This, my friends, is the A.J. Preller we were promised. Mere hours after swinging a massive deal for closer Mason Miller and even fewer hours before trading for Ryan O’Hearn and Ramón Laureano, Preller made what you could argue – in one specific, absurd way – represented San Diego’s biggest upgrade of the day. Earlier this afternoon, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the Padres have traded starters Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek to the Royals in exchange for catcher Freddy Fermin. How could Fermin, a 30-year-old catcher with roughly average framing numbers who’s underperforming his career 91 wRC+ this season, possibly be a bigger addition than Miller or O’Hearn, let alone worth the two major league pitchers the Padres gave up for him? Just you wait.
It would be hard to overstate both how ugly the catcher position has been for the Padres this season and how predictable that outcome was. Coming into the season, the Padres ranked dead last in our Positional Power Rankings at catcher. We expected them to get just 0.8 WAR from the catcher position, a hair behind the Rockies. And that was before our projections knew how bad things really were. Shortly after the those rankings came out, the Padres demoted Luis Campusano, who had the best projection on the team. Instead, they rolled with Elias Díaz and Martín Maldonado. (I’m sure the Padres have their reasons for being so out on Campusano, but I have no idea what they are. For what it’s worth, he has slashed .298/.410/.555 with 15 home runs in Triple-A El Paso this season, good for a 130 wRC+. In 27 PA as a designed hitter for the big club, he’s 0-for-21 with two walks, but even so, right now at this very moment, ZiPS sees him as the best catcher of the three.)
Díaz and Maldonado have caught every single inning for the Padres this season, and the results have been even worse than expected. (Following the initial publication of this piece, the Padres DFA’ed Maldonado.) Both players have put up negative WAR. Maldonado has a 62 wRC+, while Díaz is at 67. In all, the Padres have put up -0.6 WAR from the catcher spot, and the only reason that’s not the worst mark in baseball is that the Nationals spent the first half of the season challenging for the worst team catching season of the century. Things have been even worse lately, as Díaz has put up a 38 wRC+ in the month of July. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a big deadline for relief pitchers, even for teams that aren’t operating in the Mason Miller or Jhoan Duran tier. The Orioles bullpen continues to get picked over like a charcuterie board: Andrew Kittredge is Chicago-bound, with the Cubs sending Wilfri De La Cruz the other way.
The Tigers beefed up their bullpen by picking up Paul Sewald from the Guardians in exchange for a player to be named later or cash. A few hours later, Detroit sent minor league pitchers Josh Randall and R.J. Sales to Washington for Kyle Finnegan and added Codi Heuer from Texas for minor league depth. Finally, the Dodgers are bringing Brock Stewart back from Minnesota, with James Outman going in the other direction.
Albert Cesare/The Enquirer/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Last night, after Zack Littell had started for the Rays in what would turn out to be a dramatic extra-inning loss at Yankee Stadium, he was traded to the Reds as part of a three-team deal with the Dodgers. The names of the players involved slowly trickled out into the ether, and after an hour or so, the entire transaction came into focus:
Littell, who turns 30 in October, is in his final arbitration season and will be a free agent this winter. After spending the first half decade of his big league career in the bullpen, he made a successful transition to the rotation starting in the middle of 2023. He has the third-lowest walk rate among all qualified pitchers since then, at a microscopic 4%. This season, Littell has a 3.58 ERA (his FIPs and xERA are in the 4.20 to 4.90 range) across 22 starts. He’s a quintessential soft-tossing pitchability guy whose fit in the Rays rotation the last few years was largely driven by his addition of a sinker and a shift away from using his fastballs so much. Littell’s splitter has been his most reliable bat-missing weapon and played like a plus pitch in 2023 and 2024 before losing some of its sink in 2025; it has backed up into more of an average area in terms of garnering whiffs. He’s posting the lowest full-season strikeout rate of his career and one of the lowest across qualified big league pitchers this year. He’s also surrendered 26 home runs, the most in the majors and a potential concern in the bandbox that is Great American Ballpark. Read the rest of this entry »
The Phillies have spent the first four months of the season battling the Mets for the top spot in the NL East despite getting almost no positive production from their outfield. All three positions landed on my annual Replacement-Level Killerslists, and at this writing, their outfielders’ net WAR of 0.6 is the third-lowest total in the majors, ahead of only the Guardians and Royals. Ahead of Thursday’s trade deadline, Philadelphia took a step to address that problem by trading two prospects to the Twins in exchange for Harrison Bader.
