017 edition. The advanced metrics have been pretty sold on Oh’s performance, as his .266 wOBA is nearly identical to his .264 xwOBA, and ERA predictors (3.03 FIP, 3.77 xFIP, 2.91 SIERA) mostly back up that impressive 2.66 real-world ERA.
He has also largely gotten over his home run issues, with only an 0.96 HR/9 and 8.2% homer rate this season. This will be particularly important for Oh as he shifts to Coors Field, though he has managed to success in another hitter-friendly ballpark (Rogers Centre) despite just a 29.8% grounder rate.
While Oh should help the Rockies’ relief corps, the fact that the bullpen was such a pressing trade deadline need represents a misfire for the team. Colorado spent $106MM total in three-year free agent pacts for Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw, and Jake McGee, only to see all three fail to live up to expectations. Shaw and McGee have particularly struggled, leading for the Rox to seek out another arm to bridge the gap to Davis in the ninth inning. Oh will join Adam Ottavino (the pen’s one bright spot) as the Rockies’ chief setup options.
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Andre Ethier Announces Retirement
Longtime Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier has decided to call it a career after 12 Major League seasons, as per a Dodgers media release. The club will honor Ethier prior to their game on August 3.
“I look forward to coming back to Los Angeles and Dodger Stadium, places I’m so lucky to have called home for the last 12 years,” Ethier said. “There’s nothing like stepping out on the field at Dodger Stadium and looking up and seeing the faithful Dodger Blue supporting you, and I’m grateful for the reception and support I received in all my years playing there.”
Originally a second-round pick for the A’s in the 2003 draft, Ethier was dealt to L.A. during the 2005-06 offseason as the return on the trade that sent Milton Bradley and Antonio Perez to Oakland. Ethier wound up spending all 1455 games and 5425 plate appearances of his Major League career as a Dodger, and was a solidly above-average performer (122 OPS+ and wRC+) at the plate. Ethier hit .285/.359/.463 with 162 homers, ranking within the Dodgers’ all-time top ten list in such major categories as homers, RBI, games played, hits, extra-base hits, and doubles.
Ethier was a two-time NL All-Star, and his list of hardware also included a Gold Glove in 2011, and a Silver Slugger Award and sixth-place finish in NL MVP voting in 2009, which arguably his finest season (.272/.361/.508 with 31 home runs).
The last few years of Ethier’s career were marred by injuries, most notably a broken leg and a herniated disk in his back that sidelined him for almost all of the 2016 and 2017 seasons. He had gradually shifted into part-time duty over the previous few years thanks to a crowded Dodgers outfield, despite signing a five-year, $85MM extension in June 2012 and seemingly becoming a franchise building block.
Ethier’s long career saw him span the troubled era of Frank McCourt ownership in Los Angeles to the high payrolls and greater stability of the Guggenheim Baseball Management/Magic Johnson/Andrew Friedman era. Throughout it all, however, the Dodgers have been successful on the field, and Ethier thus compiled a lengthy postseason resume. He posted a .776 OPS over 145 career plate appearances in the playoffs, and his final at-bat will go down as a successful one, an RBI single as a pinch-hitter in Game Seven of last year’s World Series.
The MLB Trade Rumors staff congratulates Ethier on his excellent career, and we wish him all the best in his post-playing days.
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Diamondbacks Acquire Matt Andriese
The Diamondbacks have acquired right-hander Matt Andriese from the Rays, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (Twitter link). Robert Murray, also of The Athletic, was the first to report that Tampa and Arizona had a trade in place. The Rays will receive two minor leaguers in return — catcher Michael Perez (as per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times) and righty Brian Shaffer (as Rosenthal was the first to report). In a corresponding move, the D’Backs announced that right-hander Randall Delgado has been designated for assignment to create a 40-man spot for Andriese.
Arizona was known to be checking in on the starting pitching market, though rather than splurge on a big name, the Snakes landed a versatile and somewhat underrated asset in Andriese. The 28-year-old has mostly been deployed as a swingman in his three-plus MLB seasons, with the Rays using Andriese as a starter and in both short and long relief roles. He has only started four of his 27 appearances this season, though that stat is somewhat misleading, as you might expect given Tampa Bay’s unconventional use of its pitching staff. Andriese has appeared multiple times as the second pitcher into the game after the likes of Ryne Stanek or Sergio Romo began things as the Rays’ “opener.”
