Jharel Cotton was omitted from all the notable top-100 lists entering the 2016 season. He was excluded from all those same lists entering the 2015 season, as well. And the 2014 one. And 2013 one. And 2012. And so on. A review of the literature suggests that, since the dawn of the uncreated light, Jharel Cotton’s name has been omitted from top-100 prospect lists.

One sort of document from which Cotton’s name hasn’t been omitted is the author’s weekly attempt to identify and/or monitor compelling fringe prospects, the Fringe Five. Cotton finished atop the haphazardly calculated Fringe Five Scoreboard last year and is currently fourth on this year’s edition of the scoreboard.

Why Cotton has been excluded from the aforementioned top-100 lists isn’t precisely for me to say. Why he’s been included among the Five, however, is because both (a) he’s produced excellent strikeout and walk numbers and (b) his repertoire suggests that his performances are sustainable.

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Bahamian (won’t ever get tired of typing that) SS Lucius Fox is headed to Tampa Bay as the primary prospect return for LHP Matt Moore. Fox was receiving late-first-round grades as a domestic amateur before reclassifying as an international prospect before his senior year and signing for $6.5 million during last year’s J2 period. Fox ranked third on FanGraphs’ 2015 J2 sortable board and was #2 in my personal rankings.

Fox turned 19 last month and is extremely young for the full-season Sally League, where he was hitting .207/.305/.277. Fox’s body was simply not ready for full-season ball. Though he’s exceptionally twitchy and athletic, he hasn’t matured enough to compete and succeed at that level. There’s bat speed here as well as feel for moving that barrel around the zone and Fox has the physical tools to be an above-average hitter who pulls out a dozen or so annual homers. The left-handed swing has more power potential than his more conservative right-handed cut.

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For the second time in as many years, the Chicago Cubs effectively remade half their bullpen on the fly. Last year, it was a series of former-starters-turned-reclamation projects that somehow all worked out. This year, they’ve gone the more traditional route. It started with the little pickup of left-hander Mike Montgomery, which didn’t stop them from the big-ticket acquisition of Aroldis Chapman. Young, hard-throwing Carl Edwards Jr. has been a welcome addition, and apparently Joe Nathan is a thing again.

Shortly before 4:00 p.m. EST brought the close of this year’s trade deadline, the Cubs made one more move to set up their bullpen for this year’s championship run.

Jesus Castillo, the RHP acquired by #Angels in Joe Smith deal, is not ranked among #Cubs top 30 prospects by https://t.co/lNv4sIcjwA.

— Mike DiGiovanna (@MikeDiGiovanna) August 1, 2016

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Dillon Tate’s career at UC Santa Barbara began in the bullpen and he transitioned to a starting role in 2015 as a junior. He threw 103 innings in 2015, a significant increase for a raw pitcher who’d only thrown 43 the year before. Regardless, he was holding his velocity deep into games and was among those considered by the Diamondbacks for the top-overall pick in last year’s draft. Tate’s stuff waxed and waned during his junior season but was back by draft time. He was up to 98 for me at NCAA Regionals and flashing a plus breaking ball. The Rangers drafted him fourth overall shortly thereafter.

That Tate has previously dealt with and bounced back from a downward turn in his stuff is especially significant considering he’s going to have to do it again. Reports on Tate suggest the quality of his arsenal is down across the board — and, indeed, he’s struggled to miss bats for the past two months. During spring training, Tate was 94-96 with a plus slider and flashing an above-average changeup. The fastball velo has been down in the 90-93 range lately and Tate is currently sporting a 5.12 ERA at Low-A Hickory.

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Ariel Miranda sounds like one of those weird Disney Princess mashups that were fashionable clickbait last year — Click to see the Disney Princesses re-imagined as Sex and the City characters! Click to see the Disney Princesses re-imagined as members of the 2003 Philadelphia Eagles Secondary! Click to see the Disney Princesses re-imagined as America’s most infamous serial killers! — but he is an actual baseball pitcher who has come on of late and become a fairly interesting prospect of advanced age.

Miranda, a 6-foot-2 Cuban lefty, signed in May of 2015 after he defected and established residency in Haiti. He pitched across three levels during his first full season, finishing his initial domestic campaign with a solid eight-start run with Double-A Bowie. Miranda has passed 2016 in Triple-A (except for a two-inning shot of espresso with the Orioles early in July) and, while a 3.93 ERA from a 27-year-old isn’t exactly sexy, he’s flashed viable big-league stuff. His fastball will touch 95 mph on occasion and sits 90-93. Miranda has a quick, athletic arm and incorporates his lower half into a picturesque delivery that he doesn’t always finish. When he’s not driving the ball down, he lives either up in the zone or out of it altogether, something of which major-league hitters will take full advantage, but he’s capable of missing bats in the zone with his fastball. Miranda has been able to throw plenty of strikes this season, just not always where he wants to, and his control is ahead of his command.

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Here’s some things that happened. The Blue Jays got a swingman in return for a swingman:

#bluejays getting Mike Bolsinger for Jesse Chavez from #Dodgers

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) August 1, 2016

And then minutes later, they gave up a Chavez to get another Chavez:

Source: Astros are getting Guadalupe Chavez from the Blue Jays for Scott Feldman.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 1, 2016

The “other” Chavez, in this instance, being Scott Feldman, an early-30’s swingman himself. Both are free agents at the end of the year. It doesn’t make total sense, and it’s not the most interesting thing that happened at the trade deadline, but bear with me.

