Rates & Barrels - 2020 Trade Deadline Pu Pu Platter

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Eno and DVR discuss the fallout from the 2020 trade deadline, including their biggest surprises, individual winner and losers, more messy bullpen situations, and a few intriguing prospects on the move. Rundown1:21 Deadline Surprises5:50 Were Teams More Hesitant Than Usual to Add Payroll?10:14 Arizona Adds Another Pitcher From Miami13:10 Starling Marte is a Marlin16:32 The Padres Steal the Show (Again)24:46 Can A Breakout Happen in Fewer Than 400 Plate Appearances?29:43 Mike Clevinger in San Diego38:04 Individual Trade Deadline Winners40:40 Bullpens in Question50:28 Franklin Barreto's Fresh Start in Anaheim55:09 Prospect of the Week Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It is Tuesday, September 1st. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. There is a ton to discuss on this episode. The trade deadline passed on Monday. AJ Preller went full Ian Kahn and made about 100 trades over four days. Mike Clevenger among the many new Padres, thanks to a nine-player deal between San Diego and Cleveland. Starling Marte is a Marlin now.

Taylor Trammell was moved again. The A's added a starting pitcher by acquiring Mike Miner. The J's bolstered their rotation. We're going to break it all down over the next 60 minutes or so. Eno, how's it going for you on this Tuesday? It's good. It was good. Having a normal trade deadline, a normal-ish trade deadline, and, you know, yelling about that and being excited for stuff that doesn't happen,

you know, that was all felt very normal and fun. So I don't know. I don't know how it, you know, once it's over, there's always the like, whoa, you know, all those trades that they said would happen never didn't happen you kind of almost have like a little bit of a letdown because it's so hectic during it so you kind of um you know i'm left kind of wondering like was that an active one or was that not and um i'm looking at the numbers and i'll have something to write about it as from that perspective but there were certainly were some teams that did a ton.

And then there were like, you know, three or four teams that are, I guess, good enough teams. And they just said, nah, no,

thanks. No, thanks. All the trade deadline, like the Dodgers, Yankees, twins, they do anything.

No, it was surprising that those teams didn't even just add bullpen reinforcements or the typical things that those kinds of teams are going to do almost every single year. But I guess in the case of at least the Yankees, they have a lot of players on the injured list right now. I think Brian Cashman has a press conference bingo card that Yankees fans now hold that basically has some version of the injured players coming back are like acquiring players at the trade deadline. That's kind of become an annual refrain from him this time of year.

But they do have great depth. They do have young quality starting pitching in the organization to backfill. They have, I think, an excess of bullpen arms. They're going to get Zach Britton back later this week. So when you start looking at the players who were available and how much of an impact those players were going to make, the fact that you still would have had to given up young, controllable talent to acquire even players with expiring contracts,

you kind of look at it and say, okay, I guess they have better options on the roster already than what they could have acquired via trade. So push in more Davey Garcia down the stretch and see how Jonathan Loaiziga looks and Michael King and just give those guys those opportunities. It makes sense, I think, based on the way that team in particular is built. They're going to get Glaber back.

They're going to get Judge back. They're going to get Stanton back. And they're staying afloat without those guys. I know recently they're not playing well, but for the season, they're still a playoff team if the season were to start today. As frustrated as Yankees fans are, this is yet another time where I am not

sympathetic to their cause. I am sympathetic to one angry fan base. I think Atlanta messed up here. They are, by wins and losses, atop their division and seem like a credible contender for it all. And yet they have two fairly wide open holes in the starting rotation and at third base, and they just decided to continue going with Riley, who I think is like basically Adam Duvall 2.0, and they're going to give him basically third base and go with it,

basically third base and go with it. And then added Tommy Malone to the rotation who just like proceeded to blow it up in his first brave start. And I just think like, you know, think how different the Braves would look right now if they had Lance Lynn and Kyle Seager in there, you know, I guess the price ended up being too high for those,

those, those guys, but both of those guys, am I wrong? Lance Lynn has another year. Yeah, one more year on his deal. And they need pitching beyond this season. I mean, Soroka's injury is a big one.

Maybe he's back for the start of 2021. But there were holes in the Atlanta rotation even when Soroka was healthy. So the need for starting pitching was very clear. I would be upset if I were a fan in Atlanta. I would have wanted more than Tommy Malone to bolster the pitching depth. And I don't think the Braves have quite the same recent track record as the Yankees with developing young pitching to the point where you can look at Bryce Wilson and Kyle Wright and have the same sort of optimism that you're

going to have about some of those guys who are getting those opportunities for the Yankees. So I think that's a good call. I mean, Kyle Seager would have fit there. He would have fit a few other places too. And surprisingly for all the trades the Mariners made, he was not a part of that. He's still in Seattle as the dust has settled. I think that some part of that is the 18 and a half million due to next year. And so I think he is at least a league average guy. And so it's not a ton to pay him. But in the light of the way baseball is acting about their scouts and player development and certain other things that you can look at, I think the teams are nervous about next year and nervous about how many fans and what kind of income they'll have.

