The surging Kansas City Royals bolstered their Major League club on Sunday by adding veteran OF Melky Cabrera. They sent RHP A.J. Puckett and LHP Andre Davis to Chicago in the exchange.

Royals get

• OF Melky Cabrera

White Sox get

• RHP A.J. Puckett
• LHP Andre Davis

Puckett, Kansas City’s second round pick out of Pepperdine in 2016, is an above average athlete with a potential plus changeup. He was a promising two-sport athlete in high school before a car accident left him in a medically-induced coma for two weeks to slow his blood loss, and essentially ended his football career. His rashes of wildness in pro ball have been surprising to those who saw Puckett attack the strike zone in college, but scouts are still optimistic that his athleticism will yield at least average command at maturity.

His fastball sits in the low-90s and his curveball is fringey. The curveball and command both need to improve, and if they do Puckett could pitch at the back of a rotation. He had a 3.90 ERA at High-A Wilmington before the trade and was owner of a 20% K% and 9% walk rate. He turned 22 in May.

Davis, an eighth-round pick in 2015 out of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, is a big-bodied lefty with a bat-missing changeup of his own. He isn’t as athletic as Puckett and there’s dissent about his ability to start (scouts don’t love his delivery), but Davis has thrown strikes this year, will flash command of all his pitches, and his funky delivery helps his otherwise fringe slider play up against left-handed hitters. He sits 92-94 with some movement, and while he’s already 23 and only in Low-A, we are talking about a small-school, 6-foot-6 lefty here, and these types of pitching prospects are often a bit behind. He projects into a relief role, but I think there might be more than that here.

The Cubs traded for Justin Wilson and Alex Avila. Below are the projections for the prospects the Tigers received in exchange for their services. WAR figures account for the player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

Jeimer Candelario, 3B (Profile)

KATOH: 4.4 WAR (108th)

KATOH+: 4.3 WAR (83rd)

Candelerio was slashing .266/.361/.507 in the Pacific Coast League this year, with a bunch of doubles and walks. The PCL has surely helped his power numbers a good deal, but his 12% walk rate illustrates that he does a decent job of controlling the strike zone. Defensively, Candelario has been an above-average third baseman this year in the minors. Although he’s been in the Cubs’ system forever, Candelario’s still just 23. A 23-year-old third baseman who can both hit and play average-ish defense is a fine prospect.

To put some faces to Candelario’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Candelario’s Triple-A performance and every Triple-A season since 1991. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

…

Isaac Paredes, SS (Profile)

KATOH: 5.2 WAR (76th)

KATOH+: 3.6 WAR (104th)

Despite being just 18 years old, Paredes is already in and has held his own in full-season ball, slashing .261/.341/.399 with a 14% strikeout rate in Low-A. That’s encouraging for an 18 year old, but it’s especially encouraging coming from an 18-year-old shortstop. Scouts are a tad skeptical of Paredes, citing a lack of physical projection and athleticism needed to stick at shortstop long-term. KATOH picks up on this too — by way of his height (5-foot-11) and lack of stolen bases — but still finds him very intriguing due to his combination of youth, contact and defense. As a Low-A hitter, Paredes has a long way to go, but he has several characteristics that often portend to big league success.

Late Sunday night the Cubs and Tigers agreed to a deal sending Justin Wilson and Alex Avila to Chicago in exchange for INF Jeimer Candelario, INF Isaac Paredes and either cash or a player to be named later.

Chicago gets
C Alex Avila
LHP Justin Wilson

Detroit gets
INF Jeimer Candelario
INF Isaac Paredes

Candelario, now 23, is a known talent. He has long been a promising offensive prospect, hitting at a .270/.351/.433 career clip in pro ball with a 10% walk rate. He is fluid and comfortable in the box, shows good bat control and hand-eye coordination, and makes in-flight adjustments to offspeed pitches that he’s capable of striking to all fields. He’s a tough out and projects as a plus hitter with average game power. That power isn’t exciting at first base (where many scouts project Candelario to fall, defensively) but it is passable and, with his keen eye for the strike zone, Candelario projects as an average offensive regular at first.

