Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who has heretofore been referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.
This is the last entry in the Early Shift. Starting today, I’m back on paternity leave for four more weeks, so I’ll see you in September. Thank you for reading and for all of your lovely, supportive comments.
June 21
At 3:40 AM, Derek Jr. awakes, screaming. It is Father’s Day.
I’m going to have to stop keeping this journal. I hope I can jump back in with updates from time to time, but I haven’t been able to keep up since I returned to work. I can’t seem to get more than a few sentences down before something more pressing forces me to stop or before I exhaust my meager supply of focus. I wrote so many of these entries in the early hours of the morning, and I can’t keep doing that when I’ve got to get up just a few hours later and do good writing. I’m not sure how many of those previous entries were substantive enough to get published, so let me tell you what you may have missed over the past month or so.
Derek Jr. is 12 weeks old. She is healthy. She is enormous. Like all the babies in both my family and my wife’s, she has big, chunky cheeks. When she’s been outside napping in the stroller for an hour or two, they get so rosy that it feels like Mike Elias will pop up any second to inform us that she’s been drafted by the Orioles. Even if she weren’t enormous, though, she’d still seem enormous to us. One thing I’ve learned about babies is that they always feel so heavy. They’re always growing, which means every single time you pick them up, they’re a little bit heavier than they were the last time, which means you’re always, every day of their lives, surprised by how heavy they are.
Derek Jr. is happy. She is such a happy baby. She smiles at us all day long. She laughs. She wants to play. Honestly, it’s a problem sometimes. It’s hard to put her down to sleep, because as I rock her, she’s looking up at me and smiling. Just seeing my face gets her too excited to sleep. Not that this means I’m special. Once I do get her to sleep, she’ll wake up 30 minutes later and stay awake because she’s too busy smiling up at her friend the ceiling fan. Read the rest of this entry »
Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who will henceforth be referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.
June 5
It’s 3:00 PM, and I throw on yesterday’s highlights while giving Derek Jr. her third meal of the day. This is a bit of a luxury. She’ll soon be big enough to look around and see the TV while I’m feeding her. I should enjoy this opportunity while I can.
Two things stand out in the highlights. First, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Willson Contreras, and Ketel Marte all pulled home runs right down the line, but the three homers could not have been more different.
Contreras’s homer followed a classic archetype. Andrew Kittredge busted him with a fastball in on his hands, so Contreras got quick and short. He pulled his hands in and turned on the ball, launching it 402 feet and into the light standard atop the Green Monster. Marte’s homer looked familiar too, though we’re used to seeing it from left-handed batters, and he was batting righty. Tanner Scott attacked him with a fastball low and in, and Marte dropped his bat head on the ball, sent it over the bullpen, and finished with his hands up high for a walk-off homer. Crow-Armstrong followed a wilder path. He fell behind J.T. Ginn, 0-2, so Ginn tried to finish him off with a slider low and away. It wasn’t a terrible location, but Ginn no doubt hoped that it would get closer to the corner, probably even out of the zone away or low. Crow-Armstrong went out and got the ball, outside corner be damned, and hooked a low liner all the way over the right field fence. There was nothing textbook about it, but somehow the ball left the bat at 110 mph.
My takeaway is that there are a lot of ways to get the same thing done. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot anyway. My wife and I have our own very different ways of feeding, soothing, and putting Derek Jr. to sleep. We even hold her differently. We’ve read a million times that babies thrive on routine, especially when it comes to bedtime, but also, we’re different people whose brains and bodies work differently. I don’t really know how to square all of this. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday morning, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal did what he does best. He unleashed a major trade deadline scoop. As it was a full week after the deadline, though, Rosenthal’s scoop wasn’t about who got traded where for what. It wasn’t about how the trades came together. It was, in fact, the opposite of the breathless deadline reporting and transaction analysis that can so often encourage us to view ballplayers as commodities rather than human beings who have little control over where they live and work. Rosenthal wrote about the emotional and logistical toll of being traded.
There’s a lot of that going around these days. The day after the deadline, Jacob Calvin Meyer of the Baltimore Sun reported that Adley Rutschman, Colton Cowser, Ryan Mountcastle, and Gunnar Henderson had been at the theater, about to see the new Spider-Man movie, when Rutschman found out he’d been traded to the Red Sox. “It was pretty emotional,” Cowser said. The foursome decided against watching the movie, which was probably for the best, as it’s about a talented young man with a powerful swing whose best friends have forgotten about him entirely after a move to Boston. Rosenthal’s article was about the team the Orioles faced the very next day.
On Sunday, August 2, the Angels broke a five-game losing streak with a win over the Brewers, then flew down to Baltimore. Monday, the day of the deadline, was an off day for both the Orioles and the Angels. Roughly a dozen Angels, plus assorted coaches and staffers spent the day in Vineland, New Jersey, playing a round of golf at Trout National – The Reserve. At Mike Trout’s golf course, they had what would no doubt have been a delightful day of fun in the sun if not for the fact that every couple holes, storm clouds showed up in the form of interim GM John Mozeliak, who was calling up another player to inform him that he’d been traded away. Oh, and there were literal storms too, so reliever Ryan Zeferjahn got his call while everybody was packed in a hut to stay out of the rain.
Those are just the Cliff’s Notes. You should read the whole article, and I don’t want to spoil it for you. It’s wild, and Rosenthal managed as well as anybody could have to report the facts and avoid editorializing without downplaying the over-the-top absurdity of the situation. Instead, what I’m going to do here is answer some of the more pressing, sillier questions raised by the story. It’s a sad story, but it’s also deliciously awkward. It’s absurdist comedy of the highest order. A third of the players who made the trip to Millville found out on the golf course that they’d been traded, because Trout planned a team-bonding event for the exact time when the team’s bonds would be dissolved with hydrochloric acid. Let’s get into it.
Mike Trout has a golf course?