And so you did not see anybody expensive exchange hands. And the D-backs who were credible last year and I think are at least kind of a true talent 500 tab team cut salary and I think yeah they're kind of one of those sneaky small market risky teams that just haven't been able to create the kind of fan base that other places have whether it's because of the makeup of Phoenix, Arizona, or the fact that the D-backs haven't been around long enough, or whatever it is you want to blame, they aren't necessarily a team that can spend a lot. At the same time, they only saved about $3 million this year by trading Archie Bradley

and Starling Marte. And I guess maybe the focus is they save like $15 to $18 million next year. And so we're going to have to see if they spend that money in other places and feel like, oh, we just moved things around and got more years of control, blah, blah, blah. Or if that sort of $18 million just doesn't get spent by the D-backs next year. So I think in general, that was one of the more surprising things because they were the only team

that really traded away players that weren't rentals on a team that could be good next year. And you could sort of reshuffle the deck for Arizona and have a better season next year. And Marte and Bradley are a part of a good team. season next year and marty and bradley are a part of you know a good team um but they went and traded them i think the one thing that was instructive about their return was they got major leaguers you know that nobody was going to trade archie bradley for two prospects

when you don't have data on the prospect that you'd believe in unnecessarily and you don't have um uh scouts eyes on them at all. So who did they get? They got Caleb Smith. They got Mejia, another starter from Florida who started in the major leagues. And what did they get in the Bradley trade? They got Josh Van Meter, who I think maybe they'll include as part of the solution at second base with Josh Rojas next year. Yeah, Rojas and Van Meter seem very similar to me.

Guys that can play multiple spots, guys that have good track records in the upper levels of the minor leagues, and guys who simply need to play. When you look at the way the Diamondbacks are built now, maybe this opens up more playing time for Dalton Varshow, which I've been calling for for a few weeks because this has been a below average offense and he's been on the big league roster ever since the extra year of control was preserved so he was one of the earlier call ups this season and he's just played so sparingly i think it's kind of like what we've talked about before where when you're used as a pinch hitter, you take a hit off of your baseline expectation, right?

It's a 10% deduction when you're primarily a pinch hitter. I would imagine something similar applies when you start a game or two games every week. That's just not enough playing time to really get into a groove, especially for a young player who is making the leap from AA to the big leagues. So I'm curious to see if this means Varshow plays more down the stretch. I hope it means that because as a catcher eligible player with power and speed, I think he's interesting from a fantasy perspective, but I'd also think from a development standpoint,

it's the recurring theme throughout the season. You can't just have players not playing. This is a problem. So if the teams that did move veterans away, are they going to bring either bench players into larger roles or call up players from the alternate site and use the second half of the season to get those players

valuable play appearances in the case of pitchers, valuable innings pitch. But I do think it's interesting the Diamondbacks got Caleb Smith because the Marlins always seem to have a little more pitching than they need. For the second straight year, the D-backs were there to make a deal. Last year it was a bigger impact arm with Gallon. For the second straight year, the D-backs were there to make a deal. Last year, it was a bigger impact arm with Gallin.

Caleb Smith is still several years away from free agency. The bigger question with him has always been health. If he's healthy, that could turn out to be a pretty nice low-key sort of addition for the D-backs that does help them in future seasons. And before COVID, one of the things I would use as a barometer of health for pitchers is obviously velocity. And before COVID, he was, one of the things I use as a barometer of health for pitchers is obviously velocity.

And before COVID, he was up to 92.8. You know, it was during kind of a smaller stint in terms of it wasn't like a six inning start or anything. But if he is at 93, I'm a lot more positive about him. I thought he was going to be at 90 this year. And that affected his ranking for me big time I was one of the lower rankers on him and so I think

that is true now when you look at the Diamondbacks rotation next year you're talking about having guys that you believe in 1-4 so it's Gallin, it's Weaver it's Smith, it's Bumgarner, bam, four. And then, you know, like every other team, you have a bunch of guys that you hope

somebody will step forward for the fifth spot and the sixth spot. But it definitely seems like a better rotation one through four. One thing that I'm interested in seeing is where Varshow plays. If you look at where he's played so far, he has played one inning in center field, and that's where their biggest need is. And if you could take that speed and turn it into actual good reads, maybe at least for the rest of this year, they could try him in center field.

Because Carson Kelly is a capable backup, and Stephen Vogt, you can always kind of get a Stephen Vogt type to be the backup. There's always, like, Martin Maldonado, you know? There's always somebody like that. So I feel like, you know, Varshow in center field is a weird progression for a hitter. I doubt, like, I can only think of sort of Craig Biggio or maybe like Cody Bellinger as like kind of guys that went that far back upstream against the defensive spectrum. But it's an opportunity right now because I think look, look, Castro, although he's probably the fastest man in baseball, you know, as a 28 year old right hander. You know, I don't think he's Billy Hamilton.

He's got a little bit more power and can make contact, but I also don't think that he profiles as anything more than sort of an average-ish regular. I think LoCastro would be better as a fourth outfielder, and Varsha as a starting center fielder. So let's see. Come on, Diamondbacks. Let's do it. Yeah.

