Forget the intro! Let’s just get right to it. The Braves and Reds made a trade. This is what it is:

Braves get:

• Adam Duvall

Reds get:

• Luke Sims
• Matt Wisler
• Preston Tucker

At first, it doesn’t seem like very much. Sims and Wisler might still have some name value, yes. But their stocks are diminished. And while Duvall has his uses, the Braves’ outfield is currently occupied by Ronald Acuna, Ender Inciarte, and Nick Markakis. Pretty good players, all of them, and we usually don’t grant much attention to additions to a bench. This doesn’t appear to be a move to dwell on for very long.

I’m not going to convince you that this is a major trade. It isn’t. But I can at least try to explain some layers. Firstly, for the Braves, this allows for something of a platoon. Duvall bats righty, and hits well against lefties. Inciarte doesn’t, and doesn’t. And by any metric you look at, Duvall is one of the better defensive left fielders around, so now with a southpaw on the mound, Duvall can handle left, with Acuna sliding over to the middle. The Braves are just improving their versatility, here. They’re addressing a minor weakness.

And then, although Duvall turns 30 in just over a month, he’s still under club control through 2021, with three years of arbitration. His wRC+ is a paltry 82, but his career mark is 96, and according to Baseball Savant’s expected wOBA metric, Duvall this year has been particularly unlucky. Markakis’ contract is up after the year. Duvall could be seen as a longer-term outfield option. This doesn’t lock the Braves into anything, but at the very least it gives them a safety net.

I don’t know how many near-30-year-olds should realistically be considered longer-term options, but Duvall’s defense has held up, which says good things about his current athleticism. And if you ask the Braves, they’re not losing anything here they had a plan for. Tucker is just a guy the Reds can use to plug into their Duvall-shaped vacancy. He’s a fourth outfielder, on his better days. Wisler has a career big-league ERA- of 129. Sims has a career big-league ERA- of 140. They’d all but been erased from the Braves’ organizational blueprint.

From the Reds’ perspective, it’s a trade for pedigree. Sims is 24, and he was once Baseball America’s No. 57 overall prospect. Wisler is 25, and he was once BA’s No. 34 overall prospect. They’ll now join previous top-100 pitching prospects like Cody Reed, Brandon Finnegan, and Robert Stephenson. To say nothing of other pitching talent the Reds have had better luck developing. Duvall had a place in Cincinnati, but not as a part of any competitive core. They’re hoping that at least one or two more young pitchers will emerge to join Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle.

Neither Sims nor Wisler has been good in the majors. The Reds might not be able to figure out why. But Sims, at least, continues to look pretty good as a Triple-A starter, and Wisler, to his credit, has improved his Triple-A contact rate by eight percentage points. For the Braves, Sims and Wisler have been disappointments. For the Reds, they’re providing a new opportunity. A change of scenery, a blank slate, a potentially whole new set of instructions. It’s a roll of the dice on two interesting arms. It’s conceivable that either or both pitchers could play a big-league role in 2019.

The Reds need to prove they can develop pitching, because they aren’t devoid of talent. It’s the rotation(s) that’s held the Reds out of the race(s), and they want to put that behind them. The Braves are happy to let the Reds experiment, because they ran just about out of patience. A new wave of pitchers is cresting in Atlanta, so they’re not so concerned with the waves that came before. The Reds might’ve spotted a post-hype opportunity. The burden is on them to turn opportunity into value, where another club wasn’t successful.

With a record of 67-37, the Yankees have been the second-best team in all of baseball. And yet those same Yankees are likely to have to survive a one-game wild-card playoff, because for as good as they’ve been, the Red Sox are six games better in the standings. They’re on pace to win either 112 or 113 games, depending on how you round your decimals, and yet even that good of a team can still have the occasional weakness. For example! Dustin Pedroia has been unable to get all the way healthy. Second base, then, has mostly belonged to Eduardo Nunez and Brock Holt, and together they have been bad. The Red Sox have gotten a below-replacement performance from the keystone, so it’s an area they thought about improving.

You may consider the position improved. The Sox have moved to pick up a rental.