Candelario has an above average arm and has improved his conditioning, so while the general consensus still believes him to be a first baseman, it’s becoming less common for scouts to knock his lateral quickness. That, combined with Detroit’s current big league roster makeup (which has seen butcher Nick Castellanos at third and immovable god Miguel Cabrera at first) and continued advancements in defensive positioning make Candelario’s defensive future a bit foggy, but hopeful. He was just barely off my top 100 entering the year and will be on the updated list in the next few weeks.

Clubs have been asking for Paredes in trades for over a year now. Teams discovered him in many different ways but they’ve all become smitten with the 18-year old “shortstop” for one reason or another. Some clubs flagged him for excellent statistical performance in last year’s AZL when Paredes was just 17 but hit .305/.359/.443 and only struck out in 10% of his plate appearances. Some scout the AZL heavily and were sent glowing reports about his feel to hit. He seems likely to continue to do that. After a hot start, Paredes struggled to hit the ball hard for about a month and owned a .240/.310/.333 line on June 4. He’s righted the ship and has tallied 19 extra-base hits since then and was up to .264/.342/.401 before the trade.

Scouts have varied opinions about Paredes’ defense. He does not project to shortstop for any scouts with whom I have spoken, nor does he for me. Some clubs who entertained the idea of acquiring him last year had plans to move Paredes, who was rather girthy at the time, to catcher. Others have him projected to either second or third base. Paredes has improved his conditioning and isn’t as soft-bodied as he was last year but he remains boxy, square, and simply unlike what the lion’s share of big league shortstops look like when they’re 18. Of course, if he hits the way many in the industry think he will, that might not matter.

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With a 17 game lead in the AL West, the Astros are almost certainly going to the postseason. But as they figure out what to do before tomorrow’s trade deadline, and weigh the costs of potential upgrades, it is becoming pretty clear that they should have some concerns about Lance McCullers.

Their #2 starter was lights out to begin the year, but on June 12th, the Astros put him on the DL with a back problem. It sounded like the kind of semi-fictional injury that teams have used to give starters a break with the new 10-day disabled list, and not something that the team should be all that worried about, despite McCullers’ long history of arm problems. But after another lousy outing today, it’s worth noting that McCullers has looked nothing like his early-season self since returning from the DL.

Because he hasn’t surrendered a home run in any of his six starts since returning from the DL, his FIP still looks fine, but everything else is a mess. His 9% walk rate doesn’t look awful, but once you add in the five HBPs, he’s putting 13% of the batters he faced on base without forcing them to swing the bat. More worryingly, his strikeout rate over that stretch is just 20%, below the league average, and that includes him racking up 14 strikeouts in his first two starts off the DL; he has struck out just 17 of 100 batters in his last four starts.

Coming into today, batters were hitting .387/.472/.492 off McCullers in July.
Today, the Tigers hit .363/.500/.409 against him.

Some of his recent struggles are just BABIP related, but McCullers’ command has basically disappeared over the last month, and when he’s behind in the count, he can’t get guys to chase his curveball out of the zone. Obviously, he could find his command again before October, and you don’t want to overreact to a few bad starts in a row, especially with a playoff spot all but guaranteed. But given McCullers’ long list of health issues and his struggles since returning from the disabled list, the Astros should probably be a bit more motivated to add a starter before tomorrow’s deadline.

Feel the deadline fever. First it was Jaime Garcia getting traded again, now it’s Melky Cabrera on the move. Try to contain your excitement.

Sarcasm aside, the Royals needed an OF/DH type, given that Jorge Soler has been a bust and Alex Gordon is hitting like a Hall of Famer, in that his batting line is probably what we’d project Tim Raines for in 2017. Royals outfielders have combined for an 83 wRC+ this year, so any reasonable facsimile of a Major League hitter is an upgrade.

Melky Cabrera isn’t anything special, but he is a reasonable facsimile of a Major League hitter. He’s got a 105 wRC+, thanks to his regularly elite strikeout rate, as he’s basically the embodiment of the recent Royals offense. He’s got enough power to not be a slap hitter and hits his way to a decent on-base percentage, so Cabrera remains a league average bat, or something in that range.