Open up that playing time for Dalton Varshow. Now, Starling Marte being a Marlin is kind of a big deal. This is maybe the most surprising thing about the deadline is that they were adding salary. That's something the Marlins rarely do. And with Marte, he does have an option on his contract for 2021. So he might be there next season as well. Because when you think about what they committed to Jonathan Villar after the Orioles let him go last offseason, it's easier to see Starling Marte as the better real-life player. And they have needs in the outfield. Another interesting long-term options, including

Monte Harrison. I think Louis Brinson still hasn't had all the chances he's going to get in the big leagues, but I do think they can kind of build around Marte with this offense for next season and not having to make that commitment for three or four years, especially seems very appealing to a team like Miami, which is more likely to shed salary than to actually add it in these situations so i do like that they did something here yeah i like it but you know i think there's probably somewhat salary neutral for this year given that they traded off johnson villars and somehow isan diaz has opted back into the season now that he's seen that the marlins are winning or something i don't i don't need to

describe that to him maybe maybe there's other reasoning. I don't know. But also, I thought there was like rules against opting back in this late. But here he is. Isan Diaz is back. And that's exciting for the Marlins because you kind of squint. You can see a credible lineup now. You know, at every position, there's a guy Right field with Louis Brinson, Jesus Sanchez, Matt Joyce is a bit of a problem. But if you've got Marte Dickerson, Diaz, Rojas, Anderson,

the other Diaz, and Jorge Alfaro, it's coming together. They didn't give up one of their top... It's coming together. They didn't give up one of their top... They gave up a pitcher they could give up, I think, in Caleb Smith. They're on the road to respectability. One thing that worries me is that there was rumblings that the Diamondbacks were thinking about not using that Marte option. Thinking about the Marlins and how they've talked about, you know, how they're losing money.

Um, if Starling Marte goes back on the market at 30, I guess he's 31, but like, you know, in terms of a, a year long projection for him, um,

you're talking about what, like a four win player, three four win player yeah and that's a cut above what vr does in real life right like i think vr is right on that that sweet spot where you as a team don't feel like you're getting enough of a certain floor talked about how vr was like you know cuttable yeah right he's like the best player at that borderline starling martez shouldn't be the kind of guy getting squeezed out of a 12 and a half million dollar option because teams are being cheap he's a better player than he gets credit for yeah um so i hope he's uh still a marlin next year um but in any case uh you, I do like that the Marlins bought and put a little bit on the line this year and did it in a way that will help them again next year. Let's talk about the Padres.

They steal the show a lot in 2020. That's just been one of the themes. I like that. That's fun to have a different team in the conversation. So I think if I have this list completed, it took some time to put this together for the rundown in for the Padres in a series of trades, Mike Clevenger, Austin Nola, Mitch Moreland, Trevor Rosenthal, Greg Allen, Jason Castro, Taylor Williams, and Dan Altavia, along with a player to be named coming from Cleveland, going out in those trades, Taylor Trammell, Ty France, Luis

Torrens, Andres Munoz, Cal Quantrill, Josh Naylor, Austin Hedges, Gabriel Arias, Joey Cantillo, Owen Miller, a player to be named to Seattle, Gerardo Reyes, Hudson Potts, Jason Rosario, Edward Oliveros, and a

player to be named later to Kansas City. Oliveros left? Yeah, he got sent to the Royals in the Rosenthal deal. Oh, that's right. That was... That seemed like an overpay. That seems like an overpay, yeah. But Oliveros doesn't have much patience

and isn't going to add a ton of defense. So you're really hoping he cuts the strikeout rate and adds more power than his projections and his projections sort of suggest that maybe he will be lucky to be a league average guy but i do think he'll cut the strikeout rate and if he cuts the strikeout rate and adds power he's a fairly interesting guy with the bat maybe kind of like michael franco with decent corner outfield defense. And you're getting him at the beginning of his career, so there's always the chance for more.

One thing that I'm looking at that's kind of interesting is the now projected runs scored and runs allowed per game for the Padres. And they're just about the best in baseball all of a sudden. In both? No, in the difference of it. Gotcha. The most impact from the deadline. So the moves did make them considerably better, even though Clevenger is obviously a big get.

But it was a lot of smaller tweaks. I mean, they rebuilt the catcher position on the fly, and maybe that undersells Austin Nola as a hitter a little bit. He's just strange because he's a late bloomer. He's the kind of player that you, at least I, tend to bet against for too long before I believe that what he's doing is real, but he's got plate discipline. He's hitting the ball hard. I mean, this could actually be legit. And it sounded like, based on some of the reports I saw going by on Twitter, the Padres just kept upping their offer until the Mariners got to a point

where they said, all right, fine, we'll trade you Austin Nola. So, I mean, where do you think, after Clevenger, where do you think the Padres improved where do you think the padres improved the most yeah definitely a catcher definitely a catcher i mean they had the 25th best catcher situation um looking backwards um i want to see what they where they rank on the um on on that going forward oh yeah they went from 25th so far with like a slash line that starts with a one and just awful, awful, awful offense from Austin Hedges. And they're now in a group that starts with the Red Sox at fifth and goes down to the Padres at maybe 15th that all have a projected 0.4 war from their catcher coming.