No. Mike Trout doesn’t just have a golf course. In April, he opened a world-class, invitation-only golf club two miles from where he grew up. It cost $100 million. Tiger Woods designed it. It’s got a state-of-the-art training center, a lighted par-3 course named The Bullpen, and a 30,000-square-foot putting area. It’s got a spa, a barber shop, a bowling alley, a 2,500-bottle wine cellar, and a fitness center designed by Trout. It’s got a clubhouse named The Clubhouse. It’s got five-star accommodations that include two lodges, five cottages, and at least one hut. It’s got two comfort stations. One of them is called The Dugout, and it’s designed to look like a major league dugout (without the sunflower seeds, presumably). It’s got a freaking helipad.
It’s important to set the scene, but this is actually the least fun part of the story. As much as Millville loves Mike Trout, it does not love his 288-acre Shangri-La. Just a few weeks ago, Patrick Lanni of NJ.com wrote a deeply reported story highlighting the disconnect involved in building such a thing in Cumberland County, “widely considered New Jersey’s poorest county, with the state’s highest poverty rate, lowest median household income and an 8% unemployment rate.” Trout hasn’t necessarily gone out of his way to integrate Trout National – The Reserve into the community either. “It’s pure golf,” he told Golf.com. “You don’t see any houses.”
To be clear, the golf course is situated right next to many houses. You don’t see them because Trout National is surrounded by a stone wall that stands 15 feet tall. It’s built on an old silica salt mine and onetime farmland, but that wasn’t quite enough space. The developers also bought up at least 15 single-family homes for their land. Many neighbors now have a giant wall bordering their backyards. Some residents who refused to sell found their properties walled in on three sides. The Old Vineland Tavern sticks out like a sore thumb, but luckily Danny’s Pizza Pizzazz across the street is safe.
Google Maps
One resident told Lanni, “I’ve heard from the city council that everything is going to be so good for the community…. The club is its own thing. You go there, and you stay there. You don’t go to downtown Millville.” It’s hard to imagine the golfers arriving and departing by helicopter are going to spend all that much time outside walls of the compound, except maybe to duck into Danny’s for a pizza (and some pizzazz).
It may sound like the name of a fish stick company that went bankrupt in 1989, but Trout National has staked its brand on exclusivity and opulence. Its website doesn’t feature all that much copy, but whoever wrote it raided the thesaurus for “curated,” “luxurious,” “luxury,” “private,” “upscale,” “masterfully crafted,” “refined,” “secluded,” “custom,” “high-end,” and “luxury” one more time. Rosenthal didn’t provide any details about the hut where Zeferjahn found out he’d been traded, but I think we can safely assume it’s one of the fancier huts ever constructed.
Another Vineland resident told Lanni, “I think everyone understands that none of us will ever see inside of those walls.” Doing so would take quite an investment. Membership is limited to 227 people, a nod to Trout’s uniform number, 27. Mike’s brother Tyler told Golf.com that membership will be composed of athletes, young business professionals, and entrepreneurs. The fees aren’t public, but comparable ultra-exclusive courses have reported initiation fees in the vicinity of half a million dollars, along with annual membership fees around $200,000. And the place is literally called The Reserve; you know, as in an area that people are kept out of.
Mike Trout and his partners bought out more than a dozen people in his hometown in order to build a five-star golf paradise that no one in his hometown will ever be able to see. He surrounded it with a 15-foot wall so that none of his customers, 227 of the richest people on the planet, would be subjected to the sight of his hometown. You don’t have to be a resident of Millville to be offended by this kind of excess.
This is the setting for the day’s events. This is Trout’s fantastical chocolate factory, and much like Willy Wonka, his visitors kept getting whisked away one by one throughout the day. I’m sure you have more questions.
Oh yeah, when exactly did all the trades go down?
I’m so glad you asked. Not only can we timestamp the day’s events based on when the trades broke, but Rosenthal also told us what hole everyone was on when they got traded. Let’s update our scorecard, shall we?
First Hole: Brent Suter to the Braves
Suter got the first call right before everyone teed off. Some players were still warming up on a putting green; some were at the first tee box. ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news at 11:26 AM. As Passan said on Effectively Wild last year, he never breaks trade news until he’s sure the players involved have already been informed, so Mozeliak must have called Suter to deliver the news a bit beforehand. “Can I finish the round?” Suter asked. “Can I golf?” Mozeliak said yes, which makes him sound very magnanimous until you realize that he was no longer Suter’s boss.
Seventh Hole: Jo Adell to the Guardians Jon Heyman broke this news at 12:19 PM. “I was in shock,” Adell said. He finished out the front nine, then left. I honestly don’t know where Adell went or how he got there. I can’t imagine he went all the way back to Baltimore. The Guardians were at home at the time, so maybe he called an Uber for the 45-minute ride to Philadelphia, then caught a flight to Cleveland.
Hole Indeterminate: Reid Detmers to the Cubs (Not Real)
So an incorrect report had Detmers going to the Cubs around 2:45 PM. That rumor made it to Detmers, but his foursome, which included Trout, quickly gathered that it was inaccurate. “I think it was good he was golfing,” said Trout. “It took his mind off it.” Detmers, however, told MLB.com that even after confirming with his agent that no trade had taken place, he didn’t feel safe until 30 minutes after the trade deadline. Based on the timing, we can assume Detmers was somewhere around the 10th hole.
Twelfth or 13th Hole: Ryan Zeferjahn to the Cubs (For Real)
At 3:46 PM, Passan broke the news that Zeferjahn really would be traded to the Cubs. As you know, when Zeferjahn got the call, he was gathered in a hut with all his teammates to avoid the rain. He had no privacy. On the bright side, all his teammates who had played in Chicago were able to brief him about his new organization.
Nineteenth Hole: Kirby Yates to the Pirates
This was the buzzer-beater move of the day. It came just as everyone had finished up the round and was getting ready to leave. Rosenthal broke it himself (along with colleague Will Sammon) at 6:00 PM. “I didn’t think I had a chance,” Yates told Rosenthal. “I did not think there was a market for a 39-year-old throwing 90 mph.” In the final ironic twist of the day, the Pirates were about to kick off a series against the Brewers, so Yates had to fly right back to Milwaukee. He ended up making three straight appearances against the Brewers.