Defensively, Cabrera remains a problem, as he’s run consistently below-average marks for his work in left field. He’s not Matt Kemp or anything, but he is a bit of a liability in the field, so if the Royals use Melky to displace Alex Gordon, they’ll be giving up some defensive value for the offensive upgrade. But given that Gordon has a 58 wRC+, it’s probably not so easy for them to keep him in the line-up everyday at this point, even with his glovework.

Mostly, Cabrera gives the Royals options, as they can run an offense-first line-up on days they don’t expect outfield defense to matter as much, but keep Gordon on the field when guys like Jason Vargas pitch. With a Wild Card game potentially in their future, making sure you can match-up for a winer-take-all game is a pretty good idea.

To land Melky, the Royals gave up the pitching prospect Eric Longenhagen ranked as their sixth best minor leaguer this winter, but A.J. Puckett probably wouldn’t crack the top 20 in a better farm system. Here’s Eric’s write-up:

The command/changeup pitching-prospect archetype is one more commonly found among left-handed pitchers, who use that combination of skills to attack right-handed hitters. A.J. Puckett isn’t a left-handed-pitcher but possesses the command/changeup profile anyway. Puckett’s fastball sits 90-93, will touch 94 and is only average despite his command of it due to a lack of plane and movement. His changeup, 82-85 with big fade, regularly flashes plus and should mature there. His curveball is inconsistent, in part because Puckett doesn’t reliably get over his front side to generate power downward movement, but the pitch should be average with more reps. He’s an above-average athlete.

Because Puckett’s breaking-ball projection is limited, so too is his ceiling. He projects as a quick-moving No. 4 or 5 starter.

Puckett’s spent the year in high-A ball as a 22-year-old putting up pedestrian numbers, which isn’t what you really want out of a guy with limited stuff. Maybe he’ll move to the bullpen and become something interesting, but Puckett doesn’t look like a guy the Royals will miss all that much.

The other prospect in the trade, Andre Davis, was an 8th round pick in 2015, signed for $25,000, and is running a 4.83 ERA in low-A ball as a 23-year-old. There’s a reason we’ve literally never written about him on FanGraphs. That said, he’s a 6’6 lefty who has a nearly 4:1 K/BB ratio and Baseball America’s 2015 draft report profile said he had “premium velocity”, noting he touched 95-98. So there’s some raw material here.

Still, trading two guys whose upside looks like maybe MLB relievers is pretty easy when you’re in the playoff race, and Melky should help the Royals down the stretch and in a potential play-in game. If they can leverage his bat and Gordon’s glove in a job-share situation, they might have a reasonable left field combination going forward.

The Yankees acquired Jaime Garcia from the Twins for prospects Zack Littell and Dietrich Enns. You may remember that the Twins acquired Garcia less than a week ago. For their trouble, the Twins seemingly got a better return for Garcia than they gave up to acquire him. I have Huascar Ynoa projected for 1.9 WAR (by both KATOH and KATOH+), which is about half as much as Littell and Enns combined. It’s worth noting, however, that the Yankees are facing a 40-man roster crunch, so dealing Littell and Enns clears space for other prospects.

Below are the projections for the Twins’ newest prospects. WAR figures account for the player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

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Philadelphia made a pair of trades Friday, sending Howie Kendrick to Washington for LHP McKenzie Mills. They also traded RHP Jeremy Hellickson to Baltimore for LHP Garrett Cleavinger and OF Hyun Soo Kim. Philadelphia also received bonus pool money from both clubs.

Baltimore gets
RHP Jeremy Hellickson

Washington gets
2B Howie Kendrick

Philadelphia gets
LHP McKenzie Mills
LHP Garrett Cleavinger
OF Hyun Soo Kim
International Bonus Slots

Mills is a 21-year old, big-bodied lefty with advanced changeup feel. He was an 18th round pick out of Sprayberry HS (GA) in 2014 and then spent each of his first three pro seasons in either rookie or short-season ball. Mills struggled with control. His strikeout and walk rates — 20% and 12%, respectively, in 2016 and 28% and 5% this year — have both drastically improved this year and he’s having more success as the season goes on despite having already doubled his innings total frmo last year.

As far as the stuff in concerned, Mills is a deceptive 88-92 with downhill plane and could have an above average changeup at maturity. His below average curveball has shape but not power. He can locate it, and his other pitches, and projects to have starter’s control/command. He has K’d 118 hitters in 104.2 innings with Low-A Potomac and is a potential backend starter.

