Evaluating relievers is difficult given their small sample of work in any given year and their volatility from year to year. But, given the fact that the most active sector of the trade deadline ended up being relievers, it makes sense to put them all in one place and wonder who got the best one. Might there be a surprising answer since the Padres ended up holding Brad Hand’s production on their roster?

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Deadline day kicked off with the Red Sox prying Addison Reed away from the Mets. Below is analysis of the prospects sent to New York in the trade.

Red Sox get

• Addison Reed

Mets get

• RHP Gerson Bautista
• RHP Jamie Callahan
• RHP Stephen Nogosek

All three of the prospects acquired by New York project as relievers. The 22-year-old Callahan and his deceptive, over-the-top arm action had a dominant, walk-less month at Double-A to start the year before a promotion to Triple-A Pawtucket. Since arriving in Rhode Island, he has since struggled a bit with command. He has struck out 36 hitters in 29 innings at Triple-A, but has walked 13. He sits 94-97 and has a short, fringey slider in the 87-90 mph range, and a below-average change-up. Both secondaries project to average and Callahan projects in a middle relief role.

Bautista, a 22-year-old Dominican, is the most explosive of the three, sitting 95-99 mph and touching 100 with his fastball. He was signed back in April of 2013 at age 18 and then missed time that year due to a positive PED test. The following year, Bautista’s career began at age 19 in the Dominican Summer League and he has, more or less, been behind the developmental eight-ball since then. He owns a 5.16 ERA at High-A, largely because of wildness and ineffective secondary offerings — his slider flashes above average, but is mostly fringey, and the change-up is below average. But his arm strength is enticing.

Nogosek was a 2016 sixth rounder out of Oregon. He began his first full pro season as Low-A Greenville’s closer and dominated there until late June, when he was promoted to High-A Salem. Nogosek’s pitching regimen started to include multi-inning outings shortly before the trade. He struck out 18 hitters in 17.2 innings with Salem, walking 10. The righty sits 90-95 mph and will flash a plus slider. He pitches aggressively and projects to have average command.

Of the three, Bautista has the highest upside because he has the best arm. If he ever tightens up his slider he could be a set-up man. Callahan is, obviously, the closest to yielding major league value. Nogosek has the best secondary pitch of the group and the best command projection, too, and is probably the most stable long-term bet of the three, though his lower arm slot might cause platoon issues at upper levels and limit his role.

Although the Red Sox have been stuck in a slump, they’re still hanging onto a playoff position, and they’re barely behind the Yankees for first. The Sox have a bullpen that ranks third in baseball in WAR, and, even better than that, they have a bullpen that ranks first in baseball in Win Probability Added. The bullpen, you could say, has been the least of Boston’s problems, and yet, we say it every deadline — every good team could use another reliever. And in Boston’s case, their success has been primarily driven by the almost literally unhittable Craig Kimbrel. What the Red Sox haven’t had so much of is reliever depth, being without both Tyler Thornburg and Carson Smith. And so, Monday has brought the following move:

Red Sox get:

• Addison Reed

Mets get:

• Jamie Callahan
• Gerson Bautista
• Stephen Nogosek

(Note: pending medicals!)

The Mets recently picked up A.J. Ramos, signaling that they intend to try to contend again next season. Moving Reed is hardly surprising, then — he’s a 28-year-old stretch-run rental. What the Mets have received is a trio of right-handed minor-league relievers measuring at 6-foot-2. As usual, any one of these young players could suddenly emerge to become a relevant big-leaguer. Yet the Sox haven’t subtracted from the top of the farm, and now they’ve grabbed one of the more extreme relievers around.

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Three minor-ish trades went down on Friday night. The Mets acquired A.J. Ramos from the Marlins for Merandy Gonzalez and Ricardo Cespedes; the Nationals acquired Howie Kendrick from the Phillies for McKenzie Mills; the Orioles acquired Jeremy Hellickson from the Phillies for Garrett Cleavinger and Hyun Soo Kim.  Below are the projections for the prospects who changed hands. WAR figures account for the player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

None of the players dealt last night are top prospects, and as a result, their likelihood of outcomes graphs are heavily skewed towards “no MLB”. Kyle Glaser recently found that fewer than one in five prospects traded at the deadline contribute more than one positive WAR season. All three of these pitchers seem like good bets to fall into that bottom four-fifths.

