Braves, Cardinals Swap Jason Heyward, Shelby Miller

by
November 17, 2014

We’ll get a full write-up on this deal up soon, but the Cardinals and Braves just made a fun trade, with the Braves shipping Jason Heyward and Jordan Walden to St. Louis for Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins. A quick look at the particulars:

Hewyard: $8.8M salary, final year of contract, Steamer projects for +4.8 WAR in 2015. Obvious qualifying offer/potential extension guy, though the Braves reportedly tried to sign him last winter and didn’t like the price tag. It has very likely gone up since.

Miller: Pre-arb, four years of team control, Steamer projects for +0.8 WAR in 2015, but Miller has dramatically outperformed his peripherals through this point in his MLB career. Everything went the wrong way in 2014, but he put together a strong second half and just turned 24.

Walden: Arb eligible through 2016, Steamer projects for +0.5 WAR in 2015. Very underrated reliever, but often hurt. When healthy, he’s one of the more effective bullpen arms around.

Jenkins: 2010 first rounder, hasn’t gotten out of A-ball, and didn’t strike anyone out at that level either. As a second piece in a deal like this, not a bad get for the upside.

Essentially, the Cardinals take a big step forward in 2015 — replacing Miller in the short-term shouldn’t be that hard — by filling their right field hole, and get first dibs to sign him to a long-term deal, but it comes at the cost of Miller’s future. If the Braves think they can fix Miller’s 2014 issues, or that his second half means he fixed them himself, then they’re buying low on four years of a quality starting pitcher.

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Is this a fair price for one year of a star right fielder? What will Heyward cost the Cardinals to sign a long-term deal? This is your chance to weigh in, and we’ll have our full write-up on this later this afternoon.





 

Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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maqman
11 years ago

Fair enough deal seems to me, a win/win.

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tz
11 years ago
Reply to  maqman

After the shock of considering Heyward’s departure, I’m also looking at this as a win/win. The Braves must be looking at the price tag on Stanton’s extension and figuring that Heyward would want at a contract at least 2/3 that size. The Cards get a potential stud for 2015 at a position they needed to shore up.

3