So they basically took something that was among the worst in the league, the Mariners are now tied for worst in the league at catcher, and made it not necessarily a strength, but at least something that just wasn't as glaring of a problem. So I think that was huge. Also, adding Rosenthal, I think was big because, you know, with Pagan and Pomerantz and Strom and Stammen and maybe Patino and Morihan in the bullpen, you have a fair amount of arms and you could just sort of roll the dice and figure it out. But I just think in the bullpen, you have a fair amount of arms and you could just sort of roll the dice and figure it out. But I just think that every bullpen is better when they believe in the closer. I don't know if this is maybe one of the least sabermetric things I believe, but I do.

There are things that happen in the ninth that are different than other, like the ninth is actually a different inning than other innings. Like for swing rates go down and you know there are there are characteristics of the inning that are different so to say that pitching in the ninth is exactly the same as pitching in the eighth I don't think is completely true there are different types of batters that come up in the ninth there's a different the leverage is is increased in the ninth and their swing rate goes down. So, you know, ninth is a little bit harder to pitch. Rosenthal has shown he can do that in the past. He's sitting 98 right now and he's looking pretty dangerous. So now you

arrange the chairs behind him, you know, and you kind of figure out what your playoff bullpen looks like. And it could be a Dan Altavilla who's like, I think he's throwing a new breaking ball right now. It could be Austin Adams, who's really good when he's healthy. And I think the knee is finally getting there. He could be a setup guy or it could be Patino and Morihan. Or you use those guys to figure out your fifth starter situation, which actually your sixth starter situation at this point because Clevenger, Davies, Paddock, Lomet, Richards seems like a very solid rotation.

Yeah. Austin Adams, I thought he'd be back much earlier in the season in Seattle. I thought he was going to close there. That could be a sneaky, low-key addition for San Diego here too. I think I may have missed him on that list that I put together. So the bullpen is a lot better. The catching situation is better. They've got one more quality lefty bat in Moreland,

which with the universal DH especially, that works fine since you can have Hosmer at first, and Moreland can pretty much DH every day against righties. And the Padres were already doing plenty of damage against righties. They had the second best offense in terms of WRC plus this season, only behind the Dodgers prior to the deadline. So they kind of give themselves a better chance of at least holding that spot, if not improving and putting a little bit more heat on the Dodgers.

Yeah. If Nola hits well enough, you know, because I'm looking in the biggest hole is still left field. Right. Yeah. And it's amazing that how many outfielders have gone in and out of san diego right now that they're left right now

with a hole in left field but i do actually think looking at the people who could play there pro far um has the best projected wobo so i guess he's the guy that f Fangraphs puts ahead of that list. But Greg Allen is a defensive guy, substitute basically. Jorge Mateo is not showing what he needs to to take that over. I really do think that Austin Nola, because they also got Jason Castro. I really do think that Austin Nola could see some playing time beyond just what he plays at catcher. Yeah, he could be a DH on days when they're facing a lefty or something, too, if they want to let Castro catch and hit ninth on those days.

Yeah, yeah. And if he does get some time in left field, that makes Castro still viable in two catcher leagues, I think, and also makes Nola a better catcher. In terms of fantasy catchers, I don't know. The auction calculator is not going to love Austin Nola, but I can get a catcher ranking up real quick using it. That's a top three to top five catcher slash line

that he's put up so far this season. That's what I'm saying. So where do you think he is? Easily top 10, which I'm dead wrong about Nola. I didn't have him anywhere this year, so that's a failing on me. But the K rate's down. The hard hit rate is up.

He's doing everything we could possibly want the only thing you look at that makes you skeptical is just that he debuted as a 29 year old right he's 30 now so he's just a late late breakout 15 homers now in his first 330 381 plate appearances and a 123 wrc plus like have we have we seen enough just under 400 big league plate appearances to look at that slash line look at those results look at that hard hit data and say okay this is a guy that is going to be a solid above average offensive player for the next couple of seasons is that enough to go by i mean it seems like the padres believe in it just based on the fact they went after him and made him a big part of that trade yeah uh i mean the this the stack cast is there dude and i don't know um when we're

talking now about 262 batted balls uh with a with a really decent launch angle. Um, you know, an expected slugging, uh, this year of five, five 15, uh, which is, you know, right where he actually is. Um, the hard hit rate is up. Uh, I don't know. I think he just learned to raise it. You know, uh, I don't think that he's necessarily an amazing hitter, just in terms of the exit velocity is okay. It's not great. The barrel rate is only at 6%, you know, the average is around 4%. But, you know, given what he was before and given his natural ability to make contact, which I think is huge, I think basically he's just making the most of his batted balls and he has a ton of batted balls so um yeah i i think he's a he's a good uh a good pickup and then i you know i would like to play

a game of would you rather and this is a really interesting one because he was also on the market christian vasquez i think i have a lot more confidence in Christian Vasquez as a catcher I would trust a lot, but you kind of erase that by having Castro too. Nola and Francisco Mejia to me are problematic as a tandem because they both have some defensive flaws. But just as a straight-up hitter, I think I have a little bit more trust in Nola than I do in Vasquez. That's a great, I mean, that's a very fair place to put the line. It's also a really interesting one because Vasquez had his best year

at 29. That was last year. And I distrusted him coming in, but he had, I guess, almost a longer track record of at least being a good major league catcher defensively. Then there's another one, a hot one, Pedro Severino.