This could be more than just a typical two-month rental. Bader is making $6.25 million this season and has a $10 million mutual option with a $1.5 million buyout for 2026. The prospects heading to Minnesota are Hendry Mendez, a lefty-swinging 21-year-old outfielder from the Dominican Republic who’s spent this season at Double-A Reading, and Geremy Villoria, a 16-year-old righty from Venezuela who’s been pitching in the Dominican Summer League. Neither of them cracked the Phillies Top 30 Prospects list in late January, but things have changed in the past six months.
This is the third season out of four in which Bader has changed teams midseason. He was dealt from the Cardinals to the Yankees in exchange for Jordan Montgomery on August 2, 2022, and selected off waivers from the Yankees by the Reds on August 31, 2023; he spent all of last season with the Mets. Perhaps not coincidentally, he’s in the midst of his best season since 2021, when he hit for a 108 wRC+ with 16 home runs, nine stolen bases, and amassed 2.9 WAR in just 103 games (401 plate appearances) with the Cardinals. Read the rest of this entry »
It was shaping up to be a boring trade deadline day, with the most interesting rental, Eugenio Suárez, already off the board and no huge prospects or stars in play. But the San Diego Padres don’t limit themselves to the guys that everyone knows are on the block. They swung a massive, unexpected deal earlier today, getting Mason Miller and JP Sears from the Athletics in exchange for Leo De Vries, Braden Nett, Henry Baez, and Eduarniel Núñez, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported.
Miller burst onto the scene last year with one of the great relief seasons of the decade. He ramped up his fastball to nuclear velocities, sitting 100-101 mph and topping out above 103 en route to a 41.8% strikeout rate and a 2.49 ERA with peripherals that were even better. He did all that over 65 innings, a career-high workload for the 2021 draft pick. His fastball is a pitch modeler’s dream, all backspin and flat approach angle, and his slider is nearly unhittable for batters thinking “don’t get put on a poster by this fastball” from the minute they step into the box.
Miller’s 2025 encore hasn’t gone quite as well. For relievers not named Mariano Rivera, that tends to be the case. He’s still breathing as much fire as ever, but he’s aiming it a bit less effectively, and his walk rate has ballooned from 8.4% to 11.9%. Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’s still been very effective. Did you miss the part where I said he throws 103 with great shape and mixes in a nasty slider? Of course he’s still been effective. The decline has only been on the margins — ERA estimators in the high 2.00s instead of the low 2.00s, a low strand rate, and bam, suddenly he has a 3.76 ERA instead of a 2.49 mark. His stuff still looks really good, it’s just hard to maintain a two-handle ERA. Those are the numbers you put up when things go right, and 2025 seems more like an average year for Miller. Read the rest of this entry »
In a deadline where things are shaping up to be a little spicier than anticipated — Mason Miller for Leo De Vries and friends, holy cannoli — Steven Matz’s arrival in Boston in exchange for first base prospect Blaze Jordan feels destined to get swept under the rug. But wait, don’t look away yet. This season, Matz shifted to short-term relief work for the first time in his career, and the results have been impressive. In 55 innings, he’s delivered a 2.87 FIP, mostly on the strength of a minuscule 4% walk rate and excellent home-run suppression.
Matz hasn’t really overhauled anything about his arsenal with his move to the ‘pen. His heater is up maybe a tick, but it’s still the same fundamental Matz package, remarkably unchanged since his 2015 debut: heavy sinker usage, a slow two-plane curveball, and a changeup to mix in against right-handed hitters:
The lateral movement and lack of carry on his sinker makes it a somewhat ineffective pitch against righties, but those same qualities render it a weapon against lefties. Same-handed hitters are hitting .179/.216/.226 against Matz this season, good for just a .199 wOBA. Among pitchers who have thrown at least 250 pitches to lefties this season, he ranks 13th best in wOBA allowed.
Early in counts, Matz pounds the outside edge with that sinker. The precision aim — he zones the pitch nearly 65% of the time while aiming for a fine target — gets him a ton of called strikes, allowing him to frequently work with count leverage. Armed with an edge, Matz deploys his loopy curveball as his preferred put-away option. It doesn’t get a ton of whiff, but it’s also tough to elevate. And if he sneaks it through the front door, there’s just no way a hitter is swinging:
From a roster fit perspective, the move seems a bit curious. According to RosterResource, Matz will be the fifth lefty in Boston’s ‘pen. Aroldis Chapman is the closer, so he doesn’t really count, but between Justin Wilson, Brennan Bernardino, and Chris Murphy, it may look like the Sox are well-covered on the lefty specialist front. But a closer look suggests why they might not want to stand pat with that crew.