This must have all been so weird.
Uh, yeah.
So… did Mike Trout not know when the trade deadline was?
Well, Trout planned the outing back in the spring. He saw a day off on the east coast on the schedule, and he went for it. It’s not surprising that he didn’t immediately realize it was the trade deadline. August 3 is unusually late, a result of the fact that August 1 fell on a Saturday and the deadline can’t be on a weekend. It probably wasn’t top of mind anyway. He couldn’t know that early on that the Angels — a team that despite being bad for years has never embarked upon the type of teardown we saw this season — would be selling at the deadline. Plus, he’s Mike Trout. He’s never had to worry about getting traded.
But he figured it out eventually, right?
Yes. Mike Trout learned that the trade deadline was on August 3 prior to the morning of August 3. In fact, Mozeliak briefed him on the team’s deadline strategy a few days beforehand.
Oh yeah! Trout was part of the trade deadline war room, right? Didn’t he know his teammates were going to get traded away?
Trout has said this report was blown out of proportion, but… yes. Mozeliak and Trout met a few weeks before the deadline and established that he wouldn’t be traded, Then, a few days before the deadline, he was invited into the war room. “People were blowing it up,” he told MLB.com. “It wasn’t what everybody’s saying. Basically, just going over everything. It wasn’t like I was telling him, ‘Oh, trade this guy, trade that guy.’ It was basically just a plan. It was just Mo trying to build a relationship with me in the couple weeks he’s been here. Just being transparent. I think that’s the biggest thing.”
All of this would seem fairly standard. Trout is the face of the franchise, and he’s under contract through 2030. It only makes sense to get him on board with the vision for the future of the team, especially before a teardown. But it gets weird when you factor the golf outing into the equation. By Trout’s own admission, Mozeliak told him the team’s plan for the deadline, which clearly involved trading everything that wasn’t nailed down. They went over everything – Trout’s own words – so at the very least, he had to have had an idea that some of his guests would cease to be his teammates.
So why didn’t he cancel?
That’s the hundred-million-dollar question, and only Mike Trout knows the answer. Rosenthal described the situation in hilariously deadpan language. “Trout came to realize, as he organized the outing, that it might be an unusual day. The group, he said, had an idea that trades were coming.” All the same, I can think of plenty of reasons that might have pushed to keep this particular tee time on the books.
If I’ve learned one thing about Mike Trout in researching this article, it’s that the dude really loves golf. When baseball was shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, he would finish his baseball workout, then go play 36 holes of golf, then hit the driving range or the putting green to work on his game.
Trout National took years to build, and I’m sure Trout is very, very proud of it. He was probably really excited to show all his buddies his opulent little city-state. He planned this whole trip, and he was reluctant to give it up.
Remember when I mentioned that Trout saw a day off on the schedule and he jumped on it? That’s a bigger deal than you might realize. Last year, the Angels didn’t have a single off day on the east coast. You can understand why he wanted to hold onto this one.
I don’t subscribe to this notion, but if you want to be really, really cynical, you could also posit that he viewed this little trip as a recruiting venture for prospective members.
I imagine that baseball works a little differently for Mike Trout than for most players. He’s never been traded. He’s never been at risk of being traded. Considering how terrible they’ve been during his tenure, the Angels have done a surprisingly small amount of selling at the deadline. I don’t want to accuse him of a lack of empathy or anything, but the toll of this particular part of the game may just be a bit harder for Trout to grasp than for players who have lived through it or who enjoy less job security.
In that same vein, I’m sure Trout didn’t pressure anybody into coming on the trip – José Soriano found out he’d been traded in his hotel in Baltimore because he’s not a golfer – but he also may not have realized how hard it would be for his teammates to turn down that invitation. That’s just human nature. He may not fully comprehend the amount of authority he has in the clubhouse simply by virtue of being Mike Trout.
Trout may well have figured that cancelling would have just traded one form of awkwardness for another. He couldn’t exactly go around the clubhouse telling everyone they were uninvited because the deadline was going to be a bloodbath. But it would have been really weird to cancel without giving some excuse. Everybody knew he’d been briefed on the team’s deadline plans. They probably would have figured it out.
Maybe he just thought spending the day golfing with your buddies would be a better way to deal with the stress of getting traded than moping around Baltimore and waiting for your phone to ring (though he’d have probably felt differently if he had known about Bergers cookies, the Baltimore delicacy that can turn any rough day around). “I guess if you’re going to get news like that,” Mozeliak told Rosenthal, “you might as well be having fun.”
Now that it’s over, does Trout wish he’d just cancelled the whole thing and organized a team outing to go see the new Spider-Man movie?
We’ll never know for sure, but my guess is no. Rosenthal came as close as he could to asking this question without being rude. Asked whether the day went as he had envisioned it, Trout said, “It was just different. We were all enjoying a round of golf. It was different, for sure.”
Can we back up and talk logistics for a second? Is Millville even convenient to get to?
Millville is extremely convenient to get to. From Philadelphia.
From Baltimore, not so much. Assuming there’s no traffic whatsoever, it’s a two-hour drive away from Baltimore. The team flew from Milwaukee to Baltimore, then roughly a dozen players hopped on a bus bound for New Jersey. Several coaches and staffers arrived on their own bus in the morning. I’ve run all the numbers here, and this was a hectic day for the Angels.
Here’s the most optimistic timeline I can possibly imagine. Sunday’s game in Milwaukee ended at 2:45 PM Central. Let’s say everybody really hustled in the shower and the bus left the ballpark at 3:15. It’s a 15-minute drive to the airport, and we’ll assume no traffic (not even airport traffic) and just 15 minutes to get the plane loaded and the wheels up. The flight from Milwaukee is an hour and 55 minutes long, and you lose an hour to time zones. We’ll give everybody another five minutes to get off the plane and on the bus, and then it’s a two-hour bus ride to Millville (again assuming no traffic whatsoever). That would put everyone in Millville at 8:45 PM Eastern at the very earliest. In reality, I’d bet they arrived closer to 11 or 12. This timeline doesn’t even account for the fact that they presumably ate dinner at some point.
