It’s probably been an awkward few weeks for Cody Bellinger. It’s been an open secret that the Chicago Cubs were trying to move him despite having signed him to a three-year, $80 million contract just one offseason ago. The emergence of Pete Crow-Armstrong as a credible hitter had already made Bellinger (and/or Seiya Suzuki) expendable, and once the Cubs won the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes, it was just a matter of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And what a grand, stripey shoe it is. The New York Yankees have graciously agreed to take Bellinger off the Cubs’ hands, and to absorb all but $5 million of his remaining contract. Chicago also gets right-handed pitcher Cody Poteet in the deal. Thus the Great Cosmic Balance of Codys remains undisturbed. Read the rest of this entry »
On Friday the Athletics and Rays completed a four-for-two trade centered around 32-year-old lefty starter Jeffrey Springs, who heads to Northern California. The A’s also got lefty swingman Jacob Lopez, while the Rays received wild, hard-throwing righty Joe Boyle, two minor leaguers (first baseman Will Simpson and right-handed pitcher Jacob Watters), and the 36th overall pick in the 2025 draft.
Springs, who is under contract through at least 2026, had a breakout 2022 season when the Rays moved him from the bullpen to their rotation, and he amassed 3.1 WAR across 135 1/3 innings. He got hurt a few starts into 2023 and needed Tommy John surgery, which cost him the rest of 2023 and most of 2024. After he returned from a prolonged, 12-start minor league rehab period, Springs had good surface-level stats in the big leagues – 7 GS, 33 IP, 37 K, 1.36 WHIP, 3.27 ERA – but showed reduced stuff compared to his pre-TJ form. Ken Rosenthal reported that Springs was shut down in September on the advice of his surgeon.
Springs joins an Athletics team flush with exciting young hitters but badly in need of pitching, which they’ve addressed with not only this trade but the recent signing of hard-throwing veteran Luis Severino (analysis here). The trade also adds payroll to the Athletics’ ledger, which they likely must continue to expand in order to avoid a grievance from the MLB Players Association. Read the rest of this entry »
When Juan Soto signed with the Mets this week, there were four parties who should’ve been celebrating: First, the Mets, who nabbed the biggest on-base threat since Barry Bonds, and in the process got to blow raspberries at their old money neighbors. Second, Soto himself, who was already grotesquely wealthy but is now due the kind of lucre that will allow him to oppress multitudes if he so chooses. Third, Scott Boras, who in addition to being paid a handsome commission proved that he still had his mojo after a mortifying 2023-24 offseason.
The fourth winner: Kyle Tucker. The “next-best thing” to a 26-year-old free agent with a .421 career OBP, to someone who is projected by ZiPS to accumulate more than 100 WAR, is… well there’s no such animal. But Tucker is as close as you’ll get these days. If Soto is worth $51 million a year, what is Tucker worth? I don’t know. Neither do the Houston Astros, but they’re clearly not interested in finding out.
Benny Sieu-Imagn Images and Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
It’s a ritual as old as time. The Brewers develop an intriguing young player into an All-Star, and a fun one at that. Next, that player approaches free agency – that’s how time works. The Brewers then trade that player to a contending team, getting back a few players with multiple years of team control. Finally, the Brewers develop those players into stars, spin the wheel again, and the band plays on. Today’s edition: Milwaukee traded Devin Williams to the Yankees in exchange for Nestor Cortes and infield prospect Caleb Durbin, as Jeff Passan first reported.
Williams is the rare pitcher who isn’t even as famous as his best pitch. His screwball/changeup hybrid is nicknamed The Airbender, and it’s been making major leaguers look like overmatched kids for years. On the back of that pitch and a plus fastball, he’s compiled a career ERA of 1.83 over five-plus seasons of dominance. His 39.4% career strikeout rate reads like a typo. He rose to prominence during the 2020 season, and he’s been the second-best reliever in baseball since then, trailing only Emmanuel Clase.
It doesn’t matter what you call the pitch; Williams’ results speak for themselves. “Changeup-first dominant closer” only sounds fluky until you look at the raw data. He misses more bats than Josh Hader. He might even be better than his run-prevention numbers would suggest, because the runs he gives up come in bunches. In 2023, for example, he gave up 10 earned runs all year, and four were in a single game. The upshot: He’s first among relievers in win probability added by a ton, because a truly outrageous number of his games end in scoreless innings. He’s not Mariano Rivera, but he might be the closest thing in today’s game: an automatic ninth inning. Read the rest of this entry »
The White Sox finished the 2024 season with my fourth-ranked farm system, and now they’ve added four good prospects via their trade with the Red Sox centered around lefty starter Garrett Crochet, who is under contract for two more seasons. You can read about Crochet and the Red Sox here. Coming back to Chicago in exchange are soon-to-be 23-year-old catcher Kyle Teel, 2024 first-round pick Braden Montgomery, 22-year-old developmental righty Wikelman Gonzalez, and data darling 23-year-old infielder Chase Meidroth. Two of those players (Teel and Meidroth) have a good chance to debut in 2025.