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As I write this, the Rays are sixth in the American League in our in-house playoff odds. They’re two and a half games out of first place in the American League East, and they’re one game out of a wild-card spot. This year’s Rays have a chance to actually go somewhere. This year’s Mets do not, and so a sensible trade has been made.

Rays get:

• Lucas Duda

Mets get:

• Drew Smith

This is one of those easy ones, one of those simple ones, one of those ones that hardly even warrants a write-up at all. The Mets are out of the race, and Duda is an aging rental player. Smith is a minor-league reliever, and for all I know those might be literally a dime a dozen, but he has plus velocity and an interesting curve, so you never know when it might click. The Rays, meanwhile, found themselves interested by the improvement Duda could provide. What is a Lucas Duda? This is a Lucas Duda.

Duda is a player whose very name kind of suggests everything you need to know about him. Not that I necessary mean to profile, and I don’t condone this sort of activity, but the name “Lucas Duda” conveys a certain amount of size and power. Duda, indeed, is large and strong, and he presently ranks among the league leaders in average exit velocity. The pluses are that he can hit the ball far, and he’s also comfortable drawing a walk. On the downside, Duda’s not much of a defender, and he’s prone to his strikeouts. He’s historically been a lot better against both righties and starting pitchers, so there are holes in his swing to be exploited.

Duda isn’t an impact rental in the way that J.D. Martinez could be an impact rental. Duda’s not that good. Still, he is a legitimate masher, and he’s an offensive upgrade over, say, Brad Miller, who’s been DHing too much. Duda, now, will slide into that spot, allowing Corey Dickerson to more regularly play the outfield while Miller could go back to pairing with Tim Beckham. There’s also a chance Miller or Beckham could subsequently be dealt — the Rays are tricky like that. But mostly, this feels like an addition for the sake of extra versatility and dingers. The roster will be stretched a little less thin, and in even better news, Kevin Kiermaier is nearing his return from the disabled list.

The Rays aren’t going for it in the traditional sense, and I doubt they ever will. They genuinely can’t afford to make those kinds of moves. But they are still clearly acting on their present opportunity, as they’ve also recently added players like Dan Jennings, Sergio Romo, and Chaz Roe. Those are three unspectacular relievers, yet there are things to like about each, and the Rays added them cheaply. They’re short-term additions, intended to make the Rays better now, but they haven’t actually lost very much. Smith is a recent third-round pick, but you don’t sweat dealing most A-ball relievers.

Duda’s going to serve as a two-month slugger. If things go the Rays’ way, he’ll be more like a three-month slugger. It might be moderately troubling that he, Dickerson, and Logan Morrison are all left-handed, but there’s still time to patch up the bench. The Rays are for real as a competitive team, and they’re adding for now in the way that makes sense to them. It’s hardly exciting, hardly dramatic, but the Rays are banking on their usual formula. They’re not a team that makes splashes. They just want to make sure they’re okay.

With Zack Wheeler joining the Mets’ small army of pitchers on the disabled list, the team will turn to 23-year-old Chris Flexen tonight against the Padres. Unless you’re a Mets fan with a deep interest in prospects, there’s a good chance this is your first time hearing Flexen’s name. I’ll admit that I was unaware of him until a couple of days ago when I came across his name while formatting KATOH’s most recent top-100 list.

But despite his obscurity, Flexen has undeniably earned this opportunity with the way he’s pitched this season. He started the year on the DL after having a bone chip removed from his right knee, but has been utterly dominant since returning. In three High-A starts, he pitched to a 2.81 xFIP with a 25% strikeout rate. He was even better in Double-A, spinning a 2.43 xFIP thanks to a 29% strikeout rate.

