You knew it was coming. When Houston acquired Aaron Sanchez from the Blue Jays, changes to his repertoire were bound to follow. By now, the pitching preferences of the Astros organization are well known: throw your best pitch more often and ditch your worst. It’s not as simple as telling pitchers to throw more breaking balls or throw fewer fastballs, though. It’s an individualized pitching strategy based on the strengths and weaknesses of the particular pitcher. Erstwhile FanGraphs author Travis Sawchik describes how these individualized development plans are presented to new Astros in his new book, The MVP Machine, co-authored with Ben Lindbergh:
When you're traded to the Astros, this is what your first meeting with the club is like (via a nonfiction book titled The MVP Machine): pic.twitter.com/EwqD5ZgMBW
We may have expected some tweaks, but I’m not sure anyone could have expected the adjustments to have such an immediate impact for Sanchez. With the Blue Jays, he had posted a league worst 6.07 ERA with a 5.03 FIP across 23 starts. In his first start with his new team, he held the Mariners hitless over six innings, allowing just three base runners and striking out six. Will Harris, Joe Biagini (who came over from the Blue Jays in the same trade), and Chris Devenski completed the combined no-hitter after Sanchez was lifted after the sixth.
Corbin Martin has had an eventful summer. The 23-year-old right-hander made his MLB debut in mid May, underwent Tommy John surgery in early July, and four days ago he was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks as part of the blockbuster Zack Greinke deal. Martin came into the season ranked No. 3 on our Houston Astros Top Prospects list.
He didn’t follow a traditional path to the big leagues. Primarily a centerfielder as a Cypress, Texas prep, he didn’t begin pitching in earnest until his second collegiate season. Moreover, he cemented his conversion under the midnight sun, 4,000-plus miles from home.
“When I got to [Texas] A&M, they were like, ‘Hey, we know you pitched a little in high school; do you want to try it out?,’” Martin told me prior to the second of his five big-league starts. “I was like, ‘Sure.’ At first I was kind of frustrated, because I like hitting, but I ended up running away with it.”
Baseball is said to be a marathon, not a sprint, and immediate success wasn’t in the cards. Martin pitched just 18 innings as a freshman, then struggled to the tune of a 5.47 ERA as a sophomore. It wasn’t until his junior year, which was preceded by a breakout summer in the Cape Cod League, that “all the pieces finally came together.”
As the trade deadline came and went, there seems to have been a feeling of disappointment about its activity, or perceived lack thereof. Too many players stayed put, while too many teams failed to improve. Ken Rosenthal went so far as to say that “life was getting sucked out of the sport.” Rosenthal cited the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Yankees as clubs that failed to do anything of significance, with the Angels, Phillies, and Red Sox as other teams who failed to do much at the deadline. Rosenthal includes a quote from White Sox GM Rick Hahn and floats the idea that the one-game Wild Card doesn’t provide enough incentive for teams to want to win. That statement isn’t really supported by this deadline, though.
Rosenthal correctly identifies that baseball’s economic system, which has fallen behind the times when it comes to rewarding players monetarily for their play on the field, is broken, and he’s hardly alone in suggesting that the second Wild Card helped to cause a trade deadline that lacked movement (or, more specifically, big movement — as Ben Clemens noted, the deadline was incredibly busy). Jayson Stark included a quote from an executive in his piece on the deadline:
“If you do that, you’re putting a lot of your future on playing one game,” said one NL exec. “It doesn’t make sense [to go all in to play one game]. If you made the Wild Card two out of three, I bet you’d see more teams willing to do something. At least that’s a series. But who’s going to make a big trade for a chance to play one game?”
Tonight, 21-year-old Dustin May is set to bring his flaming red hair to Dodger Stadium when he makes his major league debut against the Padres. Every prospect’s journey to the bigs is unique, but they start in similar places, on amateur fields, often under the watchful eye of scouts. May’s path is especially familiar to me; though I was far from the only person in the Dodgers organization involved, I was the scout who signed him.