That's another good one. I mean, you found the right cluster. You found the right tier. I think I would still, in that case, I think I'd go Nola. I think what we saw from Severino last year is probably a little better indicator of who he is. We're talking about almost three times as many plate appearances last year.

He was a tick below a league average player. But little improvements, little improvement to the K rate, walking a little more. Hits the ball kind of at a league average exit velocity. I think there's enough there where Severino's in the conversation, but I think Nola is the better hitter. And I think one key difference is Severino's looking at a younger catcher in Chance Sisko, pushing him for playing time. Nola, I think, has multiple ways to find his bat in the lineup. Yeah, so I think we're talking about basically the 5-8 kind of guys.

Above the scrum at the bottom necessarily, but also not because of age and because of the shape of their production, not necessarily top five guys, especially if you're talking in some sort of keeper situation. I wouldn't want to count on Severino, Vasquez, or Nola as my primary catcher unless the rest of my team was in a good spot. Our sponsor today, Manscaped, is here to make sure you're well-groomed above and below the belt. Manscaped promotes clean hygiene when it comes to shaving with their Lawn Mower 3.0 personal trimmer. Manscaped is the only men's brand dedicated to below-the-waist grooming.

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Deep arsenal, good command, a top 10 fantasy starter when he's pitching well, so effectively an ace, depending on how you want to define them. No, he's not Cole, he's not DeGrom, but he gives them a big boost, and it's for multiple years, too. And one thing I was surprised by is I talked to Zach Meisel.

He covers Cleveland for The Athletic. They probably were thinking about this prior to the incident with Zach Plesak, in which Clevenger broke curfew and then got on the team playing. Didn't tell anybody until after that. I don't think this trade was entirely driven by that incident. After talking to Zach a little bit more about it, it does follow the pattern that we've seen from this organization whereas pitchers get expensive if they can't sign that multi-year extension which we did see with Kluber and we did see with Carlos Carrasco they move on because they believe their organizational strength is to continue developing pitching and this they've got Cal Quantrill back as part of this trade.

They got Logan Allen as part of a trade with San Diego last summer. So they're really leaning into their strength. I think this is great for the Padres. It takes some of the pressure off of Mackenzie Gore once he comes up. It takes a little pressure off of Chris Paddock. It really sets the Padres up nicely for 2021 and 2022 on top of making them quite a bit better in the rotation down the stretch and in the postseason here in 2020 yeah uh i can i i you know from the padres perspective i think

they probably bought high on um on nola and uh spent a little bit more there probably bought high on rosenthal because the market uh was demanding a lot for relievers and that's been something that we've seen um you know there was a high watermark of gliber torres for aroldis chapman and we've kind of come off of that uh and turned into sort of olivarez for trevor rosenthal in the meantime but still um you know uh in terms of like projected war and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And even if you add, you know, I had one executive be like, even if you add, you know, championship percentage and this and that, like it's probably not going to look that good in the end. When it comes to comparing Edward Olivares' career to the rest of Trevor Rosenthal's career or year. But that's the price you pay.

You know, that's the thing that happens. At the trade deadline, you know that everybody wants relievers and that the haves and the have-nots have separated. You know, in the offseason, everyone thinks they can win. At the trade deadline, some people know they're not going to win, and so they trade players away. The thing that struck me about the Clevenger deal is I just really felt like it was a poo-poo platter.

It was kind of just a large group of guys that might be Major League regulars. I didn't really necessarily um see a star uh but there are uh conflicting opinions about gabriel arias um you know he's the shortstop that came through uh there is some swing and miss in this game but there are also stretches and during which arias has shown much better contact and if he can do that if he could get the contact rate to do somewhere where it's like something good for him, like an 18% to 20% strikeout rate, I think you could see a lot out of him. And as a 20-year-old high A in 2019 kind of shortstop,

I think he's a good infusion of talent for the Indians, and there is some breakout potential there. But in general, like Naylor, I think is going to be an okay guy. Quantrill I'd like, but I don't necessarily see ace in him either. And I wonder, how do you think Quantrill is going to be used by these Indians? I think he's a reliever for now, but a guy that could emerge to compete for a job in the rotation down the road. And that's probably more 2021 than 2020.

I think Tristan McKenzie's injury history needs to be considered. I think we have to at least acknowledge the possibility that Zach Plesak was pitching way above his skis prior to his demotion. I don't think the strikeout rate's necessarily going to be something he's consistently providing at that level that we've seen in those first few starts. I think there are enough questions here to look at Quantrill and Logan Allen and say, keeper in Dynasty Leagues, they're still well-positioned.