Let’s take them in reverse order. Murphy is an up-down guy, throwing just 16.2 innings in the major leagues this season. Alex Cora and co. probably aren’t going to feel comfortable thrusting a guy that green into high-leverage work during a big playoff series. He might even get optioned to clear room for Matz.
Bernardino is a guy who has been around a while, and does have a prototypical lefty-killer arsenal: a sinker that hovers around the zero induced vertical break line from a super-low release point, and a “curveball” (it’s a sweeper) that breaks nearly three feet in the other direction.
The problem? Bernardino sits 91 mph and walks a ton of guys. Thinking about a future where the Red Sox need to get through, say, Josh Naylor and Dominic Canzone to stave off an ALCS sweep at the hands of the Mariners, it’s a bit scary to have a guy throwing 91, with the distinct potential of walking two of the three hitters he is obligated by law to face. By contrast, Matz feels like a trusty pair of hands — he’s got the fourth-lowest walk rate among relievers with at least 40 innings pitched this year, and he’s a veteran with big-game experience.
But there is a third lefty, and he’s one of the dozen pitchers who’s actually been better against lefties this season than Matz. Wilson isn’t exactly Tim Hill. He throws from a high slot and gets a ton of fastball carry, and he pairs his heater with an 88-mph bullet slider he throws below the zone for whiffs. Even though it looks like a platoon-neutral north-south attack package, he’s been much better against left-handed hitters than righties, holding them to just seven hits (one double, zero homers) and five walks in 63 chances. Matz, at first glance, seems a bit redundant given the presence of Wilson. But I’ll get back to that.
As for the return: The Red Sox are sending Blaze Jordan to the Cardinals. On short-form social platforms, I saw a not-insignificant share of Boston fans lamenting the departure of such a premium prospect. Perhaps the enthusiasm can be attributed to his 80-grade name, or the sterling stats he posted in Double-A Portland earlier this year. The reaction suggests Jordan is an incredibly valuable prospect, not someone who Eric Longenhagen (favorably) compared to Ryon Healy in a recent write-up.
Jordan’s numbers in the high minors, as Eric noted, are impressive, and he’s relatively young for the level. But… well, instead of summarizing Eric’s report, I’ll just paste it here:
The chase is concerning when you’re talking about a bad corner defender. So many toolsier guys have been undone by that and that alone. Jordan is slow-of-foot and has well below-average range at third base, though he does other stuff well and could play there in a pinch. He has mostly played first base in 2025, and that’s his better position. Low-OBP first basemen need to have titanic power to be impact players, and while Blaze has meaningful pop, it’s not in Yordan Alvarez territory or anything like that.
Eric put a 40 FV grade on Jordan, which seems like a totally fair return for a reliever like Matz.
The last bit that’s curious about this deal: There just aren’t that many good left-handed hitters on the likely American League playoff teams. Of the teams with at least 15% playoff odds, there are only five qualified lefties with at least a 120 wRC+: Cody Bellinger (133), Riley Greene (133), Trent Grisham (127), the aforementioned Naylor (122) and Zach McKinstry (121). (Corey Seager, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Addison Barger just missed the plate appearance cutoff, while Yordan Alvarez has yet to be activated from the IL.) That’s not exactly a murderer’s row. Given the lack of lefties in the way of their pursuit of a pennant, it does make one wonder why Boston would load up on lefty specialists.
But perhaps Boston is thinking optimistically. What if they find themselves in the first game of the World Series, and there are runners on first and second, and it’s the fifth inning, and Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman are due up, and they need Wilson for the next time through the order. Hey, it’s a long shot — but if it comes through, the Red Sox will be awfully happy to have a reliable Matz in their pocket.
I know I was worried about a slow trade deadline; “top 100 prospects never get traded at the deadline anymore” had become a fashionable cliché. Even before the Padres dropped a depth charge on that notion on Thursday morning, the Blue Jays traded Khal Stephen, the no. 80 prospect in baseball, for a guy who hasn’t thrown a pitch in the majors all season, and has only made four starts in the past two calendar years.