The funny thing is, I wasn’t especially enamored with May the first time I saw him pitch. It was a little more than four years ago to the day, at the annual Texas Scouts Association showcase game on a characteristically hot July day in San Antonio. May pitched one of the later innings of the day; he worked in the upper-80s with his fastball and threw a sharp upper-70s slurve with good spin. While he pitched well against the high school competition he faced, his stuff didn’t stand out among a crowd of intriguing 2016 high school draft prospects that included players such as Forrest Whitley, Hudson Potts, and Kyle Muller.
Still, May’s prospect status continued to rise at a relatively quick pace following that initial outing. After a solid performance in two separate appearances during the fall of his senior year, he was planted firmly among the list of “must see early” players – a list commonly populated by projectable high schoolers who might make a jump during the springtime. May, who was an ultra-skinny 6-foot-6 with a quick arm, fit the bill well.
By time his senior spring rolled around, May’s velocity had crept up from where it was during my first look. Touching 94 and routinely working in the low-90s with life, he began to morph into a prospect who didn’t seem as far away as he had a few months before. To go along with the increased fastball velocity, the breaking ball, which had always spun well but often got sweepy and had slurvy shape to it, began to develop into more of a true slider.
As an area scout, my responsibility was to gather as much information as I could so the scouting department could make the best decisions possible when choosing among hundreds of options during the draft. It was no different with May. I spent the spring speaking with his coaches, teammates, and teachers, to the college coaches who had recruited him, and advisers who were assisting his family in the process. May was selected in the third round of the 2016 draft as a projectable high school righty with the makings of two pitches that projected to potentially be plus in the future. He was given a $997,500 signing bonus and went straight to work in the AZL.
Between then and now, May has thrown just over 400 innings in the minor leagues, showcasing advanced command and inducing groundballs at an above-average clip. He now works with a four-pitch mix, highlighted by a plus low-90s cutter he added last year. His sinker, which has averaged 95 mph and touched 99, would be among the hardest sinkers major league starters throw. His curveball would be among the highest average spin breaking balls of any major league starter as well. His changeup, still a work in progress, is thrown just over 8% of the time and flashes average.
Beyond being a part of May’s signing process, I also served as one of his coaches – first during Fall Instructional League in 2016, and then again at the end of the 2017 season in his brief but impressive stint in the Cal League. I vividly remember having a conversation with him during instructs after a two-inning outing. He was told to only throw fastballs and changeups during his second inning of work in order to gain reps throwing the changeup, which was developmentally behind his breaking ball. May threw a total of 24 pitches in his two innings – 12 fastballs, 12 changeups. After the outing, he was asked if he intentionally threw the exact same number of each pitch, and if he was aware he could have utilized his breaking ball in his first inning of work. His response was succinct. He explained that he didn’t know it was an exact 50-50 usage split, but that he’d known he could use the breaking ball and decided not to. When asked for his rationale, he said he knew he needed a changeup to get big league hitters out. The coaches who observed this discussion nodded in approval. It’s rare for a teenager to possess the sort of foresight and maturity present in May’s response, one that suggests not only an awareness of what the exercise is intended to achieve in the moment, but also of the purpose it is meant to serve years down the road. It was then that I fully realized that May’s mental makeup would be a strength as his professional career continued.
Coming into the 2019 season, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel ranked May second in the Dodgers system and 21st overall, earning a 55 FV and a report that heralded him as a near-complete prospect, only missing a changeup to round out his arsenal. Their report on May detailed the strength of his curveball and his curls:
May’s flamboyant ginger curls and Bronson Arroyo-esque leg kick are maybe the third and fourth most visually captivating aspects of his on-mound presence once you’ve gotten a look at his stuff. His mid-90s fastball plays up due to great extension, and further incorporation of a running two-seamer has given May’s heater enough tail to miss bats in the strike zone. His vertically-breaking slider (May calls it a slider, but it has curveball shape) has one of the better spin rates in the minors and enough vertical depth to miss bats against both left and right-handed hitters. It’s May’s out pitch, but he also has a developing cutter and its movement is a great foil for his two-seamer. After trying several different changeup grips in 2017, it seems like May is still searching for a good cambio, but his fastball and breaking ball command should suffice against lefties for now.