They are in an organization that handles pitching very well. This a net win i think for quantrill especially because it just seemed like no matter what the need was in san diego they weren't going to turn to him in that rotation as more than an occasional starter and look i mean maybe quantrill as a super reliever could thrive too like i think the bottom line here is that Cleveland did acquire a lot of talent. I love that there was a listener, Jim, who sent us a screenshot. I don't know what article it's from, but the snippet he sent us on Twitter says, one executive, when asked if the Indians fared well for Clevenger, replied, quote, a poo-poo platter approach.

Good total value, but really spread out, end quote. So I like that your poo-poo platter has really kind of like reached the mainstream. It all shows up in quotes from MLB executives. Well, you know, a poo-poo platter is actually kind of fun. You know, it's a lot of food. kind of fun you know it's a lot of food but um you know yeah it's a it's it's like kind of a buffet where you know you're not always sure how great all the food is you just lump it all on your plate and you eat the parts that you like in the end but um one thing is occurring to be looking at this team they developed francisco lindor and jose ram, helped these guys to be better hitters.

And Jose Ramirez wasn't supposed to be this kind of a hitter. So there's got to be some kudos to the Indians and Carlos Santana. I mean, Carlos Santana came over in a trade, but they helped him to be a major leaguer. And those three players, I think, achieved things that necessarily were a little bit beyond even their prospects pedigree. So, hey, give the Indians some credit. They can develop hitters. Why can't they develop a hitter in the outfielder? Oscar Mercado, Bradley Zinner, Jordan Luplo, you know, all the guys in between. It seems like if you stand in the Indians outfield, you cannot hit. Like there's something that you catch that you cannot hit. And they've been a bottom half outfield for the last five years.

And they've been trying. They've been trading all these guys away, trading for outfielders. You know that other teams don't even really trade for outfielders? Outfielders have a lesser trade value because they don't have infield positional value, right? And the Indians are out here saying, no no we'll trade for outfielders and yet they still getting they still somehow either get crappy ones or don't do well with the guys they do get so i i don't know like i think nailer can be like a 280 guy with a good obp and like 20 homers a year and i did pick him up in a few places because he's probably one of the biggest winners of the fantasy deadline as a single player.

And at the same time, I'm like, man, you've got a lot of expectations on a broad set of shoulders there. Yeah, you do. It is strange to see their lack of success in the outfield when compared to the success they've had developing infielders who've hit well beyond expectations we've said this before i mean francisco lindor is a prospect was glove first gonna hit i think more people would have said six or seven years ago frankie lindor's the next

andrelton simmons like that was probably a closer comp at the time we have the same arm strength but defense first the bat will come eventually but he's not a star bat, and he's obviously smashed those expectations. And same with Ramirez, who I think for a lot of people looked more like a future utility infielder. Yeah, not a cornerstone, not a guy that you build around who's a heart of the lineup sort of player for multiple years. Starting third baseman with power.

I think people would have thought, laughed you out of the room at some point. We are going to get to some of the trade deadline winners and losers in just a moment but first a quick word from one of our sponsors who are the big winners of the trade deadline we've got we've got nailer maybe at the top yeah nailer's situation got a lot better i think we talked about arizona dal Varshow could be a winner. I want to see it play out, but that's my projection.

That's my forecast there, at least. Mostly it's guys, I think it's a lot of guys that were let go in these trades by the Padres. Ty France going to Seattle. Ty France gets the play. Ty France wasn't going to play much

in San Diego. And he tore up AAA last year. He might just be another guy. He might be a legitimate quad A player, but now at least we're going to find out. So in terms of playing time, I think he's probably second or third on my list of hitters who are winners from this deadline.

Yeah, on the pitching side, I have to think that Tony Gonsolin was a winner. Oh, for sure. Yeah, was Stripling getting, I have to think that Tony Gonsolin was a winner. Oh, for sure. Yeah, was Stripling getting flipped to Toronto? Absolutely. Yeah, because, you know, you could push him for the rotation for Alex Wood, but I don't know. I think I would just do kind of a temporary six-man rotation,

given that there's going to be probably a fair amount of doubleheaders and weird schedule stuff. And, um, and Alex Wood is, uh, has such a terrible injury history anyway. I think I would just go to a temporary six man for a while. Um, and then, uh, you know, with Bueller out anyway, you, you've got five, but, uh, yeah. Gonsolin now is like, uh, like a guaranteed 5.5. Yeah. Whereas before he was kind of like a 6.5 starter. So let me see.

