The Cubs traded for Justin Wilson and Alex Avila. Below are the projections for the prospects the Tigers received in exchange for their services. 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.

Jeimer Candelario, 3B (Profile)

KATOH: 4.4 WAR (108th)

KATOH+: 4.3 WAR (83rd)

Candelerio was slashing .266/.361/.507 in the Pacific Coast League this year, with a bunch of doubles and walks. The PCL has surely helped his power numbers a good deal, but his 12% walk rate illustrates that he does a decent job of controlling the strike zone. Defensively, Candelario has been an above-average third baseman this year in the minors. Although he’s been in the Cubs’ system forever, Candelario’s still just 23. A 23-year-old third baseman who can both hit and play average-ish defense is a fine prospect.

To put some faces to Candelario’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Candelario’s Triple-A performance and every Triple-A 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.

…

Isaac Paredes, SS (Profile)

KATOH: 5.2 WAR (76th)

KATOH+: 3.6 WAR (104th)

Despite being just 18 years old, Paredes is already in and has held his own in full-season ball, slashing .261/.341/.399 with a 14% strikeout rate in Low-A. That’s encouraging for an 18 year old, but it’s especially encouraging coming from an 18-year-old shortstop. Scouts are a tad skeptical of Paredes, citing a lack of physical projection and athleticism needed to stick at shortstop long-term. KATOH picks up on this too — by way of his height (5-foot-11) and lack of stolen bases — but still finds him very intriguing due to his combination of youth, contact and defense. As a Low-A hitter, Paredes has a long way to go, but he has several characteristics that often portend to big league success.

Late Sunday night the Cubs and Tigers agreed to a deal sending Justin Wilson and Alex Avila to Chicago in exchange for INF Jeimer Candelario, INF Isaac Paredes and either cash or a player to be named later.

Chicago gets
C Alex Avila
LHP Justin Wilson

Detroit gets
INF Jeimer Candelario
INF Isaac Paredes

Candelario, now 23, is a known talent. He has long been a promising offensive prospect, hitting at a .270/.351/.433 career clip in pro ball with a 10% walk rate. He is fluid and comfortable in the box, shows good bat control and hand-eye coordination, and makes in-flight adjustments to offspeed pitches that he’s capable of striking to all fields. He’s a tough out and projects as a plus hitter with average game power. That power isn’t exciting at first base (where many scouts project Candelario to fall, defensively) but it is passable and, with his keen eye for the strike zone, Candelario projects as an average offensive regular at first.

Candelario has an above average arm and has improved his conditioning, so while the general consensus still believes him to be a first baseman, it’s becoming less common for scouts to knock his lateral quickness. That, combined with Detroit’s current big league roster makeup (which has seen butcher Nick Castellanos at third and immovable god Miguel Cabrera at first) and continued advancements in defensive positioning make Candelario’s defensive future a bit foggy, but hopeful. He was just barely off my top 100 entering the year and will be on the updated list in the next few weeks.

Clubs have been asking for Paredes in trades for over a year now. Teams discovered him in many different ways but they’ve all become smitten with the 18-year old “shortstop” for one reason or another. Some clubs flagged him for excellent statistical performance in last year’s AZL when Paredes was just 17 but hit .305/.359/.443 and only struck out in 10% of his plate appearances. Some scout the AZL heavily and were sent glowing reports about his feel to hit. He seems likely to continue to do that. After a hot start, Paredes struggled to hit the ball hard for about a month and owned a .240/.310/.333 line on June 4. He’s righted the ship and has tallied 19 extra-base hits since then and was up to .264/.342/.401 before the trade.

Scouts have varied opinions about Paredes’ defense. He does not project to shortstop for any scouts with whom I have spoken, nor does he for me. Some clubs who entertained the idea of acquiring him last year had plans to move Paredes, who was rather girthy at the time, to catcher. Others have him projected to either second or third base. Paredes has improved his conditioning and isn’t as soft-bodied as he was last year but he remains boxy, square, and simply unlike what the lion’s share of big league shortstops look like when they’re 18. Of course, if he hits the way many in the industry think he will, that might not matter.

While Zach Britton is the big name, and Brad Hand has been priced like an even bigger name, Justin Wilson might have actually been the most sought after reliever on the market this week. Basically every contender in baseball wanted him. The finalists were reportedly the Dodgers, Astros, Nationals, and Cubs, and the Tigers really couldn’t have asked for a better group to have bidding up the price on their best trade chip.

In the end, it appears that the Cubs put the offer on the table Detroit liked most. While the deal isn’t official yet, the teams are reportedly reviewing medical information, which means it should be done soon.

The deal is reportedly as follows.

The strong market for Wilson reflects the way the game has changed. He’s only been a closer for a couple of months now, and he has just 14 career saves. His ERA last year was 4.14. He’s never been an All-Star. Yet all of the best teams in baseball wanted him, because despite the lack of accolades, Justin Wilson is really good.