Then they had a full day of golf, starting around 11:00 AM and wrapping up a bit before 6:00 PM, which means they didn’t get back into Baltimore until 8 at the earliest.
So where did everybody spend the night? At the golf club?
No. Rosenthal reported that the dozen or so players “stayed overnight at Trout’s home.”
Must be a pretty big home.
Yeah, Trout’s New Jersey home is a house in the same way that the White House is a house. It’s a custom-built mansion that took a year to design and more than two years to construct. Nobody was sleeping on a futon.
Something’s been bothering me for a while now.
I’m pretty sure I know where you’re going with this.
It’s the rain.
Yeah.
It rained in the middle of Mike Trout’s big day and everybody was stuck in a hut. Did Mike Trout fail to check the weather report?
I feel confident that Mike Trout knew it was going to rain. In fact, I feel confident that Mike Trout spent most of Sunday and Monday talking about the chance of precipitation to anybody who would listen and several people who weren’t listening. Surely, this was his big chance to call off the event without raising suspicion or hurting any feelings. “Sorry, guys, can’t do the big golf day. It’s going to rain in Millville. Next year for sure, though.” Easy-peasy. He must have just really, really wanted to do it.
Did the Angels get to finish their round of golf, or did the rain ruin it?
It sounds like they finished, but this has got to be the funniest part of the whole situation. Even Mike Trout’s one true love, the weather, was in on the plot to ruin his big day.
So this doesn’t sound like a very restful day off. Did the Angels win the next day?
Randy Arozarena is leading the Seattle Mariners with 3.2 WAR. He’s on pace for a career-high 4.5 WAR. He’s running a 138 wRC+, his best mark since the summer of 2020, when a steady diet of chicken, rice, and pushups turned him into the kid who only hit homers. He was an All-Star. But some of Arozarena’s underlying numbers are confusing. He’s on pace for 20 home runs, his standard year-end total. If you’ll forgive a digression, Arozarena has ended up with 20 homers in three of his five full seasons, which ties him for third on the all-time 20-homer-season leaderboard, behind only Bobby Abreu (five) and Harold Baines (four). But Arozarena’s bat speed is down by a huge margin, as is his launch angle. How is he going yard just as often while swinging softer and running a career-high groundball rate? Let’s try to figure out what’s going on here.
I always like to start with plate discipline, and that’s certainly a logical jumping off point, because the biggest change in Arozarena’s profile is in the strikeout column. He’s running a 20.7% strikeout rate this season. That’s an enormous six-point drop from last year, and it’s more than three points below his previous low. In fact, if you look at things from a certain angle, that drop is the entire reason that Arozarena is putting up his best season ever. If you ignore walks and strikeouts and just look at balls in play, Arozarena’s wOBAcon and xwOBAcon are nearly identical both to the numbers he put up last year and to his career averages:
Arozarena is getting the same results as ever when he puts the ball in play. Now, I know that he’s getting to those results in a different way, and we’re going to dive into those differences soon, but in that sense, the entirety of his wRC+ boost has come from the fact that he’s striking so much less. So let’s talk about why he’s striking out less. Read the rest of this entry »
Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who will henceforth be referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.
May 30
“There’s no weekend.” I remember thinking that night after night in the early going, as I held Derek Jr. in my arms while everyone else slept. There’s no weekend. In baseball, they talk about the grind of a long season. Even the off days are rarely actual days off because there’s so much travel involved. Everyone’s banged up. Everyone’s fighting to get proper nutrition and enough sleep. I don’t know if it’s true, but I remember reading somewhere that ballplayers consider a day game followed by a night game essentially a day off, just because they finally get an evening to themselves. Anyway, that’s what I used to think in the dark in the wee hours of the morning, feeling new aches in my arms or my neck or my back or all three. There is no weekend. There is no day off. Saturday has come and gone, and I’m up in the middle of the night with Derek Jr. Sunday will come, and I’ll again be up in the middle of the night with Derek Jr. Read the rest of this entry »
Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who will henceforth be referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.
May 26
We’re trying to decide whether Derek Jr. is ready to move up from size two diapers to size three. I mention that we’ve still got a couple size one diapers left in the diaper bag. Maybe it’s not too late to use them up so they don’t go to waste. “Those size one diapers,” replies my wife, whose gorgeous, haunting debut novel comes out next fall, “would not fit one of her butt cheeks.”
May 27
Similarities Between My Daughter and Professional Baseball Players:
They’re disturbingly young.
They love spending time at the park.
They’re incapable of keeping their saliva in their mouths where it belongs.
They have shockingly thick forearms.
They frequently dirty their uniforms.
They’re constantly besieged by photographers.
They have a carefully monitored nutrition regimen.
I thought I’d left this life behind. I thought my We Tried tracking days were behind me. I spent the past week covering trades that happened. Real trades, where one player (or two players, or three players, or a theoretical pile of international bonus pool money) moved from one team to another in exchange for one other player (or two other players, or, well, you get it). But just when I thought I was out, the Brewers pulled me back in. Of all teams, the Brewers! I started tracking We Trieds following the 2024 season, and over two offseasons, Milwaukee put up two goose eggs. The Brewers never gave me a single We Tried to track. Now they’ve had such a dramatic We Tried that they’re dragging me kicking and screaming out of We Tried retirement. What a world. Oh, and the Red Sox roped me back in too, because of course they did. But let’s start in Milwaukee.
