Sunday Notes: Tampa’s Erik Neander Looks Back at the Randy Arozarena Trade

Not so many years ago, a tongue-in-cheek refrain went like this: “Great trade for the Rays. Who did they get?” With that in mind…

… a few days before the July 30, 2024 deadline, the Tampa Bay Rays dealt Randy Arozarena to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for prospects Brody Hopkins and Aidan Smith. I asked Erik Neander to look back at the transaction when I talked to him during November’s GM Meetings.

“It was a decision that was pretty clear,” Tampa Bay’s president of baseball operations told me. “That deal was about timing. Seattle was getting someone to make an immediate contribution — they’ve gotten that — and from our side it was a deal that was probably going to take years to realize the full potential of.

“With Brody Hopkins, we think the world of the arm talent,” continued Neander. “He was a two-way guy, highly athletic, and he is continuing to make strides and find the command. We believe that he’s someone who can pitch in the middle of a rotation, if not higher. I’m a little surprised that he doesn’t get more attention than he does.”

Hopkins, a 23-year-old right-hander who was taken in the sixth round of the 2023 draft out of Winthrop University, logged a 2.72 ERA, a 3.33 FIP, and a 28.7% strikeout rate over 116 innings with Double-A Montgomery this past season.

Smith, a 21-year-old outfielder who was drafted out of a Lucas, Texas high school the same year, slashed .237/.331/.388 with 14 home runs and a 114 wRC+ over 459 plate appearances — he also swiped 41 bases in 47 attempts — with High-A Bowling Green.

“Aidan Smith didn’t have as good of a year with the bat as we’d have liked, but he continued to make extreme strides on the bases,” Neander said of the 2023 fourth-rounder. “Defensively, he’s an easy plus centerfielder. Offensively, some things have gone off the rails a little bit, but we have a lot of confidence in some of the adjustments he’s been making in the Fall League. We feel that his bat is going to get back on track, and that he’s going to be a well-rounded player for us.”

As for Arozarena, he has pretty much performed as expected with the Mariners. Since being swapped to Seattle, the 30-year-old Cuban outfielder has mashed 32 home runs, pilfered 35 bases, put up a 121 wRC+, and amassed 3.8 WAR.

“I’m happy for Randy,” Neander said of the 2020-2024 Rays mainstay. “Again, we knew that a lot of patience was going to be required — how the trade was going to work out — whereas for the other side it was going to be right in front of us. But we felt that it was a trade we had to make. We’re excited about the guys we got in the deal.”

Hopkins is currently rated the top prospect in the Tampa Bay system by Baseball America, while Smith is ranked eighth. MLB Pipeline is slightly less bullish, with the former ranked third-best and the latter 10th-best. Our own Rays rankings are forthcoming.

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Wilyer Abreu is 6 for 14 against Chris Bassitt.

Eugenio Suárez is 7 for 13 against Sonny Gray.

Ronald Acuña Jr is 8 for 14 against Adrian Houser.

Luis Arraez is 9 for 12 against Kevin Gausman.

Jose Altuve is 10 for 19 against Justin Verlander.

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How well does the Minnesota Twins’ brain trust know the other 29 teams in terms of pitcher-characteristics preferences, and how might that influence trade demands? For instance, a rival club may especially like low arm slots and ride, or perhaps they are enamored by plus extension. If said team expresses interest in a pitcher who possesses one or both of those those qualities, would the Twins maybe ask for more in return than they otherwise would?

“I don’t know that it’s quite that specific,” Minnesota president of baseball operations Derek Falvey replied when I posed that question to him during the Winter Meetings. “Every team now has broadened their likes to some degree. You do know that certain teams are going to value a certain profile pitcher more. Sometimes it’s a four-seam fastball guy with high-spin characteristics, or certain stuff-over-command types. We tend to know who they might ask for, but it’s not always that we’re offering the types of players we think they might like. If they ask for them, we’ll talk about them.”

What about the ask-for-in-return part of the equation? As that was the crux of my inquiry, I followed up in search of a more specific answer.

