Up in Seattle, the Mariners had a problem. Eugenio Suárez, who the team initially acquired as salary ballast in the trade that brought them Jesse Winker, was due to make $11 million next year – $13 million if you count a buyout on a team option for 2025. This wasn’t a huge problem – Suárez had been solid since joining the team, racking up 7.3 WAR in two seasons – but for a club whose payroll has bounced around between $110 million and $140 million in recent years, it’s a sizable chunk of the puzzle.
What’s more, Jerry Dipoto telegraphed the team’s intention to favor long-term budget sustainability over short-term upgrades in his now-infamous 54% remark. Dipoto apologized for the tone of those comments – “doing the fans a favor” is just not a good way to phrase things – but the broad point was hard to miss. The Mariners are committed to building their team for the long run on their own terms, which seems to mean prioritizing payroll savings and cost-controlled players wherever possible. Read the rest of this entry »
For the second time this calendar year, Luis Urías has been traded in a one-for-one swap for a right-handed pitcher from the 2019 draft class. This time, it’s the Mariners hoping to help the former top prospect turn things around and rediscover the skills that made him an above-average contributor in 2021 and ’22. In exchange, they’re sending 26-year-old Isaiah Campbell to the Red Sox. The righty reliever made 27 appearances for Seattle this past season.
Urías was a highly-touted prospect in the Padres organization in the mid-2010s, but after a slow start to his major league career (an 80 wRC+ and 10 errors in 83 games), San Diego shipped him off to Milwaukee for a change of scenery in November 2019, picking up Trent Grisham in the process. It was with the Brewers that Urías finally broke out; after another poor performance in 2020, he posted a 111 wRC+ and 4.4 WAR across 269 games in 2021 and ‘22. Thus, even with Willy Adames locked in at shortstop, middle infield prospect Brice Turang knocking on the big league door, and veteran third baseman Brian Anderson joining the fray in free agency, Urías looked like a key piece of the team’s future. His glove didn’t stand out at any one position, but he could hold his own at second, third, and short, allowing the Brewers to plug him in all around the infield.
Urías was Milwaukee’s Opening Day third baseman in 2023, but unfortunately, a hamstring injury kept him off the field for all of April and May. He returned to a more crowded infield picture in June: Owen Miller had been red-hot over the past month, Andruw Monasterio was hitting well in his first week of big league action, and Anderson still boasted a 102 wRC+ on the season despite having slowed down after a strong start. Moreover, Turang was struggling but still needed regular playing time if the Brewers were going to keep him in the majors, and Adames was nearing his return from a short stint on the 10-day IL. Urías stumbled that month, going just 8-for-51 with three extra-base hits, and the Brewers – who, at that time, were still in a close division race – had little patience for his struggles. He was optioned at the end of the month in favor of Turang, who was hitting well at Triple-A after a brief demotion of his own.
Ultimately, that would mark the end of the road for Urías in Milwaukee. Seemingly lacking optimism that he could return to form at the big league level, the Brewers flipped him to the Red Sox at the deadline in exchange for 22-year-old
pitching prospect Bradley Blalock. Things got better in Boston, as one could’ve expected. Not only was Urías further removed from his hamstring injury, but his .179 BABIP with the Brewers was bound to improve. He never got back to his peak from 2021 to ‘22, but he posted a 98 wRC+ with the Red Sox over the final two months of the season.
With that in mind, it’s somewhat surprising to see Boston give up on Urías so quickly. After his poor performance in 2023, he isn’t going to earn a sizable raise in arbitration; the projections at MLB Trade Rumors suggests he’ll earn the exact same $4.7 million salary in 2024. Even if he never reaches his full potential, a versatile infielder who can provide league-average production with the bat is a valuable player to have on the roster. Consider Whit Merrifield and Amed Rosario, whom our contract crowdsourcing estimates have earning two-year deals worth $16 million and $18 million, respectively. To that end, it’s not as if the Red Sox are overflowing with infield talent, nor is the free agent market. Rafael Devers has third base on lock, and Trevor Story should be the starting shortstop, but second base remains a question mark. Boston has internal options, but none with the experience or high ceiling of Urías.
It’s certainly possible the Red Sox are planning to pursue Rosario, Merrifield, or Tim Anderson, but chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has already spoken about the internal options, and it looks like Enmanuel Valdez is likely to be the starting second baseman on Opening Day. Valdez hit for a 102 wRC+ in 49 games last season, playing second base and a sprinkle of shortstop, and presumably, the Sox think they can get similar production to Urías at a pre-arbitration salary. Veteran utilityman Pablo Reyes (another former Brewer) and speedy shortstop prospect David Hamilton figure to get some reps at the keystone as well, especially the right-handed Reyes, who could serve as the short side of a platoon with the lefty-batting Valdez.