Red Sox get:

• Ian Kinsler

Angels get:

• Ty Buttrey
• Williams Jerez

There is some money changing hands, but it doesn’t do much to change the equation. The Red Sox are almost certain to exceed the highest competitive-balance-tax threshold of $237 million, which comes with financial and draft-related penalties, but they don’t seem to mind, provided the team can get better. Kinsler makes the team better, even if only a little bit. The Red Sox were already so strong.

Given that Kinsler is 36 years old, he’s past the best offensive days of his career. He’s been hotter lately, shaking off an early slump, and even the overall reduced version of Kinsler now seems like more of a threat than Nunez. More importantly, whether you go by Defensive Runs Saved or Ultimate Zone Rating, Kinsler ranks as the second-best defensive second baseman. He has a long track record of being an outstanding defender, and you certainly couldn’t say that for Nunez. Kinsler is also better in that regard than Holt, so even if the bat is diminished, Kinsler is going to take hits away. Value is value, however it comes.

This has the additional effect of freeing up Nunez and/or Holt to play more third base, with Rafael Devers on the disabled list. Devers, you’d think, would be all the way back well in advance of the playoffs, but there are still games to win today. There are still the Yankees to try to fend off. This gets more complicated if Pedroia starts to feel markedly better, but I don’t think anyone’s counting on that.

For the Angels, it hurts to say goodbye, because Kinsler was a part of what they thought would be a good thing. But it’s long been evident this season wasn’t going to work out, so at least the front office isn’t coming away empty-handed. Both Buttrey and Jerez are relievers — Buttrey 25, and Jerez 26. Buttrey seems like the better of the two, but they’ve both been pitching in Triple-A, with fair amounts of success. There have been 276 Triple-A pitchers with at least 40 innings. Buttrey ranks fifth in strikeout rate, while Jerez checks in at 20th. Buttrey, also, ranks fifth in K-BB%. He pitches off of a huge fastball, and this season his strikeouts have surged while his walks have gone down.

It’s funny — the Red Sox have talked about needing bullpen help, and Buttrey might’ve been able to be that guy. But now he’ll join the Angels instead, and it shouldn’t be long before both these guys get major-league looks. Neither is a lock to really do anything, but as the Angels look ahead to a hopefully more competitive 2019, these could be a couple of bullpen solutions. Kinsler’s contract is up in some months.

This is how rental trades usually work. The Angels just decided to go for high-minors relievers instead of low-minors starters. And so now we’ll see if the Red Sox fill the bullpen slot Buttrey didn’t get a chance to take. Heaven knows there are plenty of relievers available.

A busy day for the New York Yankees continues! Not long after reports emerged of a trade sending Adam Warren to Seattle, the club arranged a deal to acquire right-handed starting pitcher Lance Lynn from the Minnesota Twins, along with half of the cash for his remaining salary. The return? First baseman-outfielder Tyler Austin and pitcher Luis Rijo.

As I note in the piece to which I’ve linked above, Warren was expendable for the Yankees because he’d been used predominantly in low-leverage innings, a role that pitchers inferior to Warren could handle without much effect on the team’s bottom line. As if to reinforce that point, New York brings in Lance Lynn, a pitcher whom I pegged as likely to be one of the winter’s worst bargains, something that didn’t materialize as free agency ground to a halt and Lynn ended up signing a one-year deal with the Twins. It’s hard to say the league was wrong in hindsight, Lynn’s 4.82 FIP in 2017 being a better predictor of his 5.10 ERA in 2018 than the misleadingly low 3.43 ERA he put up in his final season in St. Louis. It’s unclear at this point if the Yankees intend to use Lynn to possibly boot Sonny Gray from the rotation or simply use him as a low-leverage swingman.

From the Yankee standpoint, I’m not crazy about this move. I think, with Judge’s injury, that outfield depth (in the form of Austin) is a bit more important to the club in the near future, with trades becoming more difficult after another 24 hours. The opportunity to trade Austin over the winter would have come in handy.

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The purpose of this post is to announce that this week’s chat schedule — because of the deadline and also because of Kiley McDaniel’s extensive contract rider — is slightly different than during other weeks of the year. The amended schedule appears below, with times presented in the more sophisticated 24-hour format to reflect the sophistication of this site’s readers.

