They apparently got close last night before a physical issue with a prospect derailed the deal, but after a morning of working through things, it appears the Royals are going to acquire Johnny Cueto from the Reds.
I made the case for the Royals to acquire Cueto last week, and it’s a fit that seemed to make the most sense of any out there. The Royals were throwing out replacement level starters on a regular basis and lacked anyone who you’d want to start in Game 1 of a playoff series, so Cueto not only upgrades their chances of winning the division — which were already quite high — but gives them a guy who can keep their bullpen from getting overworked early in the postseason.
The price hasn’t been announced yet, but the Royals have a lot of high upside/high risk prospects, so the Reds probably are getting some guys with real potential, but they may have to wait a while to see the rewards at the big league level. Raul Mondesi Jr would make a lot of sense as the center piece, but that’s just my speculation. We’ll have more analysis later when the whole deal is announced.
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REDS! They’re acquiring him from the Reds. Not themselves.
It has been reported that Kansas City refused to include Mondesi.
You always have to wait to see the official, completed deal to find out if any report is accurate.
Sure, but I have a hard time imagining them giving up Mondesi for a 2.5 month rental. I wonder if the medical issue that nixed the earlier agreement involved Kyle Zimmer.
I guess it’s worth repeating what I commented down there: the official trade is Cueto for Brandon Finnegan, John Lamb, and Cody Reed.
unrelated, but I am curious if anyone who works for Fangraphs ever tries to read it on a mobile device? Whatever ad service you have going has scripts that hijack the browser (at least Safari on iPhone) that take you either to the App Store or to some devious website. This happens without clicking on anything, but just due tot he scripts that are running.
FWIW, it always works fine on both of my mobile devices. Of course, mine are Android so that may explain the difference.
If it’s not an iPhone…you can probably read Fangraphs.
Android here, works fine for me too.
Have had this issue with Android on this site before.
I have this same problem every time I try to use Fangraphs on my iPhone
happens to me on an android phone as well
It’s been straight up ridiculous of late. I can go to an article without be redirected after 20 seconds.
Same here. This problem has been absurdly obnoxious on my iPhone.
I have experienced the same issue on mobile thru safari. It is the most overtly obnoxious advertising I have encountered on the web. This isn’t hyperbole, fangraphs is one of the few sites I check via mobile and this advertising, well, really bad.
Official trade has Cueto for Brandon Finnegan, John Lamb, and Cody Reed.
Pretty interesting haul given that they’re all southpaws. Lamb’s velocity being back is the only thing that prevents this from looking like a hijacking by the Reds. I presume that Finnegan is kept in relief and may be the Aroldis replacement. Lamb’s potential to be a middle or back end starter is enticing, while Reed presumably tops out as a situational left-handed reliever.
Is it just me or does that seem really cheap?
Interested to hear what Kiley and the guys think about this deal.
It is.
That being said, I like the deal for both teams. Maybe the Reds could have gotten better offers, but with Cueto being a free agent and them not being in realistic contention, he had minimal value to Cincinnati for the remainder of this season. They ended up getting two left-handed relievers (one a potential closer), a commodity that often costs $5 million or more in average annual value on the open market. Then add in John Lamb as a left-handed starter performing well in AAA. While he will never live up to his early prospect status, he’s a reasonably good bet to be a decent major leaguer.
So yes, that’s “really cheap” in the sense that Cincinnati didn’t get anyone with the potential to be elite, but they took a guy who had little use to them going forward and turned him into three pieces that are likely to be useful even if none of them are individually impressive.
After trying to wade through 17 pages of comments on a reds fan site, I gave up. It seems to me the proper question is not “did the Reds get enough for Johnny Cueto?” it’s “Did the Reds get more than the value of the compensation pick they’d be entitled to after making Cueto a Qualifying Offer?” Meanwhile, they seem to have done Cueto a huge favor, since whoever signs him asa free agent won’t have to give up a draft pick.
Draft pick compensation isn’t a deterrent for teams looking at a free agent of Cueto’s quality.