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Several trades occurred while I was on vacation. I’m profiling the prospects involved in those deals in a belated nature. First among these is the deal that netted the Chicago Cubs LHP Jose Quintana. A breakdown of the big league side of that trade is available here.

Just a reminder of the players exchanged:

Cubs get

• LHP Jose Quintana

White Sox get

• OF Eloy Jimenez
• RHP Dylan Cease
• 1B Matt Rose
• INF Bryant Flete

The blockbuster’s headliner was power-hitting outfielder Eloy Jimenez, who has arguably the best in-game power projection in the minors. That power was preordained by Jimenez’s broad-shouldered 6-foot-4 frame which, even when he was 16, seemed to promise exceptional future raw pop. Jimenez’s body has developed a bit faster than many had expected (at age 20 he’s already closer to 250 pounds than his listed 205) and helps him generate power from foul pole to foul pole. At times, Jimenez barely squares up pitches and is still able to drive balls to the wall for extra bases, seemingly by accident. He’s very likely to hit and hit for power, the latter perhaps at an elite level, placing him firmly in heart of whatever batting order he occupies as a base-clearing force.

Defensively, Jimenez’s below-average speed and average arm relegate him to an outfield corner and, probably, left field. But the bat is going to profile anywhere Jimenez ends up on the defensive spectrum.

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This is the worst offensive season for pitchers on record. It’s close, and the season isn’t over, and Madison Bumgarner has spent a lot of time on the disabled list, but, league-wide, pitchers so far have combined for a wRC+ of -21. It’s never before been that low over a full season. It makes enough sense; pitchers are presently better than ever at pitching, and they’re less incentivized than ever to know how to hit. This is the age of specialization. Players who specialize in pitching can’t be expected to handle the bat.

Jon Lester has been a bad hitter, even relative to other pitchers. Over his career he’s batted more than 200 times, and his wRC+ is -40. You might remember that he opened his career 0-for-66, which no player had ever done. Lester is bad at hitting, among pitchers. Pitchers are bad at hitting, and worse than ever. Given an ordinary game, you’d expect that Jon Lester, the hitter, would go quietly o-fer. The Cubs wouldn’t even care that much.

Monday night, Lester stole a base. It was the first pitcher steal of the year. Lester also drew a walk. Lester also hit a double. In one game, Lester had a steal, a walk, and an extra-base hit. Here’s the entire table of pitcher-games meeting the same criteria since 1950:

Nine games. Technically, it has been less than a year since the last one, but then you get a spread of 17 years. Then you get a spread of 26 years. Consider this a decently-rated fun fact. Jon Lester, the hitter, kind of filled up the box score.

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The first domino of the 2017 trade deadline fell yesterday, as the Cubs swung a deal with their crosstown rivals for Jose Quintana. Quintana has been one of the best pitchers in baseball the past few years, so he understandably brought back a substantial prospect haul. The Cubs coughed up top prospects Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease in the deal. Both are possess enticing upside, but neither has put up dominant numbers in the low minors. As a result, KATOH is relatively low on both.

A couple of lower-tier prospects, Matt Rose and Bryant Flete, were also included in the deal.

Below are the projections for the four players whom the White Sox receive. 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.

*****

Eloy Jimenez, LF (Profile)

KATOH: 4.7 WAR (87th overall)
KATOH+: 11.5 WAR (12th overall)

Jimenez is undoubtedly the centerpiece in this deal. The 20-year-old Dominican left fielder ranked fifth and eighth on Baseball America’s and Baseball Prospectus’s lists, respectively. After missing the season’s first few weeks with a shoulder injury, Jimenez has hit .271/.351/.490 at High-A. He hit a loud .329/.369/.532 in Low-A last season. Over the winter, Eric Longenhagen praised Jimenez’s power potential, ranking him No. 15 on his preseason top-100 list.

He’s got 70 raw power right now, flicking lasers over the left-field wall with ease during BP and stumbling into wall-scraping homers he barely squares up in games. I think he’s going to have elite power in his mid-20s and there’s solid feel for contact here, too.

My KATOH system is a tad skeptical of Jimenez due to his near-complete lack of defensive value and 20% strikeout rate in A-ball. Still, it sees a good deal of promise in his power and youth. For someone Jimenez’s age, 24 homers in 154 games at A-ball is impressive, regardless of what position he plays.

To put some faces to Jimenez’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Jimenez’s A-ball performance and every 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. A lower “Mah Dist” reading indicates a closer comp.

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There’s a fairly prevalent belief that teams should be reluctant to trade with other teams in the same city. Something to do with rivalries, or whatever. You don’t want to have a valuable former asset helping out some other club just a few miles away. Indeed, if you examine trading histories, these moves are fairly uncommon. Baseball has established a precedent by which intra-city ballclubs seldom come together for a swap. However, that’s stupid. The Cubs and White Sox realize that’s stupid, and so, as of Thursday morning, we’ve got ourselves a blockbuster.