Monday
14:00 Dan Szymborski

Tuesday
12:00 Justin Mason
15:00 Kiley McDaniel and Travis Sawchik Deadline Chat
16:00 Brad Johnson

Wednesday
12:00 Jeff Sullivan

Thursday
12:00 Jay Jaffe
14:00 Eric Longenhagen

Friday
12:00 Meg Rowley
15:00 Paul Sporer

The Mariners and Cardinals swapped relievers today, the latter sending RHP Sam Tuivailala to Seattle for prospect Seth Elledge. The deal gives Seattle a marginal bullpen upgrade in Tuivailala (probably over Casey Lawrence) for a stretch run that’s going to require them to continue winning close games. Every slightly better bullpen option is more meaningful in this situation than it is when looking at reliever value from a broader point of view. The deal is also a good fit for St. Louis, who acquires a comparable talent whose service-time calendar better aligns with their competitive schedule. Tuivailala is arbitration-eligible starting in 2020, when Elledge will probably be in his first or second year of big-league service.

Tuivailala is a fine middle reliever. He sits 93-96, will occasionally touch 99, and has two very average secondary offerings in an upper-80s cutter/slider and an upper-70s curveball. The Mariners have had success drafting low-ceiling, high-probability college relievers in the middle rounds of the last several drafts and quickly flipping them for mature big-league pieces on the margins. Elledge was the second pitcher Seattle traded from their 2017 draft class (JP Sears was sent to the Yankees for Nick Rumbelow last fall), which means Seattle’s 2017 draft has technically yielded the most subustantial big-league return in all of baseball right now.

Seth Elledge is a big-bodied, crossfire reliever with a mid-90s fastball and plus breaking ball. He was a 2017 fourth-round pick out of Dallas Baptist, a college that parades hard-throwing relievers into pro ball annually. He has a 54:14 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 38.1 innings. He might eventually be better than Tuivailala because the breaking ball is better. It’s reasonable to project a 2020 debut for Elledge, though has a non-zero chance to debut next year.

Infielder Eduardo Escobar entered the 2017 campaign having recorded 27 homers, a .128 isolated-power figure, and 84 wRC+ over the course of 1,620 plate appearances. In the roughly 900 plate appearances since the beginning of 2017, however, he’s been a different sort of hitter, accumulating 36 homers while posting a .215 ISO and 109 wRC+ during that interval.

The difference is stark. Indeed, one could say without much need for hyperbole that, after having conducted himself like a slap-hitting middle infielder for much of his career, Escobar somewhat suddenly become a legitimate power threat. By way of reference, consider some of the players whom Escobar has outslugged: Nicholas Castellanos (.214 ISO), Joey Votto (.213), George Springer (.213), Anthony Rizzo (.209), Corey Dickerson (.204). Those are all players whose presence in the major leagues is founded, at some level, on their ability to create runs on contact. All of them have recorded wins at an above-average rate since the start of 2017. None of them has hit for more power than Escobar, though.

Of course, having hit more home runs than expected is different than continuing to hit more home runs than expected. The former is a matter of record, the latter a question of true talent. The Arizona Diamondbacks, it seems, are at least somewhat optimistic about the latter: earlier today, they acquired Escobar from Minnesota in exchange for three prospects: right-hander Jhoan Duran, outfielder Ernie De La Trinidad, and other outfielder Gabriel Maciel.

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With 47.1% odds of winning the NL East and 63.4% odds of reaching the postseason entering play Friday, few teams ought to be more aggressive buyers than the Phillies as they try to consolidate and improve their NL East-leading position in a year they perhaps arrived ahead of schedule.

The Phillies attempted to improve Friday by acquiring veteran infielder Asdrubal Cabrera from the Mets. One of the Phillies’ weaknesses has been a general lack of run production from their infield positions. The Phillies rank 12th in the majors in wRC+ by second basemen (98), 27th at shortstop (75), and 23rd at third base (90).

Cabrera has posted a 122 wRC+ for the season and a .277/.329/.488 slash line. He posted a 111 wRC+ last season and has a 107 mark for his career. The switch-hitter has generally been an above-average offensive player, particularly relative to middle infielders. The 32-year-old impending free agent has produced 2.1 WAR to date this season.