As you might have learned from Michael Baumann, the Brewers were considered a real contender to land Tarik Skubal. That alone does not a We Tried make, but on Tuesday, MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy spilled all sorts of beans about their ace chase. McCalvy talked to “multiple club officials” and found the Brewers uncharacteristically forthcoming. He learned that although top overall prospect Jesús Made was off limits, the Brewers offered shortstop Luis Peña, whom we have ranked 26th overall on our updated Top 100 Prospects list, and two other position player prospects. One of those other prospects was also a Top 100 talent, which, depending on whose top 100 you’re talking about, could mean Brady Ebel, Jett Williams, Josh Adamczewski, or Luis Lara (though probably not Lara, as the Brewers signed him to an extension in June). That’s quite a lot of specifics.
A friend sent this article to me within an hour of its publication. It hits all the We Tried hallmarks. It lays out the offer the Brewers made, speculates on the players included and the players the Dodgers would have liked them to include. As I read on, I couldn’t help myself. I knew I’d have to get back in the game. Read the rest of this entry »
The trade deadline was yesterday. Are you tired? I’m tired. But we’re not done yet. We’ve still got to break down the three trades the Reds managed to swing at the bell. Let’s get to it, and then let’s take a nap. First, the Reds sent reliever Caleb Ferguson to the Cardinals in exchange for $250,000 of international bonus pool space. Then the Reds hooked up with the Guardians for two intrastate deals: Cleveland sent Cincinnati pitching prospect Alejandro Rivera in exchange for first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, and, in a separate transaction, traded rookie second baseman Juan Brito in exchange for a pile of money whose size has not yet been revealed. Were I in charge of one of these Ohio franchises, I might have combined those deals into one move, as it likely would have made everyone feel a bit better. Brito would definitely feel a bit better if he thought his contract hadn’t simply been sold outright, and Lowe might have an extra bit of pep in his step if he thought he got traded for not one but two players (plus he could’ve delivered the cash considerations himself, saving the Reds a trip to the post office for a money order). Let’s take these in order, shall we?
Ferguson must be getting used to this. He got traded at the deadline from the Yankees to the Astros in 2024 and the Pirates to the Mariners in 2025. At least Cincinnati to St. Louis is his shortest move yet. The 30-year-old lefty reliever is running a 4.01 ERA and 4.23 FIP this season. That FIP is grumpy, his highest since 2019, because he’s walking 10.1% of the batters he faces and running his worst home run rate since 2020. Although his hard-hit rate is still excellent and he has a great groundball rate, batters seem more comfortable. Their bat speed against him is up more than two ticks from last season, a huge jump that makes it seem like the high home run rate might be more than just bad luck. Still, we should note that we’re talking about a small sample here. Ferguson has only made 26 appearances (24.2 inning) because he missed the first two months of the season with an oblique injury (that is, an injury to his obliques; not some sort of obscure, unparsable injury). He is also running the second-highest BABIP of his career and his expected ERA is 3.49, almost exactly the same as last year, so Statcast isn’t too worried about his contact quality.
However, we do need to note some real changes in Ferguson’s profile. His average fastball velocity has dropped from 93.9 mph last year to 92.4 mph this year. His arm angle has also dropped significantly, from 46 degrees to 39. These are big changes, and as you’d expect when a pitcher’s arm angle drops, Ferguson’s stuff has traded a small amount of vertical movement for some horizontal movement. Now, maybe this is intentional. Maybe it’s a result of the oblique injury, and Ferguson’s velocity, arm angle, or both will jump back up toward the end of the season. I don’t have a way of knowing, but it obviously didn’t scare off St. Louis.
As for why the Cardinals made this move, my only guess is that they weren’t planning on using that bonus pool money. They traded away Dustin May, JoJo Romero, and Lars Nootbaar at the deadline. After beating the Yankees last night, their playoff odds sit at 5.5%. Ferguson can take the left-handed Romero’s spot in a bullpen that ranks 24th in ERA and 21st in FIP.
That brings us to the Reds-Guardians trades. Lowe is the big-ticket item here. After a dismal 2025 season in which he ran a 91 wRC+ and put up -0.3 WAR, he is back where he’s been for most of his career, running a 120 wRC+ and, when he’s not DH’ing, providing first base defense that is better left unmentioned. However, in recent years, Lowe has been going about it in a very different fashion.
Lowe bats left-handed, but his career platoon splits aren’t that extreme. He’s got a 103 wRC+ against lefties and a 123 mark against righties. Last year, that changed. He put up a wRC+ of just 41 against lefties. It’s the main reason his season was such a disaster. This year, the Reds have been shielding Lowe from lefties at all costs. He’s only faced them 10% of the time, and while that’s a tiny sample, you can’t fault them: He’s running a 137 wRC+ against righties and a -52 wRC+ against lefties. Yes, I said negative 52. He’s going to keep on platooning in Cleveland.
To that end, the Guardians made room on the roster for Lowe and fellow trade acquisition Jo Adell by optioning Kyle Manzardo and David Fry to Triple-A. Manzardo had been platooning with Rhys Hoskins at first base, but after running a 113 wRC+ in his first full major league season last year, he’s backslid to a 95 wRC+. His defense, while not Nathaniel Lowe-bad, hasn’t helped much either. Lowe will slide into Manzardo’s spot, serving as the big spoon in the first base platoon with Hoskins.
This isn’t the sexiest move, and the defensive side will cost the Guardians some. Manzardo and Lowe have both put up -4 FRV at first base this season, but Lowe has accrued that negative value in just 30% of the innings (and to be fair to Manzardo, DRS actually thinks he’s actually been a good defender). Still, the offensive bump will more than offset that, and – stop me if you’ve heard this before – the Guards need some help at the plate. With a 93 wRC+, they rank 25th in baseball. This isn’t exactly a new problem, but Lowe should be able to provide some real help.