If the Red Sox have faith in Valdez (or a plan to sign an upgrade), this isn’t a bad move. After all, while Urías is only a year removed from a 110 wRC+, there are reasons to be concerned about his bat. His best skill is his plate discipline; from 2021-22, he posted a walk rate 23% higher than league average and a strikeout rate 9% lower than the average hitter. His 0.53 walk-to-strikeout ratio ranked among the top 20 qualified hitters in the National League. Strangely enough, his 11.9% walk rate in 2023 was actually a career high, but it’s difficult to imagine that the way he got there was sustainable. While Urías swung significantly less often in 2023, he was far more likely to swing at pitches outside the strike zone. As a result, he posted a career-high called strike rate and a career-high whiff rate. By and large, hitters should keep the bat on their shoulders more often, but if a hitter is going to be selective, he has to be selective in the right way. Moreover, his slightly above-average power fell off too, and even if you want to blame it all on his injury (he hit the ball harder as the year went on), Urías has developed something of a reputation as an injury-prone player. Over the last two years, he has gone on the IL with strains to his hamstring, calf, and quad.
What’s more, it’s not as if the Red Sox gave up Urías for nothing. Seattle has developed a stable of talented pitchers in recent years, and Campbell was only expendable because the Mariners are so confident in their pitching depth. Indeed, Campbell, the first big league player born in Portugal since Frank Thompson of the original Washington Nationals, put up promising numbers in 2023, pitching well enough at Double-A to earn the call to join one of baseball’s best bullpens in July. Although his career got off to a slow start due to the lost 2020 season and an elbow surgery in 2021, the righty quickly established himself as a legitimate big league bullpen arm after pitching to a 1.57 ERA and 3.04 FIP over the last two minor league seasons. His pitches are a little difficult to classify; what Pitch Info calls his slider, Baseball Savant calls a sweeper, and what Baseball Savant calls a slider, Pitch Info calls a cutter. Regardless of what you call it, however, his cutter/slider is a true weapon. He threw it about 38% of the time in 2023, holding big league batters to a .139 wOBA and .217 xwOBA. The pitch modeling systems agree that it’s a plus pitch, and combined with his high-spinning four-seam fastball, which sits 95 and tops out at 97.4 mph, Campbell has what it takes to hold down a spot in Boston’s bullpen. The Red Sox have some solid arms at the back end of their ‘pen, but they need depth, and this move helps to accomplish that goal.
As for the Mariners, they certainly didn’t need Urías – they already have a pair of right-handed utility infielders in José Caballero and Dylan Moore – but it’s clear that Seattle likes versatility and reclamation projects. Their 40-man roster already features several utility men, including Caballero, Moore, and Sam Haggerty, and Jerry Dipoto is no stranger to shopping for bounce-back candidates. Several players to get meaningful playing time in recent years have been in this middling bat/versatile glove mold, including Abraham Toro and Josh Rojas, who is penciled in for starting second base duty in 2024.
Those names might not inspire a ton of confidence, but still, the appeal of a player like Urías is clear. Besides, as the Mariners discovered this season, the safe choice isn’t always so safe – just look at how the Kolten Wong trade worked out. With that in mind, it’s no surprise Dipoto went in the opposite direction this time around. In fact, this could work out quite well for the Mariners, as long as they treat it like the gamble it is. Evidently, the Red Sox weren’t willing to risk a mere $5 million on Urías, and the Mariners could reap the rewards of spending a little extra cash to take him on. Besides, even if Urías isn’t anything more than a league-average bat and the weak side of a second base platoon, he isn’t a bad pickup, given the dearth of middle infield options on the free agent market.
That said, it’s worth stressing that while this might be a productive gamble, it’s certainly not the offensive upgrade the Mariners need to compete with the Astros and Rangers in the AL West. It remains to be seen if this trade is a sign of the Mariners flexing some financial muscle by scooping up a player another team didn’t want to pay or if it indicates that Dipoto plans to spend another offseason shopping in the bargain bin instead of pursuing more expensive options. Seattle could really benefit from adding a corner outfield/DH bat in free agency, and they have the payroll space to do so (they’re about $35 million below last year’s luxury tax payroll), but this front office has never spent big on a free agent position player before.