Cabrera, who has been limited to second base in 2018, gives the Phillies roster flexibility in addition to representing an offensive upgrade in the infield. He was primarily a shortstop through 2016, though he also has experience at third base. It’s not exactly clear how and where Phillies manager Gabe Kapler will employ Cabrera.

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The Angels traded 31-year-old glove-first catcher Martin Maldonado to Houston yesterday in exchange for Astros 21-year-old LHP Patrick Sandoval. The Astros signed Sandoval away from a USC commitment with a $900,000 signing bonus in 2015. He was their 11th-round pick. He has tracked through the minors at an even pace, amassing 97 strikeouts in 88 innings split between Low- and High-A this season while also reducing his walk rate to half (4.3%) of what it was last year (8.5%).

Sandoval’s fastball sits 88-92 and will top out around 94. He can really spin a 12-6 curveball, one that’s above average when Sandoval is getting on top of it. Effectively, Sandoval has an almost perfectly vertical arm slot, but the way he gets there is somewhat odd and there’s some skepticism among scouts as to the sustainability of this year’s uptick in strike-throwing. There’s enough of a changeup here for continued development in a rotation and, if everything clicks, Sandoval will be a No. 4 or 5 starter. If not, he’s a lefty with a good breaking ball and a fine bullpen candidate. It’s a fair return for a backup catching rental.

Had Sandoval gone to USC, he’d have been draft eligible this year. Comparable college lefties in this year’s draft would have been Nationals second-rounder Tim Cate from UConn, and White Sox third-rounder, Mississippi State lefty Konnor Pilkington. Cate is a better athlete than Sandoval and the breaking ball is a little better. He signed for slot a 65th overall, $986,200. Pilkington’s stuff is closer to average across the board. I’d have him behind Sandoval just on stuff. He signed for $650,000, slightly below slot at pick No. 81. I think Sandoval would have fit somewhere in that range on draft day, which means the Astros properly valued him three years ago and used an 11th-round pick to acquire a future second- or third-round talent for second- or third-round money. It also means Sandoval probably got an equal or better bonus than he would have this year, and he’s further along the developmental path than most his age-appropriate peers from the 2018 collegiate draft class.

Cole Hamels has accumulated the third-most WAR among big-league lefties dating back to 2006. Last night, was traded for a fringe prospect. A 5.20 FIP, a $6 million buyout at the end of the year, and a relatively lengthy no-trade list all limited Hamels’ value on the trade market, and the Rangers received 2017 11th-rounder ($125,000 bonus) Rollie Lacy in their swap with the Cubs.

In Lacy, the Rangers acquired a 23-year-old righty who is performing in A-ball. He has K’d 94 hitters in 80.2 innings this year, but the scouting reports indicate lesser stuff than Lacy’s strikeout rate would otherwise indicate. He’s a sinker/slider righty (60% ground-ball rate this year, which is excellent relative to the big-league average of 43%) with some cross-body mechanical deception and a fringey changeup.

On stuff, Lacy looks like an up-and-down arm. His ability to generate ground balls and the way his delivery enables his stuff to play up are possible paths toward more than that.

Please note that this posting contains two positions.

Position: Data Engineer- Baseball Operations

Location: Milwaukee, WI

Summary:
The Data Engineer will work closely with the Data Architect and the Baseball Research & Development team to maintain, enhance, and extend the Brewers databases and data pipelines. They will be responsible for collecting and transforming data from various sources, preparing and distributing for consumption by the department’s systems and analysts. The ideal candidate is an experienced data pipeline builder who excels at automating and optimizing data systems.

Responsibilities:

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Other duties may be assigned.

• Create, maintain and optimize data ETL pipelines
• Document, troubleshoot, and resolve issues with data processes
• Collaborate with the development and research teams
• Extend our AWS cloud platform initiative
• Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements
• Work with stakeholders to utilize data to create innovative solutions to baseball operations problems
• Prepare datasets for processing and research
• Deploy and maintain system and database monitoring tools.