Who else do you think might have won? I mean, Kevin Pillar going into Colorado, I would think they're going to play him, right? I mean, just the Colorado bump alone, not a guy that I was ever excited about all that much in Boston, even though regular playing time was there for some stretches. I think he, because of his glove, pretty much plays every day in the most hitter-friendly park in baseball now. I give Mike Miner a slight bump in a similar way, but for a pitcher, because Oakland is super, super cold,

and it still suppresses homers. And that's been his major bugaboo this year. So a little bit of a bump for Mike Miner. Also, like maybe just a new pitching coach because there's been some changes to his breaking balls and his curveball in particular has gone from being an above average pitch to being a below average pitch by whiffs so just i would kind of look at that sort of deal and uh and think about it um the losers in the trade deadline may have been more obvious i mean anytime a closer gets traded like archie bradley um it kind of creates a situation where you're probably i mean maybe he'll take'll take some saves from Rysel O'Grace, but he's definitely probably lost.

And I don't even know that the job he left behind him is obviously someone's. I guess it's Kevin Ginkle's, but Ginkle's been really struggling himself, and I don't know that I can easily anoint a replacement for him back in Arizona. Who do you like to be a closer in Arizona? Junior Guerra might be the most consistent reliever still there.

I think based on stuff coming into the year, I was with Deion Ginkle being the next guy up, but he just hasn't pitched well enough. Yohan Lopez hasn't pitched all that well. Hector Rondon is throwing really hard, but the results aren't really there. Yeah, I don't see a whole lot to get excited about. So if I were going to throw a dart

or make a speculative pickup in a first-come, first-served league, Junior Guerra is probably at the top of my list right now. So it's a pretty small bid fab-wise, and it could work. I mean, the second half of the season, after a team trades a closer they just find a guy it keeps the arbitration guys cheaper if you give the job to a veteran like gara michael givens could be the closer in colorado you know if he'd been traded anywhere else is something i was saying to not a dafino and ian khan under the radar pod i think givens

is actually a pretty good reliever if you look look at K-BB percentage going back through the start of last season, he's like a top 30 out of 280 or so qualified relievers. That's good. He has a home run problem. Going to Colorado is not going to fix that. So I'm frustrated for him that that was the team that wanted to bolster its bullpen by acquiring him because I think in other situations, he would have shown more people how good he actually is.

I think things could fall apart for him there based on the park and things that are really out of his control. But at least he's pitched in the second most terrible park for pitchers. Maybe he's got a little experience being shell-shocked. for pitchers. Maybe he's got a little experience being shell shocked. You know, the,

a possible winner here, I think might be David Phelps. It's a bit of a, a stretch. I think because everyone sees Brandon Workman having, you know, closed in, in, in Boston.

And he's now there in Philadelphia and David Phelps is joining him and seems like he's the new monkey in the monkey sphere. Um, Hector Neris, um, has been a little slightly better, I guess, since, uh, being demoted. But, um, you know, I think there's been some change in how Phelps works, um, this year. Uh, he's really just taking to the cutter as his primary pitch, really going towards that as his bread and butter pitch. His velocity is two ticks better, basically, than it was last year. And he's just generally improved, I think, his pitches and is in a good spot. And, you know, Workman walks the lineup, you know. And all it could take is a couple situations where Workman walks the lineup

and loses the thread, and Phelps could be closing. and loses the thread, and Phelps could be closing. So I think probably Junior Guerra ahead of David Phelps, but are those, and then I guess Josh Stomont or Greg Holland. So rank Greg Holland, Junior Guerra, David Phelps, and Michael Gibbons. If I'm chasing saves, I would still put Stomont first because even if he doesn't get saves,

but Stomont gets you so many strikeouts, there's a little bit of a James Karin check sort of thing going on there. You can be wrong about the saves and still get a net positive value. So I'd go Stomont, Guerra, Phelps. Now I've got to go Stomont, Guerra, Givens because of the park.

Phelps, Holland. Even though Holland got a save. I got roasted by Holland earlier this season. I still don't trust Mike Matheny. I think they could occasionally give the ball to Jesse Hahn in those situations. It could occasionally be Stomont. It could occasionally be Haunt. It's going to be a mess. I don't see one closer taking the job and running

with it. I think in those situations they're all dicey enough and uncertain enough where I want the best skills. I think Josh Stomont, because of the crazy strikeout rate, actually has the best skills despite his flaws. Haunt's strikeout rate, his velocity rebounded of the crazy strikeout rate, actually has the best skills despite his flaws. Yeah, Holland's strikeout rate, his velocity rebounded,

but his strikeout rate hasn't really... He's nothing like what he was from 2010 to 2014. So I could see staying away from him. Yeah, I'm tempted to put Givens first just because I think you can survive when you're in your peak as a reliever in Colorado more than being a starter. And we're just talking about a couple weeks or a month in Colorado, and I think Givens might. And Givens is really funky. And Givens is really funky. So the people he's facing have just not seen much of it,

where he's got this weird sidearm arm slot, but his hand is vertical. And so you get this basically this almost riding straight. It's a little bit like a righty Josh Hader, to be honest. It's not quite as wild, and he doesn't have the hair coming around, and maybe there's some missing deception pieces there. But really, he's a guy who throws really hard from what looks like a sidearm slot, but it has ride. And, um, you know, I don't know if part of what, why it works so much better for Hayter than Gibbons has been, uh, that he's a left-hander versus a right-hander, but just in general, I like Gibbon so much that I might put him first, Guerra second, and maybe Phelps third,

and treat the Royals situation as a little bit almost foobar for saves, where the team's not going to make a lot of save opportunities. They've got, like, three players back there. They may have some desire to keep some guys cheap, you know, for next year, so they may not want to give Stonemont the save opportunities. I hear what you're saying about the strikeouts from Stonemont. But when you are in a saves league, it's almost always about the saves. Yeah, man.

