Trade Analysis: A Few Small Deals, a Few Smaller Thoughts

[Ted]

This is a brief overview piece about a few recent smaller trades and my reaction to them. I'll try to avoid getting too deep into any of these deals, but it's me, so we'll see how that goes.

Trade the First
Opening our discussion is the recent Louisville/Sacramento swap. Louisville, in the thick of the wild card hunt, seems to desire a pitching upgrade over FA acquisition, Freddy Delgado. Who has been .... not good. Like 10 ERA and averaging less than 4 innings per start not good. So. Bad. Horrendously so.

Sacramento on the other hand is bad. Quite so, and has been shopping injury reclamation project/ticking time bomb Knud Zeitler, he of the 3 ucl reconstructions. Zeitler has a 3.39 FIP in almost 50 innings. He's also on a cheap, team option protected deal for the next few years. So the swap makes sense. Let's look at the parts the Mad Popes got in return for Zeitler.

Delgado is more or less a dump, but his deal is off the books. There's a small chance he'll rebound I suppose and be trade bait himself, but convincing someone else that he's any good with the bad start he had will be tough. Jose Mendez is a 21 year old lefty hitting SS with a good glove, no wheels, and no real strength at the plate. Hard to see more than a AAA player here. LF Kyuichi Mori is 17, raw, and looks like a future AAA player at this point. He has a few skills that could work with a bump, but as of now he's a marginal prospect.

I guess I just think that Sacramento would have like to get a bit more for Zeitler. Yes, if you hold on to him, you're gambling that he won't get hurt and net you nothing.

And so much for brevity.

Installment B
Jacksonville and Vancouver made a deal of seemingly inconsequential players, and normally I'd leave it at that. Or would I? Who knows. I sure do like to judge other people's decisions. So maybe not.

Vancouver received AA SP Jose Vasquez. He's not really a prospect due to 4 motion in the absence of any other overwhelming tools. The actual prospect is C Shan Guan, who is 19 and in rookie ball. Guan has the makings of a slap hitter, which at catcher is acceptable. But that's about it. He's decent enough receiving, but has a noodle arm, so he'll be a mediocre receiver at best. Frankly, he has platoon or backup written all over him in my mind.

Anywho, Vancouver didn't get much, but the didn't send much. Or did they? SP Quentin Mullins hasn't done much at the big league level, sporting a 5-ish era in 55 or so innings. On the other hand, he's the owner of a 4.4 FIP, which is absolutely fine. This is too small of a sample to make a judgement. So let's look at AAA. In 480 innings in AAA, he has a 3.76 FIP. So yeah, there's reason to believe he could be a mid 4's guy in the bigs. He's a 24 year old righty with 4 pitches rated at or above 6, good control, and isn't prone to the long ball. He handles lefties and righties well. This guy isn't a world beater, but he seems to be decent back end of the rotation material, maybe even more if he ever figures out his changeup. Even if he doesn't he kind of seems serviceable at the moment, and if that doesn't play out, he has all the makings of a good RP conversion. 4 pitches, no split, fastball and secondary pitch that can handle opposite hand hitters(changeup). The change will benefit from having the other pitches ratings dumped into it.

So yeah, I'm not a big fan of this for Vancouver. I think they cut bait on Mullins too soon and got essentially a backup catcher for it who is awfully far away from being anything. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a big deal, but multiple moves like this in repeated fashion can really hurt a club over time. Cheapo guys that probably belong in the bigs are almost always worth more than future possible cheapo guys that might belong in the bigs. You need cheapo guys to be competitive.

The Final Nitpick
Long Beach would like just a moment of your time. The surfers are competitive, and have a gaping hole at short. So Recte convinced Lane to do this. Francisco Otero might be better than Fairborn. I'm not so sure. He's been a 60 wRC+ bat in recent years, but man, not much can be worse than Fairborn right now, who has a robust 19 wRC+ and projected -2.8 WAR pace. Still, i'm not holding out hope here.

Dominic Thompson and Alex Corona are pretty solid looking RP prospects. Nothing special, jsut serviceable guys. Recte turns a AAA player in to potential future bullpen regulars. This is why his teams stay good. MY gut reaction is that I thins this is a desperation move from Long Beach, and I don't really like it much. When I give up anything, I want to either know I'm getting something to improve my team now in a meaningful way, or that I have a very good shot of being much better in the future. But oh well, again. Not a big deal.


Thanks for reading. Sorry for criticizing the people I criticized. Hopefully you go and make me look like a dope.

[usnspecialist]

i like taking a look at the smaller deals that might otherwise be ignored.

[aaronweiner]

I think the Zeitler deal was a win for Sacramento, who's clearly looking to bottom out and would have had to pitch Zeitler all year to get the comp pick, while also a clear upgrade for Louisville. Getting Delgado in the deal, a potentially tradeable chip if he rights the ship, also isn't bad value.

If Zeitler gets hurt (even for a while), Sacramento gets nothing, and he's thrown a total of 240ish innings in the past two+ seasons.

Agreed on the Otero thing, though I'd have been cool with it being one of those pitchers and not both.

[GoldenOne]

i like taking a look at the smaller deals that might otherwise be ignored.

That's what your wife said......

[Ted]

I think the Zeitler deal was a win for Sacramento, who's clearly looking to bottom out and would have had to pitch Zeitler all year to get the comp pick, while also a clear upgrade for Louisville. Getting Delgado in the deal, a potentially tradeable chip if he rights the ship, also isn't bad value.

If Zeitler gets hurt (even for a while), Sacramento gets nothing, and he's thrown a total of 240ish innings in the past two+ seasons.

Agreed on the Otero thing, though I'd have been cool with it being one of those pitchers and not both.

He's not an upcoming FA and wouldn't net a comp pick anyway. i'm dumb. I'll fix the article in a bit.

[aaronweiner]

He's not an upcoming FA and wouldn't net a comp pick anyway. i'm dumb. I'll fix the article in a bit.

Don't worry, we all knew you meant in 2046.

[Ted]

He's not an upcoming FA and wouldn't net a comp pick anyway. i'm dumb. I'll fix the article in a bit.

Don't worry, we all knew you meant in 2046.

Umm, I actually didn't just big 'ol brain fart.

[aaronweiner]

I know you didn't. Just getting my post count up. More juicy PPT!

[Lane]

Yeah, I probably should have pushed back on my deal with Recte but like you're saying, I'm desperate for literally anything at SS. The two relievers I gave up are kind of old for their ratings progression, so I figured they weren't really guaranteed BBA players.

Now you see why I wanted to pay Diaz all of the money...

[shoeless.db]

Love these trade analysis pieces, especially these smaller deals.

I understand that Jose Mendez doesn't look like a stud, but, then again, look at what Long Beach gave up for Otero. There is a massive glut in talent at the shortstop position throughout the BBA and the minors (see the Seattle/Diaz deal), and Mendez is a slightly better or even long-side hitter compared with Otero. Aside from Bunty, I have no lefty middle infield prospects close to contributing. Once Mendez has a few weeks of 2B in AAA, he'll get a solid go at earning my long-side platoon there in Sacramento. Even if he fails, he'll be a solid defensive or injury replacement at minimum salary. (Note: Giving up Pris a couple seasons ago was a mistake... but, I've filed it under experience and am moving forward)

Also, like you said, Knud was a ticking time bomb. Watching him pitch this season was similar to playing the board game Incan Gold (or Diamant), which utilizes a press-your-luck, all-or-nothing mechanic. I decided to cash in while the last few fibers of Knud's left arm were still perilously holding together. I may have given up a better payday, but I also could have been left with nothing. I can't afford nothing right now.