Cincinnati’s return for Lowe is intriguing, though the player is a ways off from the majors. The Guardians signed the 19-year-old Rivera out of Venezuela, and he’s spent the past two seasons dominating the DSL to the tune of a 1.60 ERA and a 3.97 FIP. (I know the FIP doesn’t sound that impressive, but in the DSL, that still works out to an impressive FIP- of 78.) Rivera ran a 2.44 ERA with a 3.59 FIP and a huge 36% strikeout rate in the complex this year, and made one start at Low-A before the deadline. Eric Longenhagen likes Rivera’s athleticism, noting that although the righty is just 5-foot-10, he generates six-and-a-half feet of extension. He’s got a plus changeup, and a low release gives his fastball, which sits 90-94 mph, an uphill angle. Eric put a 35+ FV on Rivera, noting that the “lack of size makes it tough to comfortably project him as a starter.”
That brings us to our last move: Juan Brito for a mystery amount of cash. You don’t need me to break down the present or future value of cash. That’s helpfully printed on the corners, so we can get right to Brito, whom the Guardians DFA’d a few hours before the trade. The 24-year-old infielder made his major league debut in April, and in 15 games, he’s put up a wRC+ of 45 and struck out more than 30% of the time. He’s mostly hit in the minors. In 2022, he ran a 131 wRC+ as a Colorado farmhand in Low-A. In 2023, he ran a 128 wRC+ across three levels for the Guardians. In 2024, he ran a 114 wRC+ at Triple-A, and in 2025, that number was 110. But you might have noticed that those numbers have trended downward over time, and Brito has been worse this year, running a 98 wRC+ at Triple-A to go with the short, ugly debut.
Even worse, as Eric and Brendan Gawlowski noted back in January, Brito’s defense has been trending downward too. While he once looked like he’d play a passable second base, “Brito has tumbled down the defensive spectrum, and after experimentation at third base and in the outfield, it’s starting to look like his best position is first base. He’ll still play second, but not particularly well.” Eric and Brendan put a 40 FV on Brito, noting that “he hits righties well enough to play a small role.” With Matt McLain struggling for the second year in a row, maybe Brito will get a chance to show the Reds what he can do at some point in the next couple months.
So those are our trades. The Cardinals bought a lefty to replace the lefty they didn’t need anymore because they were giving up on the season. The Guardians gave up an interesting young pitcher to make a small upgrade at first base, and the Reds are giving a look to an infielder whose arrow is pointing down. We did it, you guys. Let’s take that nap.
Wendell Cruz, Jordan Godfree, Rhona Wise, and Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images
The Pirates are one game under .500 at the start of play Monday. The Pirates are three-and-a-half games out of the final Wild Card spot, behind both the Padres and the Marlins. The Pirates have lost five of their last six and eight of their last 11. The Pirates have a 21.1% chance of making the playoffs, down from 47.6% just six days ago. The Pirates are going for it.
Specifically, the Pirates are going for it by completely overhauling their bullpen. On Saturday, they traded catcher Omar Alfonzo and outfielder Luis Cruz to the Yankees in exchange for flamethrowing reliever Camilo Doval. Today, they added three more relievers. First, they traded shortstop Sammy Stafura to the Mets for better-but-not-quite-as-flamethrowing reliever Luke Weaver. And then, just before the deadline, they traded three prospects — Brandan Bidois, Hyun Seung Lee, and Brian Sanchez — to the Marlins for Lake Bachar, and sent Kyle Robinson to the Angels for Kirby Yates. Any time you can land a Luke and a Lake, it’s a banner day. As of this writing, Pittsburgh’s bullpen ranks between 17th and 22nd in WAR, ERA, xERA, FIP, xFIP. It’s also tied for sixth with 19 blown saves. But this is a whole new bullpen now, and it appears the Pirates will get Evan Sisk back from the IL soon enough, too. Read the rest of this entry »
Look, the Mets should not be the focus of this article. It’s trade deadline day, and we should be talking about the contenders, not the teams disassembling themselves in order to distribute their useful pieces throughout the league. But the Mets are the day’s big sellers. They’ve gotten 3.7 WAR from their bullpen this season, and they’ve traded away Huascar Brazobán and Brooks Raley, who’ve combined to provide 49% of that WAR. They’re sending Ben Rortvedt back to the Dodgers.
And so we have to start with the Mets: The last-place, 19-games-below-.500, 0.1%-playoff-odds-down-from-79.5%-on-Opening-Day Mets. Freddy Peralta is gone. A.J. Minter is gone. Luke Weaver (who provided 30% of that bullpen WAR on his own) is gone. And the Mets are not done selling. The other names being kicked around include Clay Holmes, Luis Robert Jr., and even Francisco Alvarez. It’s not a great year for the Mets, is the point. Let’s get to the trades.
Huascar Brazobán to the White Sox, Gabe Davis and Zach Franklin to the Mets
Brazobán is, at age 36, having the best season of his career. He’ll hit arbitration next year and be under team control until 2030. Since his debut in 2022, Brazobán has always put up good enough numbers. He’s never run an ERA- above 94 or an FIP- above 100. The Mets got him from the Marlins at the deadline in 2024, and he turned into a pumpkin the rest of the way, running a 5.14 ERA and a 4.31 FIP. However, he’s been great for New York for the past two seasons.
Last year, the Mets had Brazobán effectively ditch his four-seamer, cutter, and slider, and rely solely on his sinker and changeup. It’s a great combination. The two pitches have extreme arm-side run, and they come in at 96.1 mph and 90.7 mph, respectively. He does one thing really well – throw hard pitches that bore in on the hands of right-handed batters – so they’re having him do just that one thing. Over the past two years, righties have a .231 wOBA against Brazobán. Among the 219 pitchers who have faced at least 250 righties in the past year, that’s the fourth-lowest wOBA. The White Sox are getting a righty killer, which is great because this season, they’ve allowed a .320 wOBA to righties, tied for the seventh-highest mark in baseball (though we should note that their bullpen is better, running a .309 wOBA against righties, which is 19th highest).
