Yankees Turn Martin Prado Into Nathan Eovaldi
It’s the last weekend before Christmas, and everyone is scrambling to finish up their holiday shopping, including Major League teams, apparently. So in between the flurry of the 42 trades made by the Padres this morning, the Yankees and Marlins have also reportedly struck a deal. According to Jack Curry, the Yankees have traded Martin Prado and David Phelps to Miami for Nathan Eovaldi and Garrett Jones, with some minor pieces included as well.
Update: Domingo German is reportedly heading to NY as well. Here’s a write-up on him from September.
This deal seems to be a decent depth-for-needs the Yankees. After the signing of Chase Headley, they had less of a need for Prado, especially given their depth of interesting/maybe decent second base types, including Robert Refsnyder. Their rotation was still pretty thin, however, and Eovaldi should be a pretty solid upgrade over Phelps. As a lefty 1B/DH type, Jones fits as a potential DH partner with Alex Rodriguez and a backup for Mark Teixeira.
On the other side of things, I don’t see this making quite as much sense. The Marlins rotation got pretty crowded after trading for both Mat Latos and Dan Haren, so those moves have essentially squeezed out Eovaldi, but he may be as good or better than both. Still, they have enough depth of arms to be okay without him, and Prado is a useful player, but it’s not entirely clear where he’s going to play. The team seemed somewhat enamored with Casey McGehee’s bounceback, who was a league average third baseman last year, and they just filled second base by trading for Dee Gordon.
Maybe the Marlins realize that either McGehee and Gordon aren’t that good, and Prado will split time between both positions. But then, did they really need to give up an interesting young arm for a part-time infielder on the downside of his career? I like Prado more than most, but and I’d play him over McGehee, but even I don’t see that as a huge upgrade. This looks more like the Marlins moving wins around than getting better, but they definitely got older in the process.
I’m guessing more details will come out that might help explain the trade, such as the Yankees paying nearly the entirety of Prado’s remaining salary or something. Just on talent, though, this seems like a pretty nice move for NYY and a bit of a strange one for a Marlins team that is having a very strange offseason.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Can Prado still play good-enough OF defense? Depth for depth elsewhere and flexibility isn’t bad as such. But parting with Eovali to get it done smh
Maybe they’ll turn around and trade Prado to the Padres for an outfielder.
I don’t think Eovaldi is as good as Latos. Definitely better than Haren.
I still don’t know how someone who throws so hard can have such a disconnect with his K peripherals. As a Marlins fan, that’s what makes this trade palatable. No guarantee he is ever more than a 6.5 K/9 who throws 180-200 IP. Definitely has value, though.
A little upset Marlins couldn’t hang onto German, though it’s too early to tell what type of pitcher he becomes.
Yankees pitching coach (Rothschild) is known to improve K rates consistently.
Snagging Eovaldi would be the Yankee’s biggest heist of a young arm in recent memory, if it wasn’t for that guy they got for Jesus “The Next Mike Piazza” Montero.
Did someone say pizza?
Oh, I really hope Big Mike stays healthy this season. It’s a pleasure to watch that man pitch.
Prado is a pretty good defensive OF, but I mostly likely see Dee Gordon playing SS now, Prado playing 2B, and Hechavarria being the backup IF.
This isn’t happening. Marlins will not move Hech. This move gives security and flexibility in case 2015 McGehee/Dee are in second half of 2014 form, and Prado can cover the OF in case of an injury there. Also McGehee played 160 games last year, perhaps some rest would benefit him.
Looks like everyone is trying to get on the bandwagon to fleece the Marlins.
This is straight up salary dump. Saved $3 million for Evo, $5 million for Jones, McGehee’s probably gone, saved another $3.5 there. Yankees will be paying at least half of the $22 left on Prado’s contract. Evo has closer stuff. Kid has to move to the pen.
According to Marlins beat writer Juan C. Rodriguez, the Yankees are only paying $6 million in cash in the deal, so it’s not a pure salary dump.
Love this deal. Yanks needed to upgrade the rotation and continue to get younger. Eovaldi is an upgrade over Phelps with a much higher ceiling while only being 25. I have to admit I liked Prado’s veteran presence but he played a position that we can certainly replace from within or even go out and sign a guy like Asdrubal Cabrera until one of the young guys steps up.
I think the second to last sentence is very important, probably true, and makes this trade make perfect sense. The Marlins seem like they are sneakily trying to have a highly paid team without actually paying highly.
Martin Prado is now the highest paid player on the 2015 Miami Marlins.
Is’nt Stanton the highest paid Marlin?
Not in 2015. He’s making $6.5 million next season.
Not next year – he only gets 6.5M in 2015 as compared to Prado’s 11M.
Beat to the punch…
get a room you two
All these terrible moves for the Marlins just make me think Loria is somehow scheming again. Pretending to try to contend or something.
Wasn’t the Stanton extension exhibit A in that scheme?
Mike Podhorzer did a great job just yesterday explaining that while Eovaldi’s fastball is impressively fast, it isn’t a good pitch: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/nathan-eovaldi-velocity-without-the-strikeouts/
To quote Podhorzer, “He generally throws his fastball in the middle and lower half of the zone, and has actually thrown it most frequently right down the middle. High velocity alone isn’t enough to generate whiffs if the location of the pitch is in every hitter’s wheelhouse.”
Nate’s 3rd team in 5 years. There’s a ton of articles online regarding Eovladi’s potential. Let’s see if Rothschild can help. I’m doubtful.
Reading the comments on the ESPN story reporting this deal makes me realize the extent to which sabermetrics remains outside the mainstream. The consensus there is: Eovaldi had a worse ERA than Phelps, therefore he is a worse pitcher, and Prado was the Yankees’ only option at second. Also, Cashman is a terrible GM. I don’t know why I expected better of ESPN commenters, but I did.
I like the Yankees’ off-season so far.
Does it really make sense for Steamer to project Eovaldi to give up 1.27 HR/9, which is twice his usual rate? That seems drastic to me.
He gives up a lot of fly-balls and historically we’ve learned that pitchers have extremely little control over the number of fly-balls to the outfield that go for home runs. Either Eovaldi is a very interesting exception or he’s been really lucky. Maintaining his performance over several seasons does make the former a realistic possibility, but it’s still safer not to bet on someone remaining that exception.
He gives up a slightly below average amount of FBs, actually, and gets an exactly league average amount of GBs.
Correct. Do note two factors, however.
1) His IF/FB% has consistently been below-average over his career. IF/FB% isn’t as stable as GB or FB rates, but it’s not as unstable as LD% or HR/FB%. Over his ~450 career innings, his IF/FB% deficiency is becoming a little harder to totally handwave. Meaning, given a fixed number of fly balls, we might expect a larger proportion than average to be outfield flies and, hence, dingaaaahs.
2) Low HR/FB and Stadium. Stock line about HR/FB regression. No, Eovaldi hasn’t regressed to league average yet, but he’s a few seasons out from being Jered Weaver. So, couple Steamer’s expected regression with the stadium shift – HR/FB moving from ~6% to ~11% isn’t that hard to imagine.
Just estimates, of course. But if I were a projection system, that’s what I’d say. I’d also say: beep.
I agree that the lack of popups is a concern.
I’m not that worried about the stadium shift, though. It’s not like he’s Phil Hughes, who allows so many FBs that a change in HR/FB% is the difference between being a 4.5 FIP guy and a 2.6 FIP guy.
“This deal seems to be a decent depth-for-needs the Yankees.”
“I like Prado more than most, but and I’d play him over McGehee,”
Perhaps an editor for the quick-graphs thing is in order?