In 79.1 innings in Double-A this year, May produced a 3.18 FIP, a 19.8% K-BB%, and a 50.5% ground-ball rate. He earned a promotion to Triple-A, an invite to the Futures Game in Cleveland, and a 60 FV, moving closer to fulfilling the promise that had Eric and Kiley describe him as, “what was once a prospect with mid-rotation upside has become one with mid-rotation likelihood.” May is now ranked as the No. 1 prospect in the Dodgers system and eighth overall in baseball on THE BOARD.
Now, after a trade deadline that saw Los Angeles decline to make a significant pitching acquisition, May is getting the call. He’s a young pitcher with a unique combination of a high floor and a high ceiling. There’s a strong likelihood that he is a mid-rotation starter – a plus athlete who throws four pitches for strikes and has never had a major arm injury – and the chance that he continues to refine his arsenal and becomes someone featured at or near the top of a major league rotation. He’ll likely contend for a playoff roster spot on the 2019 Dodgers team, and figures to be featured in the rotation beginning in 2020 and moving forward. His path to the bigs might be complete, but his journey is just beginning.
As I was saying before the busiest trade deadline day on record — yes, my timing of this two-part series was impeccable — Monday’s trade of Jason Vargas to the Phillies was noteworthy as the rare intradivisional pre-deadline swap. Some might view in-season deals with direct rivals to be taboo, but they do occur, and as the July 31 trade deadline approached, it seemed like a fun idea to examine their recent history.
To keep this from becoming unruly, I’ve confined my focus to the 2012-19 period, the era of two Wild Cards in each league — a cutoff chosen because it expands not only the number of teams who make the playoffs, but also the group who can at least envision themselves as contenders. For this, I’m using the Baseball-Reference Trade Partners tool and counting only trades that occurred in June, July, or August, which we might more accurately call midsummer deals rather than deadline ones — though some of them were definitely of that variety. I’ve omitted straight purchases, which generally involve waiver bait, though I have counted deals in which cash changed hands instead of a player to be named later.
If you’re looking for a basis of comparison, in the companion piece to this, covering the National League, I found that the NL division with the most deals fitting the description within the period was the NL East, with 12, with five such deals taking place in the NL Central, and just three in the NL West, none of them involving the Dodgers; this year’s deadline didn’t change any of those tallies. The most notable NL deal in this class was a July 27, 2012 one that sent Marco Scutaro from the Rockies to the Giants, whom he not only helped win a World Series but earned NLCS MVP honors along the way. Since I worked from West to East in the NL edition to emphasize some of those points, we’ll take these divisions in the same order.
Midsummer Trades 2012-19: AL West
Team
Astros
Angels
Athletics
Mariners
Rangers
Total
Astros
—
2
1
0 (6/2010)
1
4
Angels
2
—
1
0 (12/2012)
0 (6/2018)
3
Athletics
1
1
—
1
1
4
Mariners
0 (6/2010)
0 (12/2012)
1
—
0 (4/2019)
1
Rangers
1
0 (6/2018)
1
0 (4/2019)
—
2
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
For combinations with no midsummer trades, the dates in parentheses note the last transaction involving the two teams.
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about FanGraphs’ completist coverage of the frantic trade deadline, the backlash to a perceived lack of activity at the deadline and whether the deadline was really a manifestation of baseball’s structural problems, the appropriate balance between trying to win now and trying to win later, what we can learn from the Chris Archer trade one year later, the significance of the suspensions for the Reds’ and Pirates’ bad brawling behavior, the Hall of Famers Mike Trout passed in July, Bobby Wallace and another reminder that baseball is a wonder of human ingenuity, Jeff McNeil’s netting-assisted snag, a vintage Zack Greinke story, and more.