Qualifications:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

• SQL knowledge and experience working with relational databases such as SQL Server and PostgreSQL.
• Experience with Object Oriented programming languages such as Java, C#.
• Experience with scripting programming languages such as Python, R.
• Experience with a variety of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data formats including delimited files, XML, JSON and natural language text.
• Experience with software development life-cycle, including requirements definition, design, development, testing, implementation, and iterative improvement.
• Experience with Docker is a plus.
• Experience with AWS Cloud services such as EC2, RDS, S3 is a plus.
• Experience with job orchestration tools such as Airflow is a plus.
• Familiarity with advanced statistical concepts, particularly those relevant to player evaluation techniques including experience implementing statistical calculations and derivations.

Education and/or Experience:
Bachelor’s degree (B. A.) in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field from four-year college or university; and three to five years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Computer Skills:
To perform the job successfully, the individual must be proficient using Microsoft office software including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and Internet Explorer.

Other Skills and Abilities:
Capable of working extended hours such as overtime, nights, and weekends when necessary.

Language Skills:
Ability to read and comprehend simple instructions, short correspondence, and memos. Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Ability to effectively present information in one-on-one and small group situations to department members and non-technical baseball operations staff.

Mathematical Skills:
Ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide in all units of measure, using whole numbers, common fractions, and decimals. Ability to compute rate, ratio, and percent and to draw and interpret bar graphs.

Reasoning Ability:
Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions. Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out detailed but uninvolved written or oral instructions. Ability to deal with problems involving a few concrete variables in standardized situations.

Physical Demands:
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is regularly required to use hands to finger, handle, or feel and talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to reach with hands and arms. The employee isoccasionally required to stand; walk; sit and stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee must regularly lift and /or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision and ability to adjust focus.

Work Environment:
The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is regularly exposed to outside weather conditions, which may include heat, cold and various forms of precipitation. The employee is occasionally exposed to moving mechanical parts.

The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet.

Work Hours:
Business hours are Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm, however, candidates must be capable of working extended hours such as overtime, nights, and weekends, when necessary.

To Apply:
To apply, please visit this site.

Position: Developer – Baseball Systems

Location: Milwaukee, WI

Summary:

The Milwaukee Brewers are currently seeking a full-time Developer for Baseball Systems. This individual will collaborate with the Baseball Research & Development team and will assist in the expansion and maintenance of an aggregated player information and reporting system. This position requires strong software development skills and experience as well as a demonstrated ability for independent thought and working within a team framework.

Responsibilities:

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Other duties may be assigned.

• Responsible for design and development of user interfaces/experiences and fast and efficient back-end systems for all new and existing Baseball Operations department systems.
• Assist in creating additional application content and visualizations for organizational share, especially for mobile environments.
• Create necessary data structure to facilitate user-friendly analytical research to be conducted within the Brewers player information/reporting system and additional external applications.
• Identify, diagnose and resolve data quality issues.
• Facilitate discussion between department head and end users as it relates to building easy-to-use and intuitive interfaces that meet their needs.
• Create tests and documentation around new features and functionality.
• Execute exploratory research and analysis directed by the department head, as needed.

Qualifications:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

• Experience with software development, including requirements definition, design, development, testing, implementation, and iterative improvement. Experience in Agile teams, particularly Scrum, is a plus.
• Proficiency with web development technologies (including C#, Angular, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and JavaScript frameworks). Strong understanding of desktop, laptop and mobile UI/UX design concepts and demonstrated ability to apply responsive design techniques. Particularly focused on representing large data sets in easy to consume user interfaces.
• Knowledge of Microsoft SQL (database management and optimization techniques a plus).
• Working familiarity with advanced statistical concepts, particularly those relevant to sabermetric player evaluation techniques including experience implementing statistical calculations, derivations, and graphical representations into software applications (experience with R and Mathematica a plus).

Education and/or Experience:
Bachelor’s degree (B. A.) in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field from four-year college or university; and zero to three years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Computer Skills:
To perform the job successfully, an individual should have knowledge of Microsoft office software including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and Internet Explorer.

Work Hours:
Business hours are Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm, however, candidates must be capable of working extended hours such as overtime, nights, and weekends, when necessary.

To Apply:
To apply, please visit this site.