Forget the intro! Let’s just get right to it. The Braves and Reds made a trade. This is what it is:
Braves get:
Reds get:
At first, it doesn’t seem like very much. Sims and Wisler might still have some name value, yes. But their stocks are diminished. And while Duvall has his uses, the Braves’ outfield is currently occupied by Ronald Acuna, Ender Inciarte, and Nick Markakis. Pretty good players, all of them, and we usually don’t grant much attention to additions to a bench. This doesn’t appear to be a move to dwell on for very long.
I’m not going to convince you that this is a major trade. It isn’t. But I can at least try to explain some layers. Firstly, for the Braves, this allows for something of a platoon. Duvall bats righty, and hits well against lefties. Inciarte doesn’t, and doesn’t. And by any metric you look at, Duvall is one of the better defensive left fielders around, so now with a southpaw on the mound, Duvall can handle left, with Acuna sliding over to the middle. The Braves are just improving their versatility, here. They’re addressing a minor weakness.
And then, although Duvall turns 30 in just over a month, he’s still under club control through 2021, with three years of arbitration. His wRC+ is a paltry 82, but his career mark is 96, and according to Baseball Savant’s expected wOBA metric, Duvall this year has been particularly unlucky. Markakis’ contract is up after the year. Duvall could be seen as a longer-term outfield option. This doesn’t lock the Braves into anything, but at the very least it gives them a safety net.
I don’t know how many near-30-year-olds should realistically be considered longer-term options, but Duvall’s defense has held up, which says good things about his current athleticism. And if you ask the Braves, they’re not losing anything here they had a plan for. Tucker is just a guy the Reds can use to plug into their Duvall-shaped vacancy. He’s a fourth outfielder, on his better days. Wisler has a career big-league ERA- of 129. Sims has a career big-league ERA- of 140. They’d all but been erased from the Braves’ organizational blueprint.
From the Reds’ perspective, it’s a trade for pedigree. Sims is 24, and he was once Baseball America’s No. 57 overall prospect. Wisler is 25, and he was once BA’s No. 34 overall prospect. They’ll now join previous top-100 pitching prospects like Cody Reed, Brandon Finnegan, and Robert Stephenson. To say nothing of other pitching talent the Reds have had better luck developing. Duvall had a place in Cincinnati, but not as a part of any competitive core. They’re hoping that at least one or two more young pitchers will emerge to join Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle.
Neither Sims nor Wisler has been good in the majors. The Reds might not be able to figure out why. But Sims, at least, continues to look pretty good as a Triple-A starter, and Wisler, to his credit, has improved his Triple-A contact rate by eight percentage points. For the Braves, Sims and Wisler have been disappointments. For the Reds, they’re providing a new opportunity. A change of scenery, a blank slate, a potentially whole new set of instructions. It’s a roll of the dice on two interesting arms. It’s conceivable that either or both pitchers could play a big-league role in 2019.
The Reds need to prove they can develop pitching, because they aren’t devoid of talent. It’s the rotation(s) that’s held the Reds out of the race(s), and they want to put that behind them. The Braves are happy to let the Reds experiment, because they ran just about out of patience. A new wave of pitchers is cresting in Atlanta, so they’re not so concerned with the waves that came before. The Reds might’ve spotted a post-hype opportunity. The burden is on them to turn opportunity into value, where another club wasn’t successful.
