Marlins Exchange Nathan Eovaldi for Depth

A move that wasn’t a Padres move happened Friday.

Yankees send to Marlins:

• Martin Prado
• David Phelps
• $6 million

Marlins send to Yankees:

• Nathan Eovaldi
• Garrett Jones
• Domingo German

German is a prospect. Eovaldi has three more years of team control, while Jones has one. Prado has two more years of team control, and Phelps has four, although he’s a Super-Two asset. The way it’s being phrased, the Yankees are chipping in $3 million in each of the next two years to partially pay down Prado’s salary. But if you’d like, you can mentally cancel out the $6 million and German. Now, German is actually an intriguing, live-armed prospect, so his value is probably a little north of $6 million, but they’re close enough to being even. This is mostly about the major-league players, and the one who grabs your attention is Eovaldi. That’s the guy with the big, big upside.

From their end, you can see what the Marlins are doing. They didn’t need Eovaldi, and Phelps is useful enough, and Prado can play all over the place. But from the other side, the Yankees might well be ecstatic. Theirs was a roster in need of help in the rotation. It’s not often you can land an arm like Eovaldi’s without paying through the nose. It was this very player who, a few years ago, got traded for Hanley Ramirez. Eovaldi’s not even 25 years old, and he can run it up to the triple digits.

Let’s go through the Marlins’ stuff first. Prado is being paid reasonably, through 2016. He’s in his 30s, but he’s not yet old, and he’s long profiled as an average or above-average player. He’s made enough contact to maintain more than acceptable offensive numbers, and if you know anything about Prado, you know that he’s versatile. Over his career, he’s played at least some hundreds of innings at first base, second base, third base, and left field. Last year he made token appearances in right field, and he’s also recently gotten a few opportunities at shortstop. Prado can do a little of everything, and it isn’t hard to see how he fits with the Marlins as they’ve been built.

What this seems to do is displace Casey McGehee, who the Marlins really seemed to like. Could be that McGehee is on his way out. But something the Marlins lacked is quality infield depth. Michael Morse has a history of getting hurt. Dee Gordon has only a brief history of not being bad. As fond as the Marlins are of Adeiny Hechavarria, his FanGraphs page could be more supportive. And McGehee just ran a .335 BABIP, with super low power. There are other depth pieces present, but none of them are close to as good as Prado, so he helps a thin infield at a time when the Marlins think they’re good enough to go for it.

Also, the outfield thing. The Marlins have an awesome starting outfield. It’s fun to debate their outfield versus the Pirates’ outfield. But the Marlins’ official 40-man roster lists just the three starters as outfielders. Jake Marisnick is gone. Enrique Hernandez is gone. Reed Johnson is gone. So Prado is depth on the dirt and the grass, and as young and athletic as the three starters are, Giancarlo Stanton’s been hurt before. Things happen. Prado’s good in an emergency.

Phelps won’t draw much attention here. Despite being a Super-Two, he should remain fairly cheap, and he’s got a good amount of experience both starting and relieving. He’s a righty who’s been successful against lefties, so the Marlins can have him do whatever they want. As a reliever over the last three years, Phelps has struck out a quarter of his opponents. As a starter, he’s posted a 103 FIP-, although it’s worth noting his starts have averaged five and a half innings. So Phelps doesn’t come close to Eovaldi’s upside, but he’s one of the Marlins who can try to buy time in the rotation until Jose Fernandez comes back. Phelps doubles as Dan Haren insurance, in case he up and retires. The Marlins probably needed to get an arm back if they were going to lose Eovaldi.

So, the other side. Let’s keep building to the Eovaldi climax. German is a good prospect, albeit a prospect who’s a ways away. He looks good in the Yankees’ system, just as he’d look good in any system. Jones? Jones is kind of a salary dump by the Marlins, but he can also help some in New York. For the first time, he’ll play in an environment friendly to left-handed hitters. Most of his power is to the pull side, and he owns a career 121 wRC+ against righties. In an emergency, he’s corner outfield depth. He can serve as Mark Teixeira insurance, and also as Alex Rodriguez insurance, since few people question Jones’ ability to hit righties, and more people question Rodriguez’s. Jones’ profile isn’t too hard to find, but the Yankees can use him. The Yankees, like the Marlins, are also trying to win in 2015.