“I know what you’re getting at,” said Twins GM Jeremy Zoll, who was sitting alongside Falvey. “I think we’re just trying to make the best evaluation we can on what we think the market should be for any given player we’re getting asked on. If it turns out that it’s because there was some degree of overlap and intersection… it’s not this idea of, ’Well, they’re just overvaluing these players with these traits, and in turn we’re going to try to take advantage of that.” You’re still hoping to find overlap, but we’re just trying to make the best call on what the market is.”

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A quiz:

When Miguel Cabrera (or potentially Félix Hernández before him) is elected to the Hall of Fame, he will become just the second Venezuelan-born player to be enshrined in Cooperstown. Who was the first? (A hint: he was voted in by the BBWAA in 1984.)

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NEWS NOTES

SABR has begun to announce the featured speakers for its annual analytics conference, which will be held in Phoenix from February 27-March 1. Named thus far are David Adler, Derek Carty, Jason Collette, Vince Gennaro, and Eno Sarris. More information can be found here.

Johnny Damon, Jon Lester, and Mike Timlin were announced as the newest members of the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame. Also inducted will be Sherm Feller, who was Fenway Park’s public address announcer from 1967-1993.

Michael Clair has a new book coming out on April 1st. Published by University of Nebraska Press, We Sacrifice Everything For Baseball: How the Czech Republic’s Amateur Underdogs Became World Baseball Classic Heroes is now available for preorder.

Jim Willis, a right-handed pitcher who appeared in 27 games for the Chicago Cubs across the 1953-1954 seasons, died on January 2 at age 98. A native of Doyline, Louisiana, Willis went 2-2 with a 3.39 ERA over 66-and-a-third innings. Pee Wee Reese and Del Ennis were the only batters to take him deep.

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The answer to the quiz is Luis Aparicio, who received 84.6% of the vote in his sixth year on the ballot.

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Last August, Tarik Skubal and Hunter Brown matched up in a modern-day pitchers’ duel that culminated in a 1-0 Detroit Tigers win over the Houston Astros in 10 innings. The respective aces combined to throw 13 frames, after which I asked each of them about the evolution of pitch and innings counts — specifically if they could imagine themselves going as deep into games as once was common. Their responses were featured in Sunday Notes later that same week.

In early September, referencing my conversations with Skubal and Brown, I broached that subject with Pittsburgh’s Bubba Chandler. Could the Pirates rookie right-hander see himself toeing the rubber for nine full frames?

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Every game I go out there thinking I’m going to throw nine. That was actually a running joke in Triple-A. I kept telling our pitching coach, ‘Hey, just let me go out there and freaking throw nine; my body can handle it.’ That type of thing.

“But today, there is just so much data out there,” continued Chandler, who is sans a complete game in 87 professional starts. “Hitters have this false confidence third time through the lineup where it’s ‘OK I’ve seen everything.’ Each pitch you throw gets put in their memory bank. They remember the shape. They remember how it was coming out of your hand. That’s why it’s so hard to go deep in games now.

“That’s especially with guys like Skubal, who you mentioned,” he added. “A power pitcher like him, his stuff is better than most hitters. They’re going to foul stuff off and run the pitch count up. Guys throw so much harder now — they’re ripping pitches constantly — so the injury factor plays a big part, too. So yeah, I don’t think eight or nine innings is really doable anymore. The game has gotten so much better. Hitters have developed. Pitchers have developed. Your best chance to freaking win a baseball game is to bring in your closer who’s got three outlier pitches. That’s part of the game within the game of pitching nowadays.”

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Left on the cutting-room floor from my Arizona Fall League conversation with Bryce Cunningham — the New York Yankees prospect was among the players featured in last Sunday’s column — was his mention of a favorite hobby.

“I collect sports cards,” the 23-year-old right-hander told me. “I have some older ones, too. I have a rookie Bo Jackson. I have a couple of Darryl Strawberry’s. I have a Dale Murphy and a Nolan Ryan. Guys like that who played a while ago.”

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WBC managers and executives were available to the media during the Winter Meetings, with Dave Nilsson and Glenn Williams representing Team Australia. I took the opportunity to ask the erstwhile big-leaguers how they would describe the current state of baseball Down Under.

