JABO: The Best Fit for Johnny Cueto

At some point in the next 10 days, The Cincinnati Reds are going to trade Johnny Cueto, and some contender is going to get perhaps the best pitcher available for the stretch run. Nearly every team that’s in need of a starting pitcher has been linked to Cueto at some point, and the Reds won’t have any shortage of suitors vying for his services. But where does he fit best, and who should bid the most to secure him as their ace for the rest of the season?

First off, let’s just acknowledge that basically every contender in baseball could use Johnny Cueto; no one has four starters at his level, so he’d slide right into the front of every team’s playoff rotation, and would start the first game of a playoff series for most of them. But for some teams, he’d represent a larger upgrade than some others, and there are some teams that could use pitching that may very well be better off going in another direction than paying the price for Cueto.

At the top of that list, I’d probably put the Los Angeles Dodgers. They clearly need a starting pitcher or three, especially with Brett Anderson leaving his start early on Tuesday night, and really, his history of health problems made it unlikely that the team should count on him giving them significant innings in October even before that. Given their resources and their position at the top of the NL West, it seems very likely that the Dodgers will make a move to upgrade their rotation, but I don’t know that Cueto is the best option for them.

Part of the appeal of landing a guy at Cueto’s level is that you’re adding a guy who can match up with other team’s aces; you pay a premium to get Cueto because he’s going to have a larger impact in the postseason than he will in the regular season. Except the Dodgers already have the best pitcher in baseball and the guy pitching like the best pitcher in baseball right now; on the Dodgers, Cueto might actually be the #3 starter behind Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.

There’s nothing wrong with having a great #3 starter, but that means in the first round, Cueto would only make one start. Paying the price to obtain an ace with the potential to only use him for one game in the first round probably isn’t worth it, and the Dodgers may very well be better off getting two lesser starters to fill the last two spots in their playoff rotation rather than going for one more elite starter to team with the two they already have.

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