Despite the ever-shifting roles, Andriese has been largely successful in Tampa, including a 4.07 ERA, 8.9 K/9, 50.6% grounder rate, and 3.28 K/BB rate this season over 59 2/3 innings, plus a career-best 11.4% swinging strike rate. It represents a nice rebound from an injury-filled 2017, as Andriese was limited to 86 innings (starting 17 of his 18 games) due to hip and groin problems.
The D’Backs have dealt with their own share of pitching injuries this season, though things have somewhat stabilized with a regular starting five of Zack Greinke, Patrick Corbin, Robbie Ray, Zack Godley, and successful bounce-back project Clay Buchholz. Still, with Ray and Godley both delivering inconsistent results, Andriese gives the Snakes some extra rotation depth, as well as a valuable durable arm for the bullpen.
Andriese will be eligible for arbitration for the first time this winter, and thus the D’Backs had to surrender a not-overwhelming but decent prospect package for Andriese’s three years of control. The 2018 Baseball America Prospect Handbook ranked Perez as Arizona’s 30th-best minor leaguer prior to the season, with MLB.com ranking Shaffer 23rd in their current top-30 ranking of the Snakes’ system.
Perez, 25, has long been heralded as a strong defensive catcher, and he has begun to make some strides at the plate over the last two seasons at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. In 250 career PA at Triple-A, Perez has a solid .291/.348/.445 slash line, though that is both a rather small sample size and perhaps a product of the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. Even without a big bat, however, Perez still projects as a potential glove-first backup catcher type, which is useful for a Rays team that has long looked for consistency behind the plate. Topkin reports that Perez will join the Rays’ roster on Thursday for his first taste of Major League action.
Shaffer was a sixth-round pick for the Diamondbacks in the 2017 draft. MLB.com’s scouting report cites the 21-year-old’s slider as his best pitch, and he also possesses a fastball that has touched 94mph. Shaffer has delivered good results in his brief pro career thus far, including a 2.70 ERA, 9.2 K/9, and only a 1.8 BB/9 over 106 2/3 frames at the A-ball level this year.
Between this trade and sending Nathan Eovaldi to the Red Sox earlier today, the Rays have continued to churn their roster, even while falling short of an actual rebuild. Indeed, after today’s win over the Yankees, the Rays are now 52-50 for the season, though they are still realistically out of the pennant race (8.5 games back of the last wild card slot). In the short term, Tampa finds itself short two valuable arms for its pitching mix, as it remains to be seen how the Rays’ pitching strategy will continue to evolve without Andriese and Eovaldi around to cover innings.
This represents the third major trade between the Rays and D’Backs in under a year, after the offseason deals that saw Brad Boxberger come to Arizona and the three-team deal (also involving the Yankees) that most notably saw Steven Souza go to Arizona and Brandon Drury head to New York.
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Red Sox Acquire Nathan Eovaldi
The Red Sox have officially struck a deal to land righty Nathan Eovaldi from the Rays, as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported (via Twitter). Young lefty Jalen Beeks will go to Tampa Bay in return, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link).
This swap is the second in the last two days that sends rental pitchers between AL East rivals. Yesterday, of course, the Yankees got lefty reliever Zach Britton from the Orioles. The Yanks will temporarily dodge Eovaldi, who had been scheduled to start against them today, but will surely see him down the stretch.
For Boston, the move will add an intriguing arm to their roster. Eovaldi has worked as a starter almost exclusively in his career, and may well continue to do so over the final two months of the season as he helps to shore up a Red Sox rotation that is showing a few cracks. But his role in the postseason could end up being an interesting one. The Sox have an unusual number of southpaws among their rotation candidates, making Eovaldi an interesting pitcher to pair up with one or more lefties.
Eovaldi is a pure rental, and a cheap one at that. He’s earning just $2MM this year, with some affordable incentive pay also included. Though it took him quite a while to make it all the way back from Tommy John surgery, Eovaldi has returned with vigor thus far in 2018.
Over 57 frames in ten starts this year Eovaldi has pumped his customary 97+ mph heat while working to a solid 4.26 ERA. But that only tells part of the story. He’s sporting a career-best 20.1% K%-BB% while generating more swings and misses (11.0%) than ever before, though he has also been touched for 11 long balls. Eovaldi merited rather lofty placement on MLBTR’s latest ranking of the top trade deadline candidates and has certainly increased his stock heading into free agency.