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The trade deadline always brings us surprises, but man, this one takes the cake for out-of-nowhere deal that no one could have seen coming.

Source: #Twins acquire Hector Santiago from #Angels.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2016

Nolasco and Meyer from #Twins to #Angels.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2016

Told #Angels–#Twins trade is cash-neutral. Cash going from MIN to LAA presumably.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2016

If you had Hector Santiago for Ricky Nolasco in your trade predictions post, you are either Billy Eppler or Rob Antony, or a crazy person.

So we have two sellers swapping big league starting pitchers at a time when most buyers looking for pitching help can’t find big league starting pitchers to trade for. That’s pretty weird!

On the other hand, I can kind of squint and see this. The Twins get a Twins-like pitcher, a guy who has spent his career beating FIP by inducing a million infield flies, and looks like a perfectly useful mid-rotation starter. The Angels get a guy who controls the strike zone a bit better but has underperformed his FIP forever, making him much worse than his peripherals suggest, and is closer to a replacement level arm. In exchange for downgrading their rotation, the Angels get a lottery ticket pitching prospect in Alex Meyer, who is big and throws hard but can’t command the zone.

The Angels will take on a few million bucks in payroll next year, when Nolasco is due $12 million while Santiago will make less than that in his final arbitration season, but financially, there isn’t a huge difference here. So the Angels just make themselves a bit worse while getting a different innings sponge and admitting that they’re looking long-term.

Why the Twins themselves are the ones acquiring Santiago, I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps they’re going to trade Ervin Santana and wanted to have someone around to eat innings, and thought that Meyer wasn’t too high a price to pay for some credible big league pitching over the next year. If he keeps pitching well, he can probably be flipped for an equally decent prospect this winter or next deadline.

So it’s not like this trade is a disaster or anything. It’s just pretty weird to see a 40-64 team trading for a pitcher with some present value by shipping a prospect to a 47-58 team at the deadline.

The Indians, jilted in their effort to improve their offense behind the plate, went back to the trade trough for a smaller deal. They’ve added 30-year-old right-handed Brandon Guyer to their outfield, at the cost of two lower-level prospects in outfielder Nathan Lukes and right-hander Jhonleider Salinas, as Jordan Bastian is reporting.

Though Guyer is no Lucroy, he does fit a need on the Indians team — he can hit lefties well. So far, he’s been 42% better than league average against lefties. The Indians can skew lefty-heavy and have been 6% better than league average against righties so far this year, and 4% worse than average against lefties.

In the outfield, Tyler Naquin and Lonnie Chisenhall are lefties hitting the ball well, and though Naquin is starting against pitchers of both hands, Chisenhall has traditionally been platooned. Since right-hander Rajai Davis has been a bit better than a strict platoon player — he’s been league average against righties the last two years, at least, and provides base running and defensive value in the corner outfield — he might remain a full-time starter until Michael Brantley comes back. The team could easily platoon Chisenhall with Guyer.

Jose Ramirez is increasingly needed at third base with Juan Uribe’s poor play at the plate, so he’s not in the outfield mix post-Guyer, but there’s one more place the newcomer could help. Switch-hitting designated hitter Carlos Santana has really been struggling against lefties this year (64 wRC+) despite being fine against them for his career (128 wRC+).

Between right field and designated hitter, Guyer can at least step into the box against lefties and improve that poor team split against southpaws.

Stepping into the box is the key word here — nobody has been hit more by lefty pitchers in the last three years than Guyer. That’s how he’s turned a middling walk rate into a plus on-base percentage, and by all accounts, it’s a skill. Getting hit by pitches has the same year-to-year correlation (.641) as weighted on base average, and a better one than on-base percentage.

Guyer’s not a great defender, but he can help in most facets of the game, and will be a strong asset for the team when they’re facing a left-hander. Given that they gave up two prospects that weren’t on anyone’s top 100 lists and are far away from the majors, this trade made too much sense for the American League Central leaders to pass up.

In exchange for LHP Zach Duke, the White Sox received fourth-outfield prospect Charlie Tilson from St. Louis. Tilson is a plus-plus runner with good bat-to-ball skills but doesn’t project as a regular because of his complete lack of power.

A Chicago-area high schooler, Tilson blew up a bit at the Area Code Games as a rising senior when he stole seven bases in three days of play. The Cardinals selected him in the second round of the 2011 draft and gave him $1.275 million to turn pro instead of heading to Illinois. He missed all of 2012 while recovering from surgery to repair a separated (non-throwing) shoulder, began 2013 in full-season ball and has made a ton of contact ever since. He was hitting .282/.345/.407 with Triple-A Memphis before the trade.

Tilson has just average bat speed, no leverage in his swing and very rarely extends enough to really punish the baseball, resulting in 30-grade game power. He can play all three outfield positions, though his arm is fringe average and fits best in center and left. His ability to play center field while making a lot of contact is probably enough to win him a major-league roster spot, but unless his defense in center greatly outpaces present projections, he only profiles as a bench outfielder or below-average regular.

Despite a relatively humble collection of tools, Tilson ranked 81st on Chris Mitchell’s updated KATOH rankings.

We all saw the Jay Bruce trade coming. Seen that one coming for years. This one was a bit more unexpected:

Sources: Frankie Montas, Grant Holmes and Jharel Cotton going to #Athletics. @Jeffpassan first on Montas.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2016

Although Dave Cameron predicted the Dodgers would land Reddick and Hill last week, there was a case to be made for keeping Reddick, and the A’s were reportedly discussing an extension with Hill up until this morning. Now, they’re both Dodgers.

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