It’s been a long slog for Flexen, who was originally drafted by the Mets in the 12th round way back in 2012. After a couple of lackluster seasons in the lower levels, he underwent Tommy John Surgery in 2014. He pitched decently in 2016, his first full year after the surgery, but did so with a sub-17% strikeout rate. There was little reason to suspect he was on the verge of a breakout in 2017.

Eric Longenhagen included Flexen in his preseason Mets list, but only in the “Honorable Mention” section. He saw him as being worse than a 40 FV — the equivalent of a spot starter or middle reliever.

He sits 91-94, touching 96, with an average curveball and fringe change. He has a big, sturdy, inning-eating frame but has already had a surgery, and there are scouts who’d like to see if the fastball plays consistently at 96 out of the ‘pen . Others think he’s more of an up-and-down starter.

Eric provided an updated scouting snippet last month.

He has been 92-96, flashing an above-average slider and throwing all four of his pitches for strikes.

Because of scouts’ pessimism, there’s a sizable gap between Flexen’s stats-only KATOH forecast and KATOH+, which incorporates his (lack of) preseason prospect rank. The stats-only version projects him for 5.6 WAR over his first six years, which is good for 66th overall and 13th among pitchers. But that forecast drops to a meager 2.8 WAR once the scouting data is layered in. KATOH+ sees him as a near-certain fringe-player.

And since it looks noticeably different, I also made a stats-only graph. This one gives him a much more realistic chance of racking up more than 4 WAR.

To put some faces to Flexen’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Flexen’s 2017 numbers and every historical season since 1991. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

It’s tough to know what to make of Flexen. While his small-sample 2017 numbers have been exceptional, he’s never pitched anywhere near this well before, nor was he ever seen as much of a prospect. But then again, this might simply be an instance of Flexen finally being healthy for the first time in at least three years. I look forward to watching tonight to see how he fares against big-league hitters.

Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Dominic Smith, 1B, New York NL (Profile)
Level: Triple-A Age: 22   Org Rank:  3 Top 100: 73
Line: 3-for-5, 2B, 2 HR
Notes
Most developmental paths are long and winding, but Smith has been robotically effective since his first full pro season. He has made hard, all-fields contact each year, his home parks always tossing his slugging figures around. Even his year-to-year batted-ball profile has been consistent. He’s a high-probability regular with a chance to be a three-plus-win player if the glove scouts see shows up on paper.

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Former Mets pitcher Anthony Young died Tuesday after a fight with cancer, an inoperable brain tumor, at 51.

Teammates say he was known for his dignity and grace, characteristics he demonstrated through what his career is remembered for: losing 27 consecutive decisions between the 1992 and 1993 seasons, the longest streak in major-league history.

He died on the anniversary of his 24th consecutive loss on June 27, 1993, which set the major-league record.

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Coming into the season, Michael Conforto saw opportunity with the Mets despite a crowded outfield. He seized his chance early in the year and was among the majors’ best players in April and May. Then the league made an adjustment, one with which he’s struggling to adjust back. You could call that regression. You could also just call it baseball — as the player himself did recently with a shrug — but that ebb and flow is important. He needs to figure out this latest puzzle to get back on track.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Thomas Szapucki, LHP, New York NL (Profile)
Level: Low-A  Age: 21   Org Rank: 7   Top 100: NR
Line: 6 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 R, 10 K

Notes
Szapucki missed all of April and May with a shoulder injury. Sunday was his fourth start of the year and he worked more efficiently and missed more bats than he had in his previous three appearances. Szapucki already boasts a plus fastball/curveball combination and he’s a potential No. 3 starter if he can develop a changeup and/or plus command of his breaking ball. Should he fail to, then there’s some concern that Szapucki’s low-3/4 arm slot might be an issue against upper-level right-handed hitters and limit his effectiveness and role. He’s had a back and shoulder issue during his pro career and made many starts on extended rest. Sunday’s came with a full week between starts.

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