It seems likely the Rays will have designs on using Beeks in a flexible manner, too, but on a more regular basis. The 25-year-old has been roughed up in two MLB outings this year, but has also turned in increasingly interesting results in the upper minors in recent seasons.
Over 16 Triple-A starts in 2018, Beeks carries a 2.89 ERA with 12.1 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 over 87 1/3 innings. That strong showing led Baseball America to rank Beeks the Sox’ sixth-best prospect in its most recent look at a thin Boston farm. While he’s considered likely to be a back-end rotation piece in the majors, he possesses an interesting four-pitch mix and seems a good fit for the Rays’ counter-culture approach to building a pitching staff.
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Mets Announce That Yoenis Cespedes Will Undergo Season-Ending Surgery
The Mets have announced that star outfielder Yoenis Cespedes will undergo season-ending surgery. He had already been placed on the disabled list yesterday due to calcification in both heels.
It is expected that Cespedes will require at least eight to ten months of rehabilitation before he’ll be able to return, assistant GM John Ricco said at today’s press conference (via Mike Puma of the New York Post, on Twitter). That period could end up being extended, depending upon how the veteran responds to treatment.
Needless to say, this is not the news the Mets hoped for in the midst of an already disastrous season. The 32-year-old Cespedes is owed $58.5MM over the next two campaigns. There is a silver lining here, in that Ricco says the club will have an opportunity to attempt to recover some of the funds through an insurance policy (also via a Puma tweet).
Given the recovery timeline presented, and building in a period to get up to baseball speed, Cespedes will likely not be able to return until the middle of the 2019 season at the earliest. While it’s possible the Mets will end up receiving a significant contribution from him next year, the organization will likely enter the offseason operating under the assumption that they need to make alternative plans.
While the news is unfortunate, it also presents questions for all involved. Cespedes had been out for two months with a hip injury — his most recent in a string of maladies involving lower-body muscles. It was not until he had worked back to the majors, though, that the heel issue was identified as an underlying cause. (And, even then, it seemed that the team was not fully aware of the new diagnosis.) The timing of all these developments is certainly suboptimal given that the procedure requires such a lengthy rehab stint.
The organization, which has certainly dealt with its share of controversy over heath situations in the recent past, issued the following explanation in its press release:
“The pain, as a result of the calcifications, has caused him to alter his gait in an attempt to manage the discomfort, which has resulted in stress and injury to other parts of his legs. The consensus among the team doctors and specialists is that all conservative treatment options to manage the pain have been exhausted and that surgery is now recommended.”
Sorting out the medical situation remains a long-term priority, though perhaps that will wait until the team makes some decisions on baseball operations leadership over the offseason.
In the near-term, it’s still not entirely clear what direction the Mets will take at the trade deadline. Ricco says the news on Cespedes won’t really change the outlook, but it certainly could weigh in the balance if the organization decides to consider moving some of its top pitching assets next winter.
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Yankees Acquire Zach Britton
10:45pm: The Orioles and Yankees have formally announced the trade. Baltimore assigned Tate to Double-A Bowie. Rogers and Carroll have been assigned to Triple-A Norfolk.
8:01pm: The Zach Britton bidding war looks to have come to an end, as the Yankees have reportedly reached an agreement to acquire the left-hander from the Orioles in exchange for minor league pitchers Dillon Tate, Cody Carroll and Josh Rogers. The reported agreement has yet to be announced by either club and is said to still be pending medical reviews — a major final hurdle to clear, especially when considering Baltimore’s previous history of nixing or delaying deals over medical concerns.
If the trade is ultimately finalized and announced, the addition of Britton would boost an already overpowering Yankees relief corps that features the likes of Aroldis Chapman, David Robertson, Dellin Betances, Chad Green and Jonathan Holder. Each of those relievers has thrown at least 40 innings in 2018, and each has an ERA of 3.05 or better. All but Holder (7.9 K/9) have averaged 10.9 strikeouts per nine innings or better.
While he doesn’t quite look to be back in peak form after this offseason’s surgery on his Achilles tendon, Britton has made significant strides over his past eight outings in terms of both velocity and ground-ball rate. His control isn’t quite back up to its peak levels, but Britton is missing bats and racking up ground-balls at a 72.2 percent clip over eight straight scoreless appearances.