Cubs get:

• Jose Quintana

White Sox get:

• Eloy Jimenez
• Dylan Cease
• Matt Rose
• Bryant Flete

It’s long been fairly obvious that Quintana was going to get moved. While he’s a long-term asset, he’s really a short-term asset under long-term control, and the White Sox probably would’ve liked to have moved him last winter. Seeing Quintana get dealt isn’t surprising. It’s also not surprising to see the Cubs jump on a cost-controlled, somewhat young starter. This has been the rumor for what feels like years. They developed their bats, and they’ve needed to acquire pitching. Quintana is said pitching. Everything about this makes sense, once you move beyond whatever shock you might feel about the two Chicago teams reaching an agreement. This is a sensible exchange. It’s also a total doozy.

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It’s pretty rare these days when MLB teams get to announce a big transaction on their own, as most things leak out ahead of time, and we get a few days of speculation before a deal is finally complete. But this morning, the White Sox just threw out a shocker.

#WhiteSox have acquired OF Eloy Jiménez, RHP Dylan Cease, 1B Matt Rose & INF Bryant Flete from the Cubs in exchange for LHP José Quintana.

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) July 13, 2017

We were pretty sure the White Sox were going to trade Quintana, and it seemed pretty clear the Cubs needed another starting pitcher, but the presumption was that the Chicago teams wouldn’t strike a deal, given their history of not really making trades together. They hadn’t completed a trade between teams since 2006, when Neal Cotts was traded for David Aardsma, and before that, it was 1998’s Matt Karchner for Jon Garland deal.

But this time, apparently, the fit was too perfect to pass up just because they share a city. The White Sox wanted to continue to load up on future upside, and there are few prospects in the game with more long-term value than Jimenez, who Baseball America just ranked #5 overall in their midseason update. Eric Longenhagen put a 60 FV on him before the season began, and he’s gone on to hit .271/.351/.490 as a 20-year-old in high-A ball. He’s still several years from the big leagues, but he’s got some of the biggest power upside in the minors, and the White Sox have time to be patient.

Cease is a pretty nifty second piece himself, as a 21-year-old who can get his fastball into the high-90s and was destroying the Midwest League this year. Like Jimenez, he’s got a ways to go before he’s a big leaguer, but there’s plenty of potential here.

Rose and Flete are your typical add-ons in trades like this. Neither one even made the honorable mentions section of Eric’s Cubs list this spring, and it would take some unexpected development for either to become a contributor in the big leagues. This deal is about Jimenez and Cease.

As expected, Quintana didn’t bring back quite the return that Chris Sale did, but this looks like a very nice return for the White Sox. They continue to pick upside and long-term value over proximity to the Majors, and when you collect prospects like this, your success rate will naturally be lower. But if they hit on a few of the guys they’ve acquired over the last year, they’re going to find a franchise player or two to build around. With Moncada, Jimenez, Kopech, Cease, Giolito, and Lopez, the White Sox have six pretty interesting upside plays to hope on now.

Jeff will be around in a bit with a longer write-up on this deal, and will focus more on how this helps the Cubs. But they needed another good pitcher, and now they have one they can keep around for a few more years. The Dodgers and Nationals shouldn’t forget about the Cubs just yet.

It’s that time of year again. Time to gather around adult beverages (drink specials to be determined) and small plates (free thanks to FanGraphs, October, and The Athletic!) and talk baseball with some of your favorite writers. Thursday, July 13th, at 7pm at Local Option in Chicago, we have invited the writers, analysts, and brewers below (and a few more off list) to come and be merry with you in the back of the bar.

This is a 21-and-over event. No tickets required.

See you soon.

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Following Miguel Montero’s kerfluffle with Jake Arrieta, the Cubs designated Montero for assignment today. In his place, they called up Victor Caratini from Triple-A. The switch-hitting Caratini had been tearing up PCL pitching this season to the tune of .343/.384/.539. Needless to say, that’s mighty exciting coming from a catcher. Caratini’s offensive profile is built around an encouraging combination of contact and power. At Triple-A this season, he struck out in less than 15% of his plate appearances while posting an ISO just south of .200. The latter was largely due to his 20 doubles. Caratini has also run high walk rates in the past.

KATOH likes Caratini more than most, projecting him for 5.1 WAR over his first six seasons by stats-only KATOH and 3.7 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his prospect ranking. Those marks place him 80th and 100th, respectively, among prospects. Caratini doesn’t even sniff most scouting-based top-100 lists.

To put some faces to Caratini’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Caratini’s Triple-A performance and every 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. A lower “Mah Dist” reading indicates a closer comp.

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