It's rough. I don't want to chase Michael Gibbons, but there just might be some situations where I have to. I think in Tout Wars, I'm one of three teams with five saves, so breaking that tie alone is worth taking out a little ratios risk. So in that situation, I probably would jump Givens up to the top of the line, but in situations where I have at least one closer I really like, and if I already had two, I'd push for Stelmont above the rest for sure in those spots. Do you put Hirano in this group too?

Yoshi Hirano probably the closer in Seattle. Is he kind of at the bottom of this list as a low-dollar bid? If you're talking about FUBAR situations that you may just want to avoid. Yeah. I was really looking through the Seattle bullpen, and I think my favorite for saves, I don't even want to say his name. I mean, actually, you know, it's slightly Germanic. I might be able to handle it. Anthony Misiewicz.

Misiewicz. Misiewicz? Misiewicz. I'm going with Anthony Misiewicz. Misiewicz. Misiewicz? Misiewicz. I'm going with Anthony Misiewicz. 25-year-old right-hander with a really nice strikeout rate, really nice swinging strike rate, has not been slaughtered yet like almost every other Mariners candidate for saves and throws four miles an hour harder than Hirano.

So that's my pick, and I'm not sticking to it. It's a near min bid if you're going to take any shots at Seattle. A couple days, of course, before Fab runs over the weekend to see if they tip their hand and get a few opportunities, of course. Dugout Mugs is a company that was started in a college baseball dugout. Hence the name dugout mugs. They take the barrel of a baseball bat and turn it into a 12 ounce mug. Dugout mugs are licensed by major league baseball.

So you can have your favorite team logo laser engraved onto a Birchwood baseball bat barrel mug. Perfect for the big game to put on display or to be the life of the party. And they make a great gift for any baseball fan. Go to dugoutmugs.com slash theathletic and use the promo code MLB30 for 30% off your first purchase. That's dugoutmugs.com slash theathletic and code MLB30. So, closer situations have been addressed. Winners and losers have been addressed.

There were a couple other moves that snuck through over the last four or five days that I think are kind of interesting. Tommy LaStella ends up going to Oakland in a swap between the Angels and A's. Franklin Barreto joins a sort of crowded but less crowded situation than the one that he was in in Oakland. And the problem for Barreto, you know know is that he's out of options so it's sort of a now or never sort of thing with luis renjifo he does have options he can go to the alternate camp and they can just decide later what they're going to do so do you think this is going to be an opportunity for franklin barretto to actually get some run now that the angels decided to go out and trade for him. It's actually an ugly situation at second base over there. You can find a place for David Fletcher to play, and he's been playing some shortstop, and he plays in the outfield, and that's fine.

If you want to win games, you play David Fletcher at second base, and probably next year, David Fletcher is at second base unless he takes over for Simmons um which would seem like a stretch of his defensive abilities but maybe not maybe maybe he could do that I don't know what you do in the short term because you still need to get Fletcher at bats you can't just be like uh Fletcher you know take a chill pill like you're still part of the team we love you but you know we need to check out what Franklin Barreto can do for the next bit. And they called up Jemai Jones, who used to be an outfielder but has settled in now at second base. Did not do that well in 2019 in AA.

Had an 86 WRC+, but has had some stops along the way where he's shown promise of having patience contact middling power and good speed like definitely a guy who could end up being like uh you know sort of like a major league regular if everything breaks right but they need to give him some time too unless they just give him the renjifo role and give up on wrench so there's a lot going on there. I mean, I saw someone say Barreto is going to finally get his chance. I don't know that's the case. I'm not running to get Barreto anywhere. He strikes out a ton and I just don't know how much they're going to play him.

I think the broader question that I come back to when I look at Franklin Barreto is, I think the broader question that I come back to when I look at Franklin Barreto is, does it matter that you figured out AAA if it takes you three years to do it? Does that give you enough of an opportunity in the big leagues to where we should say, yeah, he did figure something out. He might not get it right away, but there was power. There was speed. Those skills will actually carry over. He was so young when he reached that level for the first time, right? It's been parts of three seasons now, actually parts of four if you want to count the taste of AAA that he got at the end of 2016. And last season, a 295, 374, 552 slash line, almost a 10% walk rate, struck out 26.7% of the time but that was a pretty big improvement from what he did at the level in 2018 he was at 31.8% that season even with the live baseball in the PCL a 121 WRC plus last year so a good season for a guy who was still just 23 years old so age to level it wasn't necessarily way off, but it was a lot of exposure to that level before things really kind of fell into place. Yeah. Same group of pitchers,

same group of parