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With a 17 game lead in the AL West, the Astros are almost certainly going to the postseason. But as they figure out what to do before tomorrow’s trade deadline, and weigh the costs of potential upgrades, it is becoming pretty clear that they should have some concerns about Lance McCullers.

Their #2 starter was lights out to begin the year, but on June 12th, the Astros put him on the DL with a back problem. It sounded like the kind of semi-fictional injury that teams have used to give starters a break with the new 10-day disabled list, and not something that the team should be all that worried about, despite McCullers’ long history of arm problems. But after another lousy outing today, it’s worth noting that McCullers has looked nothing like his early-season self since returning from the DL.

Because he hasn’t surrendered a home run in any of his six starts since returning from the DL, his FIP still looks fine, but everything else is a mess. His 9% walk rate doesn’t look awful, but once you add in the five HBPs, he’s putting 13% of the batters he faced on base without forcing them to swing the bat. More worryingly, his strikeout rate over that stretch is just 20%, below the league average, and that includes him racking up 14 strikeouts in his first two starts off the DL; he has struck out just 17 of 100 batters in his last four starts.

Coming into today, batters were hitting .387/.472/.492 off McCullers in July.
Today, the Tigers hit .363/.500/.409 against him.

Some of his recent struggles are just BABIP related, but McCullers’ command has basically disappeared over the last month, and when he’s behind in the count, he can’t get guys to chase his curveball out of the zone. Obviously, he could find his command again before October, and you don’t want to overreact to a few bad starts in a row, especially with a playoff spot all but guaranteed. But given McCullers’ long list of health issues and his struggles since returning from the disabled list, the Astros should probably be a bit more motivated to add a starter before tomorrow’s deadline.

Feel the deadline fever. First it was Jaime Garcia getting traded again, now it’s Melky Cabrera on the move. Try to contain your excitement.

Sarcasm aside, the Royals needed an OF/DH type, given that Jorge Soler has been a bust and Alex Gordon is hitting like a Hall of Famer, in that his batting line is probably what we’d project Tim Raines for in 2017. Royals outfielders have combined for an 83 wRC+ this year, so any reasonable facsimile of a Major League hitter is an upgrade.

Melky Cabrera isn’t anything special, but he is a reasonable facsimile of a Major League hitter. He’s got a 105 wRC+, thanks to his regularly elite strikeout rate, as he’s basically the embodiment of the recent Royals offense. He’s got enough power to not be a slap hitter and hits his way to a decent on-base percentage, so Cabrera remains a league average bat, or something in that range.

Defensively, Cabrera remains a problem, as he’s run consistently below-average marks for his work in left field. He’s not Matt Kemp or anything, but he is a bit of a liability in the field, so if the Royals use Melky to displace Alex Gordon, they’ll be giving up some defensive value for the offensive upgrade. But given that Gordon has a 58 wRC+, it’s probably not so easy for them to keep him in the line-up everyday at this point, even with his glovework.

Mostly, Cabrera gives the Royals options, as they can run an offense-first line-up on days they don’t expect outfield defense to matter as much, but keep Gordon on the field when guys like Jason Vargas pitch. With a Wild Card game potentially in their future, making sure you can match-up for a winer-take-all game is a pretty good idea.

To land Melky, the Royals gave up the pitching prospect Eric Longenhagen ranked as their sixth best minor leaguer this winter, but A.J. Puckett probably wouldn’t crack the top 20 in a better farm system. Here’s Eric’s write-up:

The command/changeup pitching-prospect archetype is one more commonly found among left-handed pitchers, who use that combination of skills to attack right-handed hitters. A.J. Puckett isn’t a left-handed-pitcher but possesses the command/changeup profile anyway. Puckett’s fastball sits 90-93, will touch 94 and is only average despite his command of it due to a lack of plane and movement. His changeup, 82-85 with big fade, regularly flashes plus and should mature there. His curveball is inconsistent, in part because Puckett doesn’t reliably get over his front side to generate power downward movement, but the pitch should be average with more reps. He’s an above-average athlete.

Because Puckett’s breaking-ball projection is limited, so too is his ceiling. He projects as a quick-moving No. 4 or 5 starter.

Puckett’s spent the year in high-A ball as a 22-year-old putting up pedestrian numbers, which isn’t what you really want out of a guy with limited stuff. Maybe he’ll move to the bullpen and become something interesting, but Puckett doesn’t look like a guy the Royals will miss all that much.

The other prospect in the trade, Andre Davis, was an 8th round pick in 2015, signed for $25,000, and is running a 4.83 ERA in low-A ball as a 23-year-old. There’s a reason we’ve literally never written about him on FanGraphs. That said, he’s a 6’6 lefty who has a nearly 4:1 K/BB ratio and Baseball America’s 2015 draft report profile said he had “premium velocity”, noting he touched 95-98. So there’s some raw material here.

Still, trading two guys whose upside looks like maybe MLB relievers is pretty easy when you’re in the playoff race, and Melky should help the Royals down the stretch and in a potential play-in game. If they can leverage his bat and Gordon’s glove in a job-share situation, they might have a reasonable left field combination going forward.

The Yankees acquired Jaime Garcia from the Twins for prospects Zack Littell and Dietrich Enns. You may remember that the Twins acquired Garcia less than a week ago. For their trouble, the Twins seemingly got a better return for Garcia than they gave up to acquire him. I have Huascar Ynoa projected for 1.9 WAR (by both KATOH and KATOH+), which is about half as much as Littell and Enns combined. It’s worth noting, however, that the Yankees are facing a 40-man roster crunch, so dealing Littell and Enns clears space for other prospects.

Below are the projections for the Twins’ newest prospects. WAR figures account for the player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

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