This season, for whatever reason, Brazobán’s stuff is also working against lefties. Their wOBA against him has dropped from .379 in 2025 to .253 this year. As a result, across 46 appearances and 52 2/3 innings, he’s posted a 2.56 ERA and a 3.34 FIP. He’s on pace to set a career record for appearances, innings pitched, ERA, xERA, xFIP, and WAR. There’s definitely some luck involved here. He is running an absurd .206 BABIP and the second-lowest strand and HR/FB rates of his career. He doesn’t have great command. The Mets did not pay much for Brazobán in 2024, and he spent time in the minors in each of the last two years. Now they’re selling high and flipping him for prospects right before he starts to cost money. That may be cold comfort for Mets fans, but it’s a good trick if you can make it work. The White Sox bullpen ranks seventh by ERA and 15th by FIP this season. We should definitely expect some regression from Brazobán, but even so, he really could help them.
Now let’s talk return. The White Sox selected Davis out of Oklahoma State in the fifth round of the 2025 draft. He didn’t put up eye-popping numbers in college, but this year, the 22-year-old had a 2.63 ERA and a 2.67 FIP at High-A while striking out 30% of the batters he faced. That earned him a promotion to Double-A, where his numbers have cratered to the tune of an 8.31 ERA and a FIP to match. He hasn’t yet gotten a writeup here at FanGraphs. James Fegan slotted him in as one of the “Other Prospects of Note” in the 2025 White Sox Top Prospects list. His name was fifth under the label “Relievers Who Have a Little Something.” As such, I’m going to relay notes that Eric Longenhagen sent to me on Davis verbatim:
Coming out of his sophomore year at Oklahoma State, Davis was a big prospect and a potential first-round pick. He was a 6-foot-9 reliever who was expected to move into their rotation and, if things went well, be drafted pretty high. Instead, he struggled to throw strikes and was relegated to the bullpen again pretty quickly; his ERA was up near six for the season, and he went in the fifth round. The White Sox boldly sent him out to High-A as a starter and things went well enough that he was promoted to Double-A at the end of May, where he has struggled. This is definitely an arrow up guy, though. He’s added two ticks to his fastball, sitting 96 mph, and has touched 100 as part of a four-pitch mix. None of his secondary pitches is missing bats at a great rate, whether he’ll actually throw strikes enough to remain a starter is also unclear. But for now it’s good that he’s starting to give his cutter, slider, and changeup reps that they didn’t have in the college bullpen, and we’ll see if those improve. The Mets tend to be pretty good at improving their pitching prospects, so this is an exciting (if older) dev project for them. 35+ FV.
Zach Franklin, as Eric told me, is “more of a fully baked reliever.” He’s a 27-year-old righty with a very short arm action, almost like a catcher’s. James ranked him 20th in the White Sox organization last year. This year, Franklin has a 4.37 ERA and a 5.23 FIP in Triple-A, though we should note that his xERA and xFIP are both much lower. That’s because he’s put up an absurd 22% HR/FB, allowing nearly three homers per nine innings. Franklin is giving up all those homers for a reason: More than half the time, he throws a four-seamer with a bunch of rise. It’s racks up tons of whiffs, but when batters make contact, they hit it in the air (and this year, a long, long way). He also throws a slider and a splitter, and they rack up even more whiffs than the fastball. He’s striking out nearly a third of the batters he’s facing at Triple-A. But, as Eric notes, Franklin’s slider is closer to average, and he struggles to command the splitter. Still, Eric assigned Franklin a 40 FV, saying he “could come up tomorrow and be fine, definitely part of New York’s mix next year.”
I should end by mentioning that Eric told me a similar thing about New York’s return that I said about Brazobán: “It’s a good sign for the White Sox that they developed two lesser draft picks into desirable assets.” I don’t know if this is a trade where everybody wins. I worry that Brazobán could turn into a pumpkin just like he did when the Mets traded for him in 2024, but this is a trade involving a trio of players whose organizations have helped them find a new gear.
Brooks Raley to the Phillies, Luke Gabrysh and John Spikerman to the Mets
After four years with the Mets, Raley is bound for his sixth big league team. It would be hard to overstate just how good he was during his time in New York. After the better part of four years – he missed nearly all of 2023 due to Tommy John surgery – he’ll end his tenure with a 2.31 ERA and a 3.08 FIP. He’s a classic sinker-slider guy, and as a 38-year-old with a fastball that averages just over 90 mph, he is also a classic crafty lefty. This year, Raley is running a 1.96 ERA that’s more than a full run below his 3.10 FIP. He’s probably not going to keep stranding nearly 80% of his baserunners, but he’s outpitched his FIP in each of the past five seasons, so even though he may be out over skis just a bit, he might not be due for a sudden crash.
Raley is just a rental, but he makes all the sense in the world for a win-now Phillies team that has really struggled against left-handed hitters. Their relievers have allowed a .338 wOBA against lefties, the fifth-highest mark in baseball this season. Raley’s .235 wOBA against lefties is now the best in the Philadelphia bullpen. José Alvarado was supposed to be Philadelphia’s premier lefty out of the ‘pen, and he’s putting up the lowest hard-hit rate of his career, but everything else has gone wrong. His overall ERA is 5.71. He’s allowed a .329 BABIP and 1.38 home runs per nine innings. Even if you believe Alvarado is due for things to go his way (and his 3.39 FIP certainly makes that argument eloquently), you probably don’t want to bet your season on it, and Raley can help the Phillies right now.
Before we get into the return, I should note that Eric and I disagree on Luke Gabrysh. Specifically, Eric is only willing to put a 60 grade on his name. That’s alright; I don’t mind being the high man. Gabrysh is a 23-year-old righty whom the Phillies selected out of Saint Joseph’s in the 15th round of the 2024 draft. He’s posted a 5.14 ERA and a 5.22 FIP at High-A this season despite striking out 29% of the batters he’s faced. That’s because he’s also walking 11% of them and allowing homers to 4% of them. Gabrysh hasn’t made one of our Phillies top prospects list yet, so as we haven’t written him up before, here’s everything Eric told me about him:
Gabrysh is sitting 95-97 as a starter but ceding hard contact more than you’d think given how hard he throws. His fastball simply lacks movement often enough that it’s hittable. He currently has a cutter and slider that aren’t all that well demarcated, but he can really spin both of them. Another likely reliever, though there’s a little more variance here than Davis/Franklin because of the spin element, which is just better than either of that more-proximate-to-the-bigs duo two can offer.