“It’s going well,” opined Williams, whose MLB career comprised 13 games for the Minnesota Twins in 2005. “We’re excited about the WBC coming up. We’ve got the 2032 Olympic Games [of which Brisbane, Queensland is slated to be the host city] on the horizon and we’re trying hard to get baseball and softball included. Baseball has grown at 10% over the last year, and there are close to 40,000 playing members now. The ABL is heading in a direction this season, so we have plenty of work going on.”

The non-specific wording in Williams’s final sentence was telling, and a primary reason that I wanted his and Nilsson’s perspectives. The ABL is down to just four teams; is that not an issue?

“I wouldn’t so much call it an issue,” replied Williams, who is CEO of Baseball Australia. “There were four teams that operated in the [Chinese Professional Baseball League] for over 20 years. The competition level in the Australia Baseball League has never been stronger. We’d love to get it back to six teams, and we’re working hard to do that.”

What about the overall quality of play in the ABL?

“That’s kind of a subjective question,” said Nilsson, who serves as Team Australia’s manager. “But it’s as good as it’s been; however you want to rate that. It’s not like it’s gone backwards. Because it’s more condensed, you’re getting better talent.”

Following up, I asked Nilsson how the talent compares to the various levels of the minors stateside.

“It depends,” said the former catcher/first baseman, who played for the Milwaukee Brewers from 1992-1999. “When you get toward the back end of the season you’re going to see good, strong Double-A performances. Earlier in the season, minor league teams send over rookie players — younger players get to play — so you watch some games and it may look like the bottom end of the professional scale, and some games look more like the top end. I managed in the league for 10 years, and some of the teams I would be happy to take into the WBC, even though they may not look like that on paper. Some of the other teams I had, I wouldn’t want to play in the WBC.”

Best young players in the ABL that people should know about?

“A bunch of younger players end up in college every year, so you’re not really going to know who they are until they become Travis Bazzana,” said Nilsson. “You didn’t know Travis two years before, even though he became the number-one pick. We have a lot of players in colleges over here, and what we have in the ABL are a lot of guys who just came out of college, guys who have just started their professional journey, older players, and younger players that professional teams send. The ABL is a little different in that sense. You’re not going to get a 21-year-old up-and-coming player playing the ABL, because he is either going to be in college or the minor league over here.”

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Eric Rataczak is slashing .333/.411/.581 with seven home runs in 146 plate appearances for the ABL’s Sydney Blue Sox. A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, the 24-year-old infielder in the Miami Marlins organization had a 105 wRC+ last year between High-A Beloit and Double-A Pensacola.

Devin Saltiban is slashing .336/.387/.653 with five home runs in 142 plate appearances for the ABL’s Adelaide Giants. Drafted 98th overall in 2023 out of Hilo (Hawaii) High School by the Philadelphia Phillies, the 20-year-old outfielder/second baseman batted .182 with a 72 wRC+ across three levels (primarily High-A) this past season.

Hirokazu Sawamura announced on Thursday that he is retiring after 15 professional seasons. The 37-year-old right-hander from Tochigi, Japan pitched stateside with the Boston Red Sox in 2021 and 2022, appearing in 104 games with a 3.39 ERA over 103-and-two-thirds innings. Most of his career was spent in NPB, where he played for the Yomiuri Giants and Chiba Lotte Marines.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

Alex Carrasquel became MLB’s first Venezuelan-born player when he took the mound for the Washington Senators on April 23, 1939. A native of Caracas who went on to spend seven seasons with the Senators, the right-hander’s debut was noteworthy for more than just its pioneer distinction. The first three batters that Carrasquel faced — all of whom he retired — were Hall of Famers Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, and Bill Dickey.

His overall body of work was solid. Including three appearances with the Chicago White Sox in 1949 — he pitched in Mexico from 1946-1948 — Carrasquel went 50-39 with a 3.98 ERA over 258 games comprising 861 innings. Per his SABR BioProject entry, Carrasquel was the first native Venezuelan to win a game, throw a shutout, record a save, hit safely, and stroke a home run. His nephew, Chico Carrasquel, became his homeland’s fourth MLB player when he debuted with the White Sox in 1950. A year later, Chico was the first Latin American to appear in the All-Star game.