Below you’ll find a list of every trade that occurred between July 13 and July 31 involving at least one player on a 40-man roster. You can click on “analysis” for the corresponding article and click on “Roster Resource” to view that team’s updated depth chart. For players not on a major league roster, their current level is listed in parentheses next to their name.
Updated prospect rankings for players who have switched teams can be found underneath the list of trades. Organizational rank is listed first. Overall rank, if a player is included in our Top 121 prospects, is listed in bold.
The 2019 trade deadline has come and gone, and while it provided a frenzy of late-breaking activity, ultimately it offered far more quantity than quality. With the exception of Trevor Bauer, Zack Greinke, and Marcus Stroman, most of the top starters whose names have been tossed around for the past several weeks — including Matthew Boyd, Madison Bumgarner, Mike Minor, Robbie Ray, Noah Syndergaard, and Zack Wheeler — ended up staying put, and likewise when it came to relievers. What’s more, there weren’t many big bats dealt, and in general, the combination of too many teams that view themselves as contenders and the loss of the August waiver period led to approaches that felt far too risk-averse.
Regarding the volume, first consider the accounting of True Blue LA’s Eric Stephen from a year ago as compared to this year. Last year, there were 18 trades on July 31, and 37 from July 25 onward. This year there were 22 on July 31, and 35 from July 25 onward. In terms of quality, last year there were six position players (Manny Machado, Eduardo Escobar, Tommy Pham, Ian Kinsler, Asdrubal Cabrera, and Mike Moustakas) who had higher WARs at the time they were dealt than this year’s leader, Franmil Reyes (1.4). On the other hand, this year had more pitchers above that baseline (five to four), and where J.A. Happ led last year’s brigade at just 2.0 WAR, Greinke (3.6, not counting his 0.7 as a hitter), Stroman (2.9) and Bauer (2.7) all surpassed that. Finally, by the accounting of colleague Ben Clemens — whose study of deadline activity goes back to 1986 and can be found here — last year, there were 143 players traded in all of July; they had totaled 64.9 WAR in 2017 and were on pace to total 62.1 WAR in 2018. This year, there were 126 such players dealt; they totaled 55.1 WAR in 2018 and were on pace for just 45.6 WAR this year.
What follows here is a breakdown of five of my favorite trades (or in some cases, sets of trades) of July and five of my least favorite trades and non-trades. Admittedly, I’m viewing these with a vague bias towards winning now, and against your favorite team (I kid, I kid). In some cases, I wrote about these deals myself, while for others, I’ll refer you to the fine analysis of my colleagues in order to keep this from becoming a novel.
Favorites
1. Astros acquire RHP Zack Greinke from Diamondbacks for four prospects
To these eyes, the boldest move of the deadline was clearly the best. At a time when so many other top contenders talked themselves out of paying high prices to acquire top talent, the Astros — who already owned the AL’s best record (69-39, .639) — added the 35-year-old Greinke in exchange for righties J.B. Bukauskas and Corbin Martin, first baseman Seth Beer, and infielder/outfielder Josh Rojas. As Dan Szymborski detailed, Greinke’s curve keeps getting better and better, and he’s currently ninth in the majors in pitching WAR (it’s a shame he likely won’t bat much the rest of the way).
While the two pitchers Houston sent to Arizona ranked fourth and third respectively on the Astros’ prospect list as of March, none of the players they dealt rank among our Top 100 prospects, and Martin, who made five appearances for the Astros in May and June, recently underwent Tommy John surgery. That Greinke’s contract runs through 2021, with the Diamondbacks picking up about 31% of the remaining tab, makes this all the better for the Astros, as it protects them against the potential loss of Gerrit Cole in free agency while costing them only about $22.7 million per year on an annualized basis. Read the rest of this entry »
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