The Mariners are taking on the uncertainty in this trade, but ultimately, it’s the Red Sox who are taking a bigger risk. Boston, a team with no clear answer at second base, gave up a young, cost-controlled infielder who was a two-plus win player as recently as 2022. If Urías bounces back with the Mariners, Breslow could end up looking foolish in his very first trade as CBO.
Over the past 10 years, Urías has gone from unheralded international signing, to top prospect, to big league bust, to breakout hitter, to reclamation project. This is already the third time he’s been traded in his big league career. With that in mind, it can be hard to remember that he’s still young; Urías won’t turn 27 until next June. Indeed, he’s younger than NL Rookie of the Year finalist James Outman. In other words, he still has time on his side. His days as a top prospect are far behind him, but his top prospect potential hasn’t disappeared, and the Mariners will hope to help him reach that ceiling in 2024.
The non-tender deadline isn’t usually an event that screams star power. The players involved are pre-free agency, making them cheap and controllable — qualities that appeal mightily to big league GMs. So if there’s even a question about whether a player is worth retaining or trading, as opposed to cutting loose, that usually means the player is neither good nor particularly promising.
Late Thursday night, after the final horn had sounded on the last West Coast NHL game, new White Sox general manager Chris Getz consummated his first trade in his new role, sending sinker-balling lefty reliever Aaron Bummer to Atlanta for a five-player variety pack of “second division” players and reclamation projects. The new White Sox are headlined by 26-year-old 2019 All-Star righty Michael Soroka, 28-year-old infielder Nicky Lopez, and 25-year-old lefty starter Jared Shuster, all of whom can be reasonably expected to impact the 2024 squad. Chicago also acquired 25-year-old infielder Braden Shewmake, who is also on the 40-man roster, and 2023 undrafted free agent starter Riley Gowens, who is more of a developmental project from the University of Illinois. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier today, the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers made a swap ahead of this year’s 40-man roster deadline, the last day teams have to either add eligible minor league players to their 40-man roster or expose them to December’s Rule 5 Draft. In this trade, the Brewers acquired 26-year-old second baseman Oliver Dunn and added him to their 40-man roster, while the Phillies received two prospects in return, 21-year-old infielder Robert Moore and 20-year-old outfielder Hendry Mendez.
Let’s start with Milwaukee’s end of this, as we’re most likely to see 2024 big league impact from Dunn, who is coming off an Arizona Fall League stint in which he won the league’s Breakout Prospect award. Dunn, whose brother Ross is in the Twins system, was a Yankees 2019 11th round pick out of Utah. He hit .196 coming out of the lost 2020 season, and spent a significant portion of both 2021 and 2022 on the IL dealing with multiple injuries, including a fractured jaw, an abdomen strain, and a hamstring strain.
The Phillies drafted him in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 Draft and Dunn had a huge power breakout in 2023 at Double-A Reading, where he hit .271/.396/.506 and slugged 21 homers, more than he had hit throughout his entire career entering 2023. Reading is a hitter’s haven and Dunn was in his age-25 season, so there are good reasons to be skeptical of his sudden change in output, but his underlying power metrics also took a leap, with his average and peak exit velocities (92 mph and 112 mph, respectively) cresting above the big league average. This isn’t gigantic, impact power, but it’s meaningful pop for a second baseman. Dunn swings and misses quite a bit, especially within the strike zone (you can see him struggling with velo up and away from him, a Fall League theme for Dunn, in the video below), but he’s a dangerous all-fields hitter because of his power and ability to catch some fastballs deep in the hitting zone and punish them the other way. Read the rest of this entry »
In the five days between the World Series and the start of free agency, there’s plenty of paperwork to do — exercising or declining options, sorting out 40-man roster spots, that sort of thing — before a team starts the offseason in earnest. Sometimes, that shuffling reveals a landing spot for a player who was going to be turned loose anyway, and we get a trade.
Mark Canha, your friendly neighborhood on-base machine, is headed from Milwaukee to Detroit, with 25-year-old Double-A reliever Blake Holub headed in the opposite direction. Read the rest of this entry »
With their team in last place in the AL East at 55–51 and 3.5 games back of the Blue Jays for the third Wild Card, the Yankees’ front office teetered back and forth between “buyer” and “seller” in advance of the trade deadline. The truth is, the Bombers’ playoff odds had been in a tailspin since the beginning of July; it would have been unthinkable for them to sell on July 4, when they reached their monthly high of 75%, but at 23.1% at the end of the month, their decision should have been just as clear.
