Looking Back: Moving the #1 Player in the Game

[cheekimonk]

With all of the pieces now entrenched in the major leagues beyond their rookie seasons, it's a good time to look back at one of the most high profile trades in recent MBWBA history. On April 11th, 2018, the Marquette Suns (now in Indy as the Grasshoppers) sent the #1 player in baseball, CF Leon Sandcastle (9/7/8/7/5 Ratings, .327/.404/.537, 153 HR, 514 RBI), to the Montreal Blazers for pitching prospects Kevin Lee (8/7/8 Ratings, 38 - 49, 3.58 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 602 K) and Hermenegildo Padez (9/6/6 Ratings, 36-51, 4.42 ERA, 1.36 WHIP) plus OF prospect Sergio Ramos (7/6/9/4/5 Ratings, .280/.331/.537, 105 HR, 270 RBI).

Montreal
Sadly, Sandcastle has "slumped" to the #3 player in baseball, but he's still been alright for the Blazers. He's piled up the hardware finishing 2nd in FL Sawyer Silk voting in 2018 before winning the award back-to-back in 2019 & 2020. In that latter year he also took home the FL Charles Puckett Golden Bat Award at CF. Though he didn't figure in the voting in 2021 & '22, he still made the All-Star game to up his streak of appearances to 6 straight. It's almost getting time to say Sandcastle is on a Hall of Fame trajectory.

He has been everything the Blazers thought they were getting: his lowest OPS has been a .863 last season and it was over .900 in 3 of his 5 years with the squad; he's also compiled 136 HR, 444 RBI, and 148 SB with a 1.8 K/BB ratio and a combined +36.1 WAR. He's also only spent 6 weeks and 5 days on the DL in essentially 5 full seasons. As a team, Montreal has won the FL Atlantic twice and entered the postseason as a Wild Card once, but didn't advance past the Doubleday Series in those 3 years.

Indy
Kevin Lee lost a bit of movement and his stamina dropped from 8 to 6 after having radial nerve decompression surgery in 2018, but he made his bow in the majors in 2019 and has steadily improved since with his ERA dropping from 4.48 to 3.09 and WHIP from 1.50 to 1.11 in 2022. He's delivered a K/9 of 7.54 and an impressive 2.7 K/BB. Since moving to the bigs, he hasn't been as injury prone as it seems spending only 2 weeks on the DL outside of 14 month of recovery from Tommy John surgery. Even with starting only 14 games in 2021 and 28 last season, he's compiled a +12.5 WAR in a Suns/Hoppers uniform. He is now the #2 starter behind EBA free agent Eduardo Lopez (10/7/5 Ratings, 37 - 18, 2.62 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 529 K), but given the latter's numbers since arriving in Indy that's nothing to really be ashamed about. Given the squad's reliance on defense and pitching, Lee has been one of the cornerstones in building the Hoppers franchise from a perennial loser to back-to-back division champs.

Ramos was given a full year at AAA Racine in 2019 before debuting for the Suns in 2020 as the everyday RF, against RHP at least. After finishing 3rd in voting for the best hitter in the AAA GL, he made enough of a splash in his rookie campaign to finish 2nd for the FL Joe Gillstrom award even though he missed the All-Star game that year. He had a relatively rough sophomore year before coming back strong in 2022. To show how much of a slump, his OPS went from .880 to .776 to .924; HRs 34 to 23 to 44; RBI 89 to 75 to 99; and WAR +2.8 to +1.1 to +3.3. He still hasn't gotten an All-Star nod but the overall talent in FL outfields, including Sandcastle, has been very strong. Considering that he's mostly started only against RHP, at least in his first two seasons, the fact that he's averaged 140 games played speaks to his durability. With Sandcastle the #3 player in the MBBA, Ramos entered the conversation last season and is currently assessed as the 19th best position player by most experts. He's certainly been, like Lee, another cornerstone of the Hoppers' rise. He's the boom that allowed Indy to compile its skittles and has been the pivot of transactions to acquire additional offensive talent such as Doug Glover (8/7/9/5/6 Ratings, .284/.335/.512, 329 HR, 1032 RBI) and Mike Love (7/8/5/8/10 Ratings, .301/.381/.439, 71 HR, 525 RBI).

Padez was the 3rd piece of the Sandcastle trade and, though projected to be a #2/#3 talent, was the epitome of a 5th starter in the Indy rotation from his introduction in 2019 to 2021 - with an ERA in the upper 4's and WHIP around 1.50. In 2022, he was still the #5 starter but went 15-6 with a 3.37 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, and 176 Ks in 200 innings. He's also durable having not spent a day on the DL since arriving in the majors. This offseason, however, the Hoppers needed a boost at the plate and GM Ben Teague decided to sell high on Padez and flip him for promising, young, switch-hitting 1B Newman Watson (8/5/7/5/8 Ratings, .325/.363/.460, 12 HR, 45 RBI).

There's no denying that the 3 players acquired by Indy were key to the organization's rise from 60 wins in 2019 to 89 and 91 in 2021 & 2022, respectively, topping the FL Midwest in both seasons.

It's hard to peg a winner and loser in such a high profile deal. This is especially true when it's 3-for-1. Also, a lot of the value in all 4 of these players has been in what they've allowed the GMs to build around them. Perhaps I'm biased, but I think Sandcastle has been more valuable for Montreal than he really could have been to Indy, and he's been valuable enough to justify giving up the three players to the Hoppers who, themselves, have been extremely valuable to their franchise.

Philosophically, it's hard to call a deal "even" when a team gives up the best player in baseball while in his prime, so I'll let the philosophers debate this while the Blazers and Hoppers work to have the chance to meet again in the FL postseason.

[avery]

Great article. But woah Mike Love is only a 7/6 contact now? That can't be good, especially the contract he has. Or can it?

[agrudez]

It looks like a landslide for MON at the time of the trade that has evened out over the course of time. One because Sandcastle demanded (what looks like) the biggest non-FA contract in league history and two because all 3 players (whom were pretty raw when first acquired - probably somewhere between A and AA ball level for each) happened to work out - a relative statistical anomaly.

[aaronweiner]

It looks like a landslide for MON at the time of the trade that has evened out over the course of time. One because Sandcastle demanded (what looks like) the biggest non-FA contract in league history and two because all 3 players (whom were pretty raw when first acquired - probably somewhere between A and AA ball level for each) happened to work out - a relative statistical anomaly.

It's the fact that everybody got what they paid for in this deal that makes it even, not the deal itself.

[cheekimonk]

Great article. But woah Mike Love is only a 7/6 contact now? That can't be good, especially the contract he has. Or can it?

Bombs and skittles. Love is a skittle. Skittles are delicious and you can have a lot, but not too many or you get sick. Bombs are a great weapon, but a lot of times they're duds and you don't know whether to go get a dud or wait because it might go off.

Bombs and skittles.

[avery]

Great article. But woah Mike Love is only a 7/6 contact now? That can't be good, especially the contract he has. Or can it?

Bombs and skittles. Love is a skittle. Skittles are delicious and you can have a lot, but not too many or you get sick. Bombs are a great weapon, but a lot of times they're duds and you don't know whether to go get a dud or wait because it might go off.

Bombs and skittles.

Have no idea what this means. Besides giving me a tooth ache.

[Ted]

Have no idea what this means. Besides giving me a tooth ache.

From my random thoughts department (which is pretty much running full bore all day everyday): If I can get through life with 60-70% of people having no idea what I'm talking about, I'll die a happy man.

Also, agree with the idea that the trade worked out very well for both teams, although lopsided at the time.