If healthy, Britton will give the Yankees a potentially dominant second lefty to pair with Chapman and the Yankees’ slew of top-notch right-handed arms. That’s been a missing piece for New York all season, as Chasen Shreve has been solid at times but largely inconsistent.
A free agent at season’s end, Britton is earning $12MM this season and is still owed about $4.38MM of that sum. That money would count against the Yankees’ luxury tax ledger, though the they’re currently a bit more than $15MM south of the $197MM barrier, so Britton won’t push them over the edge. His addition will inch them closer to that mark, which will need to be a consideration in further trades, but for the time being, they’re still well clear of penalization.
Because Britton will be changing hands in a midseason deal, he won’t be eligible to receive a qualifying offer at season’s end, meaning the Yankees won’t be able to recoup any draft-pick compensation if he departs and signs elsewhere as a free agent.
That’s barely a consideration for the Yankees, though, as they find themselves six games back from the Red Sox in the American League East. While the Yankees are hardly out of contention for a division title, it looks considerably likelier right now that they’ll find themselves in an American League Wild Card showdown against the Mariners or the Athletics. Adding another potential shutdown reliever to an already formidable bullpen will aid rookie manager Aaron Boone’s efforts to shorten the contest and provide the Yankees insurance in the event of an unexpectedly short start, such as the one they received from Luis Severino in last year’s Wild Card game against the Twins.
Furthermore, it’s become increasingly common for clubs to stack their bullpens with potent relievers as a means of shutting down opposing lineups in postseason series. The Astros, Cubs, Royals, Indians and Dodgers are among the teams that have enjoyed deep playoff runs in recent seasons with stacked relief units that can be relied upon more heavily in the postseason than during the regular season thanks to the built-in off days during the playoff schedule. Britton only furthers the Yankees’ ability to employ that tactic, should they ultimately return to the ALDS for a second consecutive season.
Turning to the Orioles, they’ll bid adieu to fan favorite in Britton — a longtime top prospect who floundered as a starter but emerged as one of the best (if not the best) reliever in baseball at his peak with the club. Britton anchored the Orioles’ bullpen in both 2014 and 2016, helping the team to the postseason in each of those two campaigns — even if he’ll be more remembered for manager Buck Showalter’s stunning decision not to use him in the 2016 Wild Card tilt against the Blue Jays. He’s the second star the O’s have shipped out in recent days, joining Manny Machado as Baltimore looks to restock a decrepit farm system that has long ranked among the worst in the game.
The top piece joining Baltimore’s minor league ranks is the 24-year-old Tate — the fourth overall pick in the 2015 draft. While Tate was originally selected by the Rangers, they subsequently traded him to New York a year later as the main piece in the Carlos Beltran swap. Tate was struggling at the time of that deal and had seen his prospect star dim a bit, but he’s rebuilt much of his stock with the Yankees and is currently in the midst of a quality season for the Yankees’ affiliate in Trenton. Through 82 2/3 innings, he’s worked to a 3.38 ERA with 8.2 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 0.76 HR/9 and a 48.1 percent ground-ball rate.
Baseball America recently ranked Tate as the Yankees’ sixth-best prospect on its updated Top 10 rankings for the organization, praising his “high-end stuff” and crediting him with the potential for three plus pitches (fastball, slider changeup). He still needs to be more consistent with his secondary offerings, per BA’s report, but Tate will give the Orioles a much-needed potential mid-rotation starter on which they can dream.
Carroll, 25, ranks 15th among Yankees farmhands per Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com, though they’ve yet to publish their midseason update of the team’s rankings. That said, Carroll hasn’t done anything to lower his status in 2018. To the contrary, he’s been nothing short of brilliant out of the Yankees’ bullpen in Triple-A. Over the life of 41 2/3 innings, Carroll has logged a superlative 2.38 ERA with 11.9 K/9, 3.9 BB/9 and a 32.6 percent grounder rate. He’s been fortunate in that he’s yet to surrender a home run this season, so his ERA should probably be taken with a grain of salt, but Callis and Mayo slapped a 75-grade on his heater (on the 20-80 scale) in their free scouting report, and Carroll’s slider also draws plus ratings.