Instead, the Yankees did little of anything. Apparently, they were looking to be “bowled over” for their rentals, per The Athletic’s Marc Carig, and they never were, so they largely stood pat. The last team to enter the deadline foray, their “headliner” acquisition was Keynan Middleton; as detailed in our reliever roundup, he cost them 21-year-old lottery ticket Juan Carela. While New York’s bullpen scuffled to the tune of a 4.01 ERA and 4.82 FIP in July, the unit has pitched to solid 3.10/3.93 marks on the season, good for first and tied for sixth, respectively, in the majors. Acquiring a reliever was unlikely to move the needle for a fringe contender in the first place, but it also represented only a marginal improvement compared to the Yankees’ in-house options, especially with Jonathan Loáisiga’s return on the horizon.
That said, even though their acquisition of Spencer Howard from the Rangers for cash can be thought of as a “buy” in the literal sense and another addition of a reliever at that, it’s a different beast than adding Middleton. For starters, all it cost the Yankees was money, which they have oodles of. Howard is also under team control for another four years. The hurler is optionable and poised to begin his tenure in pinstripes at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but it’s easy to see him getting some play toward the end of the season either in the wake of injuries or if the Yankees fall further in the standings. Read the rest of this entry »
After shipping Enrique Hernándezback to Los Angeles last week, the Red Sox addressed their newfound lack of infield depth with a last-minute trade right before Tuesday’s trade deadline, acquiring Luis Urías from the Brewers for right-handed pitching prospect Bradley Blalock.
Urías only turned 26 years old in June, but he’s already had six years of big league experience under his belt. He was a highly regarded prospect with the Padres before getting dealt to the Brewers in the Trent Grisham trade ahead of the 2020 season, then broke out the next year, posting a 112 wRC+ with 23 home runs and a .249/.345/.445 slash line. That kind of production from an infielder who can capably play anywhere on the dirt seemed to solidify him as a core piece in Milwaukee’s lineup. Unfortunately, a hamstring injury suffered on the first day of the season cost him all of April and May, and once he returned from his injury, he was a shell of his former self, limping to a 60 wRC+ in 20 games in June and getting demoted to Triple-A at the end of the month. Since then, he’s posted a .250/.392/.447 slash line in 20 games for Triple-A Nashville, good for a 113 wRC+. Read the rest of this entry »
The Orioles entered Tuesday with the American League’s best record at 65-41 thanks to a rebuilding effort that’s finally paying off. Nonetheless, the team made just one move to shore up its major league roster in the final week ahead of the trade deadline, acquiring righty Jack Flaherty from the Cardinals in exchange for a trio of prospects, infielder César Prieto, lefty Drew Rom, and righty Zack Showalter.
It’s hardly a high-impact move, particularly given that the Orioles were reportedly among the frontrunners to land Justin Verlander and could deal from strength thanks to their well-stocked minor league system. Yet Verlander — who to be fair could have used his no-trade clause to block a move to Baltimore if it weren’t to his liking — instead wound up being traded back to the Astros. What’s more, aside from Verlander and former Mets co-ace Max Scherzer, who was traded to the Rangers on Saturday, this wasn’t a market where frontline starters changed teams. Instead the moves were centered around rentals such as Lucas Giolito and Lance Lynn, whose new teams are hoping they’ll rebound with a change of scenery, while moves for better performers, and pitchers under club control, were generally stifled by the high asking prices. Notably, the Rays, who entered Tuesday a game and a half behind the Orioles, were one team willing to bite the bullet for a better-performing starter by trading for the Guardians’ Aaron Civale.
The 27-year-old Flaherty, who can become a free agent for the first time this winter, fits into the bounce-back group. The former 2014 first-round pick, who had spent his entire career with the Cardinals, made an impact in his first few seasons, placing fifth in the NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2018 (his age-22 season) and then fourth in the Cy Young voting (and 13th in the MVP voting) the following year. For those two seasons combined, he pitched to a 3.01 ERA and 3.64 FIP with a 29.8% strikeout rate and 6.9 WAR in 347.1 innings. Whether it was his workload, which included 196.1 innings at age 23 (plus another 17 in the postseason), or just bad luck, his availability has only been sporadic since then. He’s totaled 264.1 inning since the start of 2020, and didn’t throw more than 78.1 in any season from ’20–22 due to an oblique strain and recurrent shoulder woes, which combined to send him to the 60-day injured list three times. Read the rest of this entry »
Jack Flaherty hasn’t quite looked himself since 2019, but the Cardinals were still able to get three prospects for a few months of his services from the Orioles at the trade deadline. The prospect return on the way to St. Louis — whose other deals are covered here, here and here — is made up mostly of near-ready players who should be able to play a role in what we’ve assessed as an attempt to rebuild quickly. The three prospects are Cuban infielder César Prieto, lefty Drew Rom (both of whom were at Triple-A Norfolk), and 19-year-old righty Zack Showalter, who was promoted from the Complex level to Low-A toward the end of June.