The National League East is shaping up into full-on sprint down the homestretch. Entering the day of the trade deadline, the Mets find themselves half a game ahead of the Phillies, but our playoff odds give Philadelphia a 51-49 edge at winning the division. Both teams have spent past two weeks reinforcing their bullpens, and on Wednesday night, just hours after the Phillies traded for a fireballing closer in Jhoan Duran, the Mets found their own slightly-less-fireballing closer in Ryan Helsley. The 31-year-old Helsley is a rental in his final year of arbitration, and for his services the Mets sent the Cardinals prospects Jesus Baez, Nate Dohm, and Frank Elissalt. After trading for Gregory Soto last week and Tyler Rogers earlier on Wednesday, the Mets have now completely reshaped the backend of their bullpen. Jon Heyman of the New York Post and Anthony DiComo of MLB.com were the first to report different parts of the deal.
Before we get into the trade, let’s take a moment to marvel at how quickly the Mets and Phillies have remade their relief corps. I should start by crediting the prolific Michael Baumann, who wrote up the Soto deal, the Rogers deal, and the Duran deal. I also wrote up the Phillies’ signing of David Robertson last week. Put all that together, and the Mets and Phillies have added the players who rank ninth, 12th, 37th, 54th, and 72nd in reliever WAR since the start of 2024. Impressively, Robertson comes in at 37th even though he hasn’t pitched in the big leagues yet this season, because his 1.9 WAR ranked ninth among all relievers last year. This measuring stick also underrates Rogers, who came in at 54th, because our version of WAR relies on FIP, and the submariner has made a habit of beating his through the mystical art of groundball induction; when using RA9-WAR, Rogers jumps all the way up to 10th. In other words, we’re talking about four of the most valuable relievers in all of baseball and Soto, who is also pretty good.
This is what it looks like when your goal is to win a World Series. The Phillies and Mets are paying heavy prices to give themselves the best possible chance of locking down games late in October. The Mets started out in a better position, as their bullpen currently ranks 11th in baseball with a 3.80 ERA and 4.02 xFIP, and eighth with a 3.70 FIP, and they’ve added one more reliever than Philadelphia. But the Phillies have now added the best reliever on the market (note: I wrote this sentence before the Mason Miller trade went down) and one of the best and most consistent setup men in the game. None of this guarantees that the division will come down to the wire or that these relief corps will actually shut down the opposition in October, but it’s awfully fun to watch them gearing up for a championship run.
Now to the deal! As Anthony Franco noted for MLB Trade Rumors, Helsley has $2.65 million remaining on his $8.2 million salary. Because the Mets are in luxury tax territory, they’ll actually pay something like $5.6 million in total for him over the next two months.
With Edwin Díaz ensconced in the closer role, Helsley and Rogers should slot in as shutdown setup men. After making his debut in 2019, Helsley really took off in 2022, running a 1.25 ERA and 2.34 FIP over 54 appearances and taking over the St. Louis closer role that July. Helsley led baseball with 49 saves last year, and that total represented more than half of the Cardinals’ wins. Though still excellent, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that he has taken a step back this season. He’s currently running a 3.00 ERA, though FIP, xERA, and xFIP all see him as deserving something closer to 3.50. This is a far cry from the combined 1.83 ERA, 2.35 FIP, and 3.04 xFIP he put up over the three previous seasons.
As for why this is happening, Helsley’s strikeout rate has fallen in each of the last three seasons, from a massive 39% in 2022 to a merely good 26% this season. After running absurdly low home run rates on his fly balls for the past two seasons, Helsley is up to a 2.5% home run rate. Because he’s a reliever, we’re only talking about four home runs this season. That could just be randomness evening out, but his hard-hit and barrel rates have also increased. Batters are having less trouble elevating and celebrating than they used to against him. That 2.5% home run rate is the same as his mark in 2022. The difference is that because he was striking out so many batters back then, a few home runs didn’t matter all that much. Dingers were all hitters were going to get, and I mean that literally. In 2022, Helsley allowed nine earned runs. All nine of those runs scored on homers.