The 24-year-old Rogers, meanwhile, doesn’t rank among the Yankees’ top tier of prospects, but he’s worked to a 3.95 ERA with 6.8 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 1.07 HR/9 and a 40.1 percent ground-ball rate in 109 innings (19 starts) for the team’s top affiliate in Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre so far in 2018. Given his age and relative success in the upper minors, it’s conceivable that he could help the Orioles as soon as the second half of the 2018 season. If not, it’s likely he’ll be viewed as an option to join the staff in 2019.
As for the Yankees, they’re still quite likely to be in the market for a starting pitcher. The fact that Tate is the headliner of the return for Britton subtracts one of their better chips, but the Yankees nonetheless possess a deep farm system that should allow them to pursue virtually any starter on the market — be it a major upgrade with multiple years of control remaining or a short-term rental with a decidedly lower cost of acquisition. The Britton trade, then, will likely be the first of many for the Yankees in the coming week (to say nothing of August) as they gear up for yet another postseason appearance.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported (via Twitter) that the Yankees had emerged as the front-runner for Britton and that Tate had been scratched from his start. SNY’s Andy Martino tweeted that the two sides had reached the medical review stage of talks. Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com tweeted that the Yankees would send three prospects back to the Orioles. Fancred’s Jon Heyman reported that the two sides had agreed on all of the players to be involved, pending medicals (Twitter links). Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported that Rogers and Carroll were in the deal (Twitter links).
Athletics Acquire Jeurys Familia
In a trade that has been widely expected since last night, the Athletics have officially acquired right-hander Jeurys Familia from the Mets. In exchange, the Athletics have sent a pair of minor leaguers back to New York: third baseman William Toffey and right-hander Bobby Wahl. The Mets will also receive $1MM in international bonus money, while the Athletics will take on all of Familia’s ~$3MM remaining salary.
With Familia set to reach free agency at season’s end, and the Mets suffering through a miserable 40-55 season thus far on the year, the closer’s ticket out of Queens has been all but purchased for weeks. Familia earned the number two spot on our Top 75 Trade Candidates At The All-Star Break list owing in part to the above factors as well as his excellent start to the 2018 season. Thus far, Familia’s managed an excellent 2.88 ERA and 17 saves to go along with 9.52 K/9 and a 50.5% ground ball rate.
Familia’s excellence goes beyond the common surface stats, too. His peripherals have earned him a 2.54 FIP, for one. He’s also been excellent at limiting homers, with a minuscule 2.8% homer-to-fly-ball rate on the season. An even deeper dive reveals that Familia has allowed hard contact at just a 26.8% clip during a season in which hard contact is up on the whole, and he’s also managed to induce swinging strikes on 12% of his pitches. According to Statcast, the batted ball profile of hitters against Familia gives him an xwOBA of just .289, which is only a few points above his actual wOBA (.273).
The excellent figures above are a well-timed bounce back from a miserable 2017 season for Familia that began with a 15-game domestic violence suspension and got even worse when it was revealed that the righty had an arterial clot in his right shoulder that would ultimately require surgery to repair. By the time he was finally able to return on August 26th, he looked nothing like himself, posting a 4.70 ERA while walking 4.11 batters per nine and not even notching a strikeout per inning. His 2018 comeback not only allowed the team who signed and developed him to capitalize on his success and reap a prospect return, but it also earned Familia a trade to a contending team, and the promise of pitching in meaningful games by which he can boost his free agent pay day.
That team, the Athletics, didn’t look like a serious player for the American League West crown early on in the season. But thanks to a torrid stretch during which they’ve gone 21-7, the Athletics have vaulted themselves into contender status and currently sit just four games out of the second AL Wild Card spot currently owned by the division rival Mariners. A breakout season from third baseman Matt Chapman, a career year from infielder Jed Lowrie, and the continued success from young core players such as Matt Olson and Sean Manaea are all contributing factors to the A’s owning an impressive 55-43 record at this juncture.
Familia will join an elite-level A’s bullpen that’s already 38-0 this season when leading after seven innings. That group includes breakout closer Blake Treinen along with other excellent 2018 performers such as Lou Trivino, Chris Hatcher, Ryan Buchter and Yusmeiro Petit. There’s no word on who will handle the closing duties in the Familia era in Oakland, but it seems quite possible that Familia could supplant the incumbent Treinen in order to suppress his saves, a stat that holds an inordinate amount of weight in baseball’s arbitration process and would therefore help to drive up Treinen’s price tag in future seasons.