But obviously, Eovaldi is the centerpiece. He throws harder than almost any other starter, and he just finished one out short of 200 innings. The Yankees already had rotation talent. But check out the question marks:

• CC Sabathia: coming off surgery
• Ivan Nova: coming off surgery
• Michael Pineda: not far removed from surgery
• Masahiro Tanaka: UCL injury last summer

All of those are talented starters. Few would be surprised if any of them wound up on the DL for a while, or ran an elevated ERA. It’s always important for everyone to have rotation depth, but the Yankees were almost desperate for it, and Chris Capuano wasn’t going to be enough. Chase Whitley wasn’t going to be enough, and they wanted to do better than Phelps. In Eovaldi, the Yankees have a power arm they could control for at least the next three seasons.

The question with Eovaldi is always, where are the strikeouts? The assumption being, when you throw 96, you should pile up the strikeouts. It’s not actually that easy, as Eovaldi demonstrates, and also, while Eovaldi still isn’t a strikeout machine, he did seem to make one improvement last year, as he trimmed his walk rate from 9% to 5%. Let’s now break that down further.

Against righties, Eovaldi’s stayed the same. I wouldn’t make much of the little 2013 blip.

There we go. There it is. Against lefties, Eovaldi maintained his strikeout rate, but he obliterated his previous walk rates. Now, lefties actually hit better against Eovaldi in 2014 than they did in 2013, by knocks and power. If that hadn’t happened, Eovaldi might not have even been available. But the Yankees are clearly willing to take the chance. In 2012 and 2013, against lefties, Eovaldi had an xFIP just below 5. Last season, against lefties, he had an xFIP just below 4.

There’s more. Of course there is! Last season, Eovaldi finished in the top 20% of starting pitchers in strike rate. That despite throwing so hard, and that despite getting limited help from Jarrod Saltalamacchia. According to Baseball Prospectus, Saltalamacchia cost Eovaldi 36 strikes, and about five runs, making it one of the worst framing batteries in the league. That’s not going to happen with Brian McCann.

And here’s another fun fact: over the last three years, Eovaldi has run the second-lowest HR/FB in baseball among starting pitchers with 300+ innings. Eovaldi’s thrown more than 400 innings, and the only pitcher with a slightly lower rate is Clayton Kershaw. It’s not all pure talent, but the evidence does suggest that Eovaldi might be able to limit fly-ball distance, perhaps because he can be difficult to catch up against. His career FIP- is 98. His career xFIP- is 110.

Even as what he was last year, Eovaldi is good enough. That is, if you assume he simply suffered some bad luck. He’s at least a league-average starter, and probably better than that. But the Yankees might see some tweaks to make. Eovaldi’s slider has improved. There were signs down the stretch last season he was getting a better feel for his curveball. But the Yankees might mess around with his heater. They told Brandon McCarthy to throw some more high fastballs. They were in the process of telling Shane Greene to throw some more high fastballs. Eovaldi has sufficient velocity that, if he could command a high fastball, that could be a real putaway weapon for him.

Last season, 135 pitchers threw at least 1,000 fastballs, according to Baseball Savant. Eovaldi threw 15% of his at three feet off the ground or higher, which was the 11th-lowest rate. The median was about 24%.

And, last season, 133 pitchers threw at least 250 fastballs in two-strike counts. Eovaldi threw 23% of his at three feet off the ground or higher, which was the 15th-lowest rate. The median was about 33%. We know that Eovaldi has made strides with his slider. If hitters are looking for breaking stuff down low when they’re behind in the count, then Eovaldi might be able to make himself more unhittable by climbing the ladder with gas. He’s already done it some, but perhaps he could do it more. Previously, he threw more high fastballs than he did in 2014, so in one way he’s trending away from this, but maybe that will reverse, as Eovaldi has developed greater mechanical consistency.

Eovaldi is an average or above-average starter now, with further upside. He belongs to the Yankees for three years, at least. He’s the most talented player in the trade, and while that alone can’t tell you which side did better, the Yankees are unquestionably pleased. Chase Headley re-signing made Prado less necessary, and there’s reason to believe that Robert Refsnyder is ready to contribute at second base. There’s also Jose Pirela, and there are also other players available, now and during the season. The Yankees turned something they didn’t need into something they did. In a way, the Marlins did the same thing, but I don’t think they needed Prado the way the Yankees needed Eovaldi.

For Marlins fans, it’s fun to see the front office active, and adding. For Yankees fans, it’s fun to see the roster get younger. Younger and even a little bit better. That’s the best of both worlds.