John Spikerman – and here Eric and I agree: 70-grade name – came in at no. 28 on last year’s Phillies list but didn’t earn a ranking on this year’s. “Spikerman was once a center field prospect with strikeout issues,” Eric wrote, “and is now a corner outfield prospect with strikeout issues after spending the majority of his 2025 time in right.” The 23-year-old switch-hitter is running a 116 wRC+ in High-A this season, but is doing it in odd fashion. He’s dropped his strikeout rate to just under 23% and raised his walk rate to just under 20%. He has no home runs. He’s also dealt with injuries the last couple years. He played in just 62 games last year and is currently at 32 this year. Maybe the Mets think he’ll show something more when he gets healthy, but Eric has him as a fifth-outfielder type with a hit tool that might not scrape average.
In all, Spikerman seems like a flyer, while Gabrysh is a bit of a project. Maybe the Mets believe in his ability to spin the ball and figure they can help him find a fastball, or maybe they think he can focus on the cutter. Regardless, in Raley, the Phillies are getting a proven rental who can definitely help them down the stretch.
Ben Rortvedt to the Dodgers, Chayce McDermott to the Mets
Technically, this is a trade of minor leaguers, but both of these players have seen the majors often enough. You could be forgiven for not knowing that Rortvedt had ever left the Dodgers. He played well enough down the stretch for them last year, and not only did he appear during their World Series run, he batted .429 in his four postseason games. In fact, he’s had quite a journey, and I’m just going to quote from MLB Trade Rumors’ Steve Adams here because I don’t have the heart to break it down myself:
The Dodgers clearly like Rortvedt as a depth catcher…The Dodgers tried to keep him around as a depth option for 2026. Shortly after the 2025 season ended, they signed Rortvedt to a $1.25MM deal to avoid arbitration and then put him on waivers, hoping he would clear and stick around as non-roster depth.
However, that plan didn’t work, as the Reds claimed him. The Reds put him back on waivers in February and the Dodgers re-claimed him. When they tried again to get him though waivers shortly thereafter, the Mets claimed him. The Mets were then able to get him through the wire unclaimed around Opening Day.
You could argue that few players have ever known with such fine precision exactly how much their club really values them. The Dodgers liked Rortvedt enough to give him more than a million bucks but not enough to put him on the 40-man roster and avoid risking losing him off waivers twice. The Mets clearly found their affection for Rortvedt limited as well. With Alvarez, Luis Torrens, and Hayden Senger in front of him on the depth chart (and the recently claimed Shawn Ross somewhere in the mix), there wasn’t much room for Rortvedt. He’s put up an 86 wRC+ in Triple-A – better than Senger – but this is pretty much found money for the Mets. They pick up a spare catcher off waivers, wait six months, then trade him back to the team that waived him in the first place. It’s not the kind of move you’d expect from a team that started the season with World Series aspirations, but it is the kind of move you’d expect from a team that’s nearly 20 games under .500.
The Dodgers would like Rortvedt back because Will Smith has been out since early June with an inflamed disc in his neck and will need another three or four weeks to get back to Los Angeles. In the meantime, Dalton Rushing has played great, but his backups have been troubling. Chuckie Robinson is back in Triple-A after hitting for an .087 batting average in eight games, and Eliezer Alfonzo is batting a relatively gaudy .167. Steamer may think that Rortvedt can only hack a 70 wRC+ over the remainder of the season, but that’s a lot better than the numbers Robinson and Alfonzo have put up, and he’s got twice as much big league experience as those two combined. Still, there’s no guarantee that he’ll actually make it to Los Angeles, because the Dodgers finally have their dream scenario: They’ve got Rortvedt and they’re not required to put him on the 40-man.
A fourth-round pick by the Astros in 2021, the 27-year-old McDermott was a top 100(ish) prospect as recently as last year. He came in at 109 with a 50 FV on last year’s post-spring training Top 100 list, but his limited time in the majors has been disastrous. He’s made seven appearances over the last three years, and given up at least one earned run in six of them. He now has a career 12.00 ERA and a 8.74 FIP.
The Orioles DFA’d McDermott in April, and the Dodgers picked him up. He’s made two big league appearances, but I’m more interested in his minor league numbers. He has a 4.10 ERA across 32 appearances at Triple-A for the Dodgers this season, and he’s gotten there in wild fashion. He’s striking out 36% of the batters he faces, but he’s walking 18% with a 19% HR/FB. He’s running a 36% whiff rate. He’s throwing six pitches, and five of them have whiff rates over 30% (he’s only thrown six curveballs, and nobody’s swung at one yet). I don’t know how to square that with the fact that in his brief time in the majors, he hardly whiffed or struck out anybody.
McDermott is a lefty who averages 96 mph on his fastball, but the pitch is allowing a .401 wOBA in Triple-A this season. It does not appear to have a great shape. Moreover, he’s definitely not pitching like a reliever yet. Presumably, there’s a version of McDermott that could miss some bats in the majors, but he’d have to refine his pitch mix and start hitting the strike zone. The Dodgers have enough pitching in their system that a project like this isn’t worth their time, at least not when they can get another crack at Rortvedt.
Put it all together, and in these three trades, the Mets have snagged four pitchers and an outfielder. With the exception of Franklin, all of those players represent a project of some sort. Davis touches 100, but he’ll have to refine his command and work on his secondaries. Gabrysh has velocity too, but his fastball lacks shape. Spikerman’s hit tool is suspect, and he might not stay in center. McDermott also lacks control and needs to either figure out his fastball or find a new approach. If there’s a takeaway here, it’s that the Mets are betting on their pitching development machine to keep on humming. Stay tuned for more Mets sales.