Cleavinger, a 2015 3rd rounder out of Oregon, is a pure relief prospect with a low-90s fastball and loopy, twisting curveball. His command is very erratic and, while he has premium loogy funk and repertoire, it needs to develop significantly if Cleavinger’s to have a steady big league role.

The Phillies also acquired $1 million in international bonus money yesterday General Manager Matt Klentak’s post-trade comments indicate that money will be speculatively used to as yet unidentified or available talent on the international market. The Phillies were originally allotted a $4.75 million bonus pool for the international period and spent a significant amount of it on five players, including SS Luis Garcia ($2.5 mil) and four other players who all signed for around $500k each.

Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Michael Kopech, RHP, Chicago AL (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 3   Top 100: 21
Line: 6 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 1 R, 12 K

Notes
Engineered in a lab by the Abercrombie Corperation and then accidentally exposed to Serum 102 by The Syndicate, Kopech’s superhuman stuff is almost unhittable when he’s throwing strikes and, for his last few starts, he has. Kopech has a chance to have an 80 fastball and two plus secondary pitches, giving him one of the few true top-of-the-rotation ceilings in all of prospectdom.

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As I write this, the Rays are sixth in the American League in our in-house playoff odds. They’re two and a half games out of first place in the American League East, and they’re one game out of a wild-card spot. This year’s Rays have a chance to actually go somewhere. This year’s Mets do not, and so a sensible trade has been made.

Rays get:

• Lucas Duda

Mets get:

• Drew Smith

This is one of those easy ones, one of those simple ones, one of those ones that hardly even warrants a write-up at all. The Mets are out of the race, and Duda is an aging rental player. Smith is a minor-league reliever, and for all I know those might be literally a dime a dozen, but he has plus velocity and an interesting curve, so you never know when it might click. The Rays, meanwhile, found themselves interested by the improvement Duda could provide. What is a Lucas Duda? This is a Lucas Duda.

Duda is a player whose very name kind of suggests everything you need to know about him. Not that I necessary mean to profile, and I don’t condone this sort of activity, but the name “Lucas Duda” conveys a certain amount of size and power. Duda, indeed, is large and strong, and he presently ranks among the league leaders in average exit velocity. The pluses are that he can hit the ball far, and he’s also comfortable drawing a walk. On the downside, Duda’s not much of a defender, and he’s prone to his strikeouts. He’s historically been a lot better against both righties and starting pitchers, so there are holes in his swing to be exploited.

Duda isn’t an impact rental in the way that J.D. Martinez could be an impact rental. Duda’s not that good. Still, he is a legitimate masher, and he’s an offensive upgrade over, say, Brad Miller, who’s been DHing too much. Duda, now, will slide into that spot, allowing Corey Dickerson to more regularly play the outfield while Miller could go back to pairing with Tim Beckham. There’s also a chance Miller or Beckham could subsequently be dealt — the Rays are tricky like that. But mostly, this feels like an addition for the sake of extra versatility and dingers. The roster will be stretched a little less thin, and in even better news, Kevin Kiermaier is nearing his return from the disabled list.

The Rays aren’t going for it in the traditional sense, and I doubt they ever will. They genuinely can’t afford to make those kinds of moves. But they are still clearly acting on their present opportunity, as they’ve also recently added players like Dan Jennings, Sergio Romo, and Chaz Roe. Those are three unspectacular relievers, yet there are things to like about each, and the Rays added them cheaply. They’re short-term additions, intended to make the Rays better now, but they haven’t actually lost very much. Smith is a recent third-round pick, but you don’t sweat dealing most A-ball relievers.

Duda’s going to serve as a two-month slugger. If things go the Rays’ way, he’ll be more like a three-month slugger. It might be moderately troubling that he, Dickerson, and Logan Morrison are all left-handed, but there’s still time to patch up the bench. The Rays are for real as a competitive team, and they’re adding for now in the way that makes sense to them. It’s hardly exciting, hardly dramatic, but the Rays are banking on their usual formula. They’re not a team that makes splashes. They just want to make sure they’re okay.