Home runs are always going to be a risk for a pitcher who depends on high four-seamers. When players aren’t swinging under them, they’re elevating them. Helsley is still averaging 99.3 mph on his fastball this season, and stuff models are still swooning over the slider that he throws nearly half the time and the curveball he throws 5% of the time. The issue is location. He has an extreme overhand delivery, averaging an arm angle of 63 degrees. That should make for a really fun contrast when Rogers pitches the seventh and Helsley pitches the eighth. It also means that Helsley’s four-seamer is almost pure rise, averaging 17.6 inches of induced vertical break and just 2.3 inches of arm-side break. A pitch like that plays best at or above the top of the zone, but he has struggled to keep the ball up there this season.
As a result, Statcast’s run values have the pitch going from being worth 0.7 runs per 100 pitches in 2024 to worth -2.0 runs this season. Its whiff rate has fallen, its hard-hit rate has risen, and its wOBA has climbed from .325 to .439.
This is still a dangerous pitch, and if Helsley can locate it better and pair it with his unhittable gyro slider, he instantly returns to being one of the best relievers in the game. Maybe the Mets think they can help him find his command or that it will come back in time anyway. Maybe they’ll just tell him to keep throwing hundos over the heart of the plate and trust in his stuff. No batter is dying to see a 100-mph heater, even if it comes in a couple inches lower than the pitcher hoped. If all Helsley does it keep pitching to a 3.00 ERA, he’ll still be very useful over the next couple of months.
That brings us to the prospects going back to the Cardinals. Baez is the main attraction here, and he happened to be on base when the trade went down, which meant that he learned the news when a pinch-runner came to take his place. Eric Longenhagen just wrote up the Mets top prospects a month ago, at which time Baez ranked 16th in the system with a future value of 40+. It’s at least worth noting that Baseball America had him ranked all the way up at sixth in the organization, though he was at least somewhat blocked in an organization with young infielders like Mark Vientos, Luisangel Acuña, Brett Baty, and Ronny Mauricio, along with two other infielders who came in ahead of him on our prospect rankings — Jacob Reimer and Elian Peña — and two 2024 draft picks: Mitch Voit and A.J. Ewing. Eric updated his blurb about Baez in light of the deal, so here it is in its entirety:
A $275,000 signee from 2022, Baez slashed .262/.338/.444 at St. Lucie last year and was given the quick hook up to Brooklyn after just a few games back there to start 2025. As of his trade to St. Louis for Ryan Helsely, he had a .740 OPS as a Cyclone, and is on his third consecutive season of a K% in the 15-17% range. This is a sensational hip-and-shoulder athlete who wows you with his ability to throw across his body, as well as his ability to rotate hard through contact. It’s a special, if specific, characteristic that creates some highlight reel plays on both sides of the ball, but doesn’t make Baez a great player or prospect on its own.
Let’s start with defense, where Baez continues to mostly play shortstop. He has the pure arm strength and actions to play short but nowhere near the requisite range, and his first step is slow enough that at times he looks lacking at third base, too. There is a subset of plays where Baez is forced to throw from a low arm slot that he appears most comfortable making, but he isn’t as consistent when he has to get on top of the baseball to throw long distance. This might make his best long-term position second base, where a lot of throws are made back across your body.
On offense, Baez has all-fields doubles power right now thanks to his lubricated hips, and he’s posting roughly average contact and power metrics under the hood. He has pull power even when his feet are early because he’s able to keep his hands back and rotate well through contact. The shaky Jenga block in Baez’s profile is his plate discipline, which gives his profile a Maikel Franco flavor that I can’t quite get out of my mouth. He’s been more patient in early counts this year than in seasons past, but he still expands too much with two strikes. Baez cuts his leg kick with two strikes to be in a better position to spoil tough pitches and grind out long at-bats, but this limits his pop; he had a paltry .490 OPS with two strikes at the time of the trade. This is a talented player who has performed like a future average everyday player on the surface, but who has some issues (defensive fit, strike zone judgment) that force one to round him down into a second division or bat-first utility FV tier.
Dohm and Elissalt are right-handed pitching prospects drafted out of college in 2024 who came in toward the end of the Mets list with future values of 35+. The Mets drafted the 23-year-old Dohm out of Mississippi State in the third round in 2024, and he has put up good results so far as a professional. He has looked solid this season, striking out nearly 30% of the batters he faced in seven games at Low-A and 11 games at High-A. He has a combined 2.87 ERA and 3.25 FIP over nearly 63 innings. Here’s what Eric wrote about him last month:
Dohm transferred from Ball State to Mississippi State, moved from the bullpen to the rotation, and had a hot start to his 2024 season before he was sidelined with an elbow injury. His mid-90s fastball has uphill angle and ride that helps it miss bats at the belt, and Dohm commands his slider (which isn’t especially nasty) to the bottom of the zone. He’s already blown through his career innings high in 2025 and is more of a dev project than the typical SEC arm. He projects as a fastball-heavy reliever.