I thought this deal was much better than what the White Sox got back from San Diego last March for two years of Dylan Cease. A blockbuster rule of thumb: Get back at least one high-probability everyday hitter. Teel fits the bill. He’s a well-rounded player who is a virtual lock to remain at catcher and who will probably hit for enough power to be the White Sox primary catcher a few years from now. Montgomery is a switch-hitter with immense lefty bat speed, and he may also turn into an everyday, power-hitting right fielder down the line. Meidroth (elite contact, no power) and Gonzalez (three good-looking pitches that don’t play due to poor control) each have a plus characteristic or two that should facilitate an eventual big league role, and both have a puncher’s chance to be more than that. While it’s painful to part with a talent like Crochet (who was a bold, injured draft pick in 2020), a four-for-one swap in which each prospect they acquired has a special skill and potentially meaningful upside gives the White Sox a great combination of depth and ceiling in this transaction. Read the rest of this entry »
“Hey, they won’t have to say ‘we tried’ this time.” I can’t attribute that quote to anyone in particular, but the Winter Meetings were abuzz with variations on a theme. After missing out on Juan Soto and Max Fried earlier in the week, the Boston Red Sox switched gears from free agency to the trade market and found their star. In a blockbuster deal, they’re acquiring Garrett Crochet from the Chicago White Sox in exchange for Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, Chase Meidroth, and Wikelman Gonzalez, as Julian McWilliams of the Boston Globe first reported.
This is the biggest trade of the offseason, and it’ll almost surely still occupy that position when next season rolls around. Pitchers like Crochet don’t hit the market very often. He blew the doors off the league in his first year of starting, pairing premium velocity with two excellent secondaries. He threw 146 innings, struck out more than 200 batters, and barely walked anyone while doing so. His strikeout stuff, exploding fastball, and lanky lefty frame call to mind Chris Sale, another Sox-to-Sox trade piece, and with the White Sox in the middle of a gut-renovation rebuild, he was always likely to get traded. The only questions were who for, and which team was most interested in adding him to their rotation.
We’ll cover the ins and outs of the prospects included in the deal in a separate post. Broadly speaking, though, the White Sox got a little bit of everything in their return. Teel is a Top 100 catching prospect approaching major league readiness with impressive speed. Montgomery is a high-risk, high-reward outfield prospect, the 12th pick of the 2024 draft. Gonzalez has mouth watering stuff that took a step back this year, and a sky-high walk rate to match. Meidroth is an on-base genius with questionable power and an uncertain defensive future. The White Sox have so many needs that they don’t have to be choosy about filling particular holes or looking for particular profiles. They just need talent. This return fits well with that best player available mentality. Read the rest of this entry »
The Blue Jays came into the offseason at a crossroads. With Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette headed for free agency after the 2025 season, the pressure is on: Make the playoffs or go the entirety of their team control years without a single playoff win. (They’re 0-6 in three Wild Card series.) It’s no surprise they were in on Juan Soto, and after coming up short there, they pivoted to the trade market, acquiring Andrés Giménez (and Nick Sandlin) from the Cleveland Guardians in exchange for Spencer Horwitz and Nick Mitchell. The Guardians then sent Horwitz on to the Pirates in exchange for Luis L. Ortiz, Michael Kennedy, and Josh Hartle, all of whom we’ll break down in a forthcoming post.
This trade improves the Blue Jays’ outlook for 2025, and it does so in a way that fits their recent team-building to a T. Two years ago, they added Daulton Varsho and Kevin Kiermaier, perhaps the two best defensive outfielders in baseball, and frequently played them together. They gave Santiago Espinal regular playing time when his defense graded out well, then phased him out in favor of new defensive wunderkind Ernie Clement when Espinal faltered defensively. They used Isiah Kiner-Falefa to patch defensive holes across the diamond until they traded him this past summer. Now they’re adding Giménez, one of the best infield defenders in all of baseball, to the mix.
Last season marked Giménez’s third straight Gold Glove and second straight Fielding Bible award. The voters (full disclosure: I am one of them) didn’t give it to him on reputation. He’s not just a shortstop playing second base; he’s a very good shortstop playing second base. He has the strongest throwing arm of any second baseman and uses it to his advantage, ranging up the middle to make outrageous plays. He has soft hands and quick reflexes. Statcast credits him with 37 runs above average over the past three years, tops in the majors. DRS thinks Statcast is being too modest – it credits him with 59 runs saved, 22 ahead of second place. Read the rest of this entry »
Last offseason, the Reds assembled a frankly confusing amount of infield depth. With the emergence of Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, and Noelvi Marte, there weren’t many spaces available to start with. They signed Jeimer Candelario, and already had Christian Encarnacion-Strand as an option at first. Spencer Steer moonlights in the infield too. That left Jonathan India as an odd man out, and he seemed like a clear trade candidate merely waiting for a good home.
In 2024, that good home turned out to be Cincinnati. McLain missed the entire year after shoulder surgery. Encarnacion-Strand got hurt in May and didn’t return. Marte got suspended for PED use. When all was said and done, the Reds ended up trading for infield depth in Santiago Espinal. India played in 151 games and supplied his usual OBP-heavy offense.
Holding onto India worked out for the Reds last year, but there’s no way they could’ve tried the same plan again. That would’ve been just too many resources committed to one subset of the team, and Cincinnati has needs across the roster. So after many months, the trade we’ve all been expecting for roughly a year has come to pass. The Reds traded India and outfielder Joey Wiemer to the Royals in exchange for righty starter Brady Singer.
At first blush, this trade feels strange from the Reds’ standpoint. India might be a luxury good for their team, but he’s a legitimately good hitter with two years of reasonably priced team control remaining. He was their third-best hitter by WAR, and the Reds need people on base to take advantage of their homer-friendly stadium. Singer was Kansas City’s fourth starter, and 700 innings into his career, he’s not exactly a mystery box: He’ll give you a 4-ish ERA if you can put a good defense behind him. Not only that, but the Reds had to throw in Wiemer just to get things done. What gives? Read the rest of this entry »