As for the Mets, it signals the waving of a white flag on the 2018 season. It’s not clear yet, however, whether the move signals a short retooling phase or a longer-term, larger-scale rebuilding process that could drive them to ship out players with longer-term club control such as Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Michael Conforto. With the meteoric rises of the division-rival Braves and Phillies, and the Nationals unlikely to go south anytime soon, the NL East doesn’t figure to get any easier in the ensuing seasons. Add to that uncertainty surrounding the future of the injured Yoenis Cespedes (who will likely require surgery and a nine-month rehab period), and the development of young players like Amed Rosario and Dominic Smith not working out as planned, it’s possible the Amazins could be motivated to tear down the major league roster and start from scratch.
Though manager Mickey Callaway stated this morning that the Mets would go with a closer-by-committee approach in the post-Familia era, it’s worth noting that he made the exact same comment at the beginning of the season before proceeding to use Familia as his 9th-inning hurler almost exclusively. During times when Familia was unavailable, Callaway turned to multi-inning workhorse Robert Gsellman, who’s earned five saves on the season (including one last night when Familia was kept on the pine amidst trade discussions).
With Familia headed to Oakland, the market figures to focus its attention on Zach Britton, who earlier today was deemed “the next Oriole out the door” by beat reporter Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. In a concurring report, Buster Olney of ESPN tweeted that Baltimore is expected to move Britton as soon as this weekend. Joakim Soria, Raisel Iglesias and Fernando Rodney represent some right-handed alternatives to Familia who could now garner increased attention from the Cubs, Diamondbacks, Indians, Red Sox and Braves (Jon Heyman of Fancred reports that those clubs were all players for Familia). Meanwhile, Zach Duke and Felipe Vazquez could earn the focus of clubs looking for a southpaw.
The trade of Familia marks the latest development in a surprisingly fast-moving trade market for relief pitchers. The Mariners acquired Alex Colome from the Rays back in May, the Nationals landed Kelvin Herrera from the Royals in June, the Indians pried Brad Hand from the Padres before the All-Star break came to a close, and the Cubs traded for Jesse Chavez later that night; and it’s still ten days in advance of the actual trade deadline. It falls in line with a trend we saw this past offseason in which teams are aggressively pursuing reliable relievers, perhaps because they seem to be more valuable than ever before.
Toffey, 23, is a left-handed-hitting third baseman who came to the Athletics by way of their fourth-round pick in the 2017 draft. In 197 plate appearances at Class A Advanced this season, he’s hit .244/.357/.384. Baseball America ranked him as Oakland’s 19th-best prospect headed into the 2018 season, noting his excellent plate discipline. Though he doesn’t possess any serious raw power, scouts believe it’s possible he’ll be able to hit some bombs simply by virtue of his ability to wait and swing at his pitch. Toffey’s best tool, perhaps, is his glove, though his fringe-average speed may prevent his defense from reaching its true ceiling.
Wahl is perhaps the better of the two prospects in this deal. Though his September cup of coffee last season was average at best (four earned runs, eight strikeouts and four walks in 7 2/3 innings), Wahl’s been mowing down opponents at Triple-A Nashville so far this season. Across 39 2/3 innings, the right-hander owns a 14.75 K/9 figure against 3.86 BB/9 and has posted a 2.27 ERA that’s not too far below his 2.52 FIP. If he’s able to produce something close to those numbers at the major-league level, he could be a fixture in the Mets’ bullpen for years to come.
Despite the interesting upside for Wahl, the general consensus in the industry is that the prospect return in this trade isn’t particularly impressive, especially considering the trade value of Familia. It could be that the $1MM in international bonus money is the true prize in this deal, and if that’s the case, we could see the Mets come to terms with one of the top remaining international prospects in the coming days; high-upside Cuban righty Osiel Rodriguez currently tops the list of unsigned players.
Jane Lee of MLB.com was the first to report that two sides had come to an agreement involving two prospects and international bonus pool money. Shortly thereafter Joel Sherman of the New York Post revealed which prospects were headed back to the Mets. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle first noted that the international bonus pool amount was $1MM, and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic made first mention that the A’s were taking on all of Familia’s remaining salary. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.