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Carlos Narváez is from Maracay, Venezuela, and yesterday the Boston catcher was asked for his thoughts on what has, and is, transpiring in his homeland.

“It was needed,” Narvaez told reporters at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox were hosting a winter Fan Fest. “It’s not a secret that it has been tough years. I know a lot of people died in that situation, but at the same time, I think the country needed that. Of course, I’m looking forward to every family being safe… We’re still expecting what, to us, will be going on after that.”

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

At The Guardian, Leander Schaerlaeckens opined that US actions in Venezuela put the 2026 World Cup in disgraceful company (not baseball-related, but noteworthy nonetheless).

The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner wrote about how Chase Utley’s surging support reflects an evolution in Hall of Fame voting.

At Royals Review, Bradford Lee looked back at the career of Virgil Trucks, who won 177 games pitching for five teams, primarily the Detroit Tigers, from 1941-1958. (Of note: the erstwhile hurler’s nephew, Butch Trucks, was a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, while Butch’s nephew, Derek Trucks, is the guitarist for the Tedeschi Trucks Band.)

Do the Houston Astros have “a type” and does Tatsuya Imai fit it? Matthew Creally believes both to be true, and he wrote about it at Pitcher List.

MiLB.com’s Josh Jackson introduced us to the 15 women who are GMs of minor league baseball teams.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Over his career, Bo Bichette has slashed .330/.377/.527 with 30 home runs in 771 plate appearances with runners in scoring position. With the bases loaded, he has slashed .327/.365/.527 with two grand slams in 63 plate appearances.

Over his career, Dante Bichette slashed .305/.341/.509 with 80 home runs in 2,004 plate appearances with runners in scoring position. With the bases loaded, he slashed .348/.347/.619 with nine grand slams in 170 plate appearances.

Mark McGwire had 1,626 hits, including 583 home runs. Hall of Fame catcher/first baseman Buck Ewing had 1,625 hits, including 71 home runs.

Jack Morris (254) and Jerry Koosman (222) have the most wins among pitchers born in Minnesota. Morris made 527 starts, threw 3,824 innings, and had a 105 ERA+. Koosman made 527 starts, threw 3,839 innings, and had a 110 ERA+ .

Félix Hernández’s 169 wins are the most among pitchers born in Venezuela. Freddy Garcia (156) and Johan Santana (139) have the next-highest totals.

Francisco Rodríguez’s 437 saves are the most among pitchers born in Venezuela. Ugueth Urbina (237) and Jorge Julio (99) have the next-highest totals.

The Cincinnati Reds signed Aroldis Chapman as an international free agent on today’s date in 2010. The flame-throwing Cuban southpaw went on to record 146 of his 367 career saves with the Reds before being traded to the New York Yankees in December 2015. Chapman logged 33 saves and a personal-best 1.17 ERA with the Boston Red Sox this past season.

The Detroit Tigers acquired Mickey Tettleton from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for Jeff Robinson on today’s date in 1991. Robinson was subsequently released in December of that year after going 4-9 with a 5.18 ERA in his lone Baltimore season. Tettleton played four seasons in Detroit, logging a 133 wRC+ and catapulting 112 home runs.

Players born on today’s date include Loren Babe, a third baseman from Pisgah, Iowa whose MLB career comprised 120 games — 103 for the Philadelphia Athletics and 17 for the New York Yankees — across the 1952-1953 seasons. Nicknamed “Bee Bee,” Babe batted .223 and bashed two home runs.

Also born on today’s date was Silver King, a pitcher/right fielder who played for seven teams across the 1886-1897 seasons. More accomplished on the mound than at the plate, he enjoyed his best season in 1888 when he went 45-20 with a 1.98 ERA while tossing 584-and-two-thirds innings for the American Association’s St. Louis Browns. A side-armer, King completed 64 of his 66 starts that year.