While playing pro ball in Cuba, Prieto broke Kendrys Morales‘ rookie hits record and the Serie Nacional’s hit streak record (40 games) in 2020, striking out just six times in 250 plate appearances. The rate of player defections from Cuba significantly diluted the quality of pitching in pro ball down there, so it was difficult to gauge his hit tool with precision. He defected from the Cuban National Team not long after arriving in Miami for an Olympic qualifier in May of 2021 (there’s a riveting Sports Illustratedstory that details his “extraction”), and he signed a $650,000 deal with Baltimore at the beginning of the 2022 international signing period.
After torching High-A for a few weeks, Prieto was promoted and spent most of his first minor league season with Double-A Bowie, where he struggled, slashing .255/.296/.348 in 90 games. He halved his strikeout rate when he was sent back to Bowie at the start of 2023, slashed a BABIP-aided .364/.406/.476 and was promoted to Triple-A Norfolk. In about a month prior to the Flaherty trade, he was hitting .317/.365/.471, again with a high BABIP.
Prieto can actually hit. His short levers make him extremely difficult to beat in the strike zone, and he can let the baseball travel deep before striking it the other way, generating doubles power pole-to-pole. His big issue is his propensity to chase, which he did at a 36% clip in 2022 and at a 40% rate so far in 2023, hindering the quality of his contact as well as his ability to reach base. But lefty sticks who make this much contact (91% Z-contact% as of the trade!) tend to carve out some kind of role, especially if they can play multiple positions.
Prieto is a below-average infield athlete and presents a stiff, non-traditional look at both second and third base. He also plays shortstop, but that is not something he’s remotely capable of doing at the big league level. I was hopeful that another full year with pro athletic training facilities and another season of seeing pro-quality pitching after he had access to neither for such a long time would help enable adjustment in these areas, but they’ve continued to be issues. I think the Eric Sogard comp I’ve had on him since his amateur days still holds water. He’s a flawed part-time player, but guys who can hit like this tend to play for a long time.
The other player who should provide a quick turnaround is Rom, an over-slot 11th-round high schooler from the 2018 draft who has slowly climbed through the minors with a cutting low-90s fastball. Especially when he was very young, he looked like he had a chance to break out if he could throw harder as he matured. That hasn’t really happened, and he’s still sitting mostly 90–92 mph, but his fastball still punches above its weight, and he’s managed to strike out more than a batter per inning throughout his pro career. While that likely won’t continue at the big league level because his stuff isn’t nasty enough, he throws enough strikes with his four pitches (if you count his four-seamer and sinker as two different offerings) to project as a depth starter. Already on the 40-man, Rom joins the mix of starters I mentioned in the analysis of the Jordan Montgomery deal as a candidate for the 2024 rotation.
Finally, there’s Showalter, another over-slot 11th-round high schooler, to round out the Cardinals’ return. It took a $440,000 bonus to buy him out of a commitment to USF after last summer’s draft, and he has made a strong pro debut. He generated some scout buzz during Extended Spring Training, then made only a few Complex starts before being promoted to full-season ball a little over a month before the deadline. Showalter works usually three or four innings per outing and sits 93–95 with uphill angle and tail. His delivery is of the open-striding drop-and-drive variety; he keeps his arm action very short and tucked close to his body as he motors toward the plate. It helps keep his release consistent and allows him to hide the baseball well. But he isn’t a fantastic athlete and lacks balance over his landing leg, which is often an indication of relief risk. I’m not yet ready to toss him on the main section of the updated Cardinals prospect list, but he’s a solid low-level arm with a mean outcome of a fastball/slider reliever. Prieto (40 FV, a 1-WAR annual performer who I expect will get 350–400 PA in his best years) and Rom (35+ FV, a spot starter) do make the cut.
This return isn’t enough to alter what I outlined in the Montgomery piece. The Cardinals still have a below-average farm system but have filled up the upper levels during this mini-rebuild and should have the pitching depth to compete for the NL Central next year if their core of hitters stays healthy and performs as expected. As a return for the Jack Flaherty who looked like one of the better pitchers in the NL for a little while, it feels light. But for the recently vanilla, free-agent-to-be Jack Flaherty, it makes sense for St. Louis to have received a few lesser prospects.