The Mets took Elissalt in the 19th round of the 2024 draft out of Division-II Nova Southeastern. He was just promoted from Low-A to High-A, and he has a combined 3.04 ERA and 3.46 xFIP over 20 appearances and 56 1/3 innings. So far he’s also striking out right around 29% of the batters he faces. Elissalt can now touch 98, but Matt Eddy and Geoff Pontes of Baseball America have noted that he struggles with both command and maintaining consistent pitch shapes. Here’s what Eric wrote about him last month:
Elissalt went to high school in Miami but somehow ended up in Philly at LaSalle for his freshman season of college ball. It was his only one, as he would then transfer to Florida Southwestern and then Nova Southeastern before he was drafted. Elissalt has already experienced a four-tick bump to his fastball and an eight-tick bump to his primary breaking ball. He’s now averaging 95 mph and releasing from a low point that creates flat angle on a fastball with mediocre movement. Elissalt’s college curveball was scrapped in favor of a harder slider with plus length and bite. It’s the mix of a middle reliever if Elissalt can command his fastball to the location where it thrives.
In all, this is exactly the kind of deal we expect to see at the deadline. The Cardinals aren’t going anywhere with or without Helsley. He’s a pure rental who now has the chance to serve as a crucial piece in a playoff run. The Mets have built up their farm system to the point where they have enough players who may one day end up as good everyday infielders that they can afford to lose one. Dohm and Elissalt have a lot of developing to do for 23-year-old college arms, and they’re likely to get more chances as the Cardinals rebuild than they would have for a Mets team that is intent on building a dynasty.
For the second time in eight days, the Mariners have upgraded their lineup by landing a corner infielder from the Diamondbacks in exchange for multiple prospects. On July 24, they acquired first baseman Josh Naylor in exchange for a pair of young pitchers, and on Wednesday night they brought back All-Star third baseman Eugenio Suárez for a three-prospect package.
The full trade sends the 34-year-old slugger, a pending free agent, to Seattle in exchange for 24-year-old first baseman Tyler Locklear, 24-year-old righty Hunter Cranton, and 25-year-old righty Juan Burgos; both Locklear and Burgos have a bit of major league experience. This is Suárez’s second go-round in Seattle. President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto previously acquired him and Jesse Winker from the Reds as part of a six-player deal in March 2022, one driven in part by Cincinnati’s desire to dump the last three years and $35 million on Suárez’s contract. He served the Mariners well, totaling 53 homers and 7.8 WAR with a 118 wRC+ in two seasons, and helping them end their epic playoff drought in 2022. Dipoto traded him to the Diamondbacks in November 2023 for Carlos Vargas and Seby Zavala, and he’s been even more productive in Arizona, clubbing 66 homers and 7.0 WAR with a 127 wRC+.
The trade deadline is a time for handling needs both big and small, and the Astros and Orioles got in on the latter half of that on Wednesday night. Houston acquired Ramón Urías from Baltimore in exchange for prospect Twine Palmer. Urías shores up third base for the Astros, who will be without the injured Isaac Paredes for at least two months and potentially the whole season.
Urías is six years into a major league career that didn’t start until he was 26, and he’s been something of a utility infielder for most of that time. Third base is his most frequent home, but he’s played 500 innings of second, 400 innings of short, and 100 innings of first base, too. He’s a roughly league average hitter and a roughly league average fielder at second and third, though overmatched at shortstop. In short, he’s a competent veteran with little ceiling but plenty of floor.
That suits Houston’s needs just fine from my perspective. With a packed-to-the-gills IL (Paredes, Jeremy Peña, Yordan Alvarez, Jake Meyers, and no fewer than eight pitchers), the Astros need warm bodies. Their most recent pre-trade lineup featured Victor Caratini at first base, Mauricio Dubón at third, Cooper Hummel in left field, and Zack Short at short. (They drubbed the Nationals 9-1 anyway.) Caratini is a nice rotational catcher with a career 90 wRC+, and Dubón is a competent utility player himself, but Hummel and Short have accrued a combined -3.0 WAR in their major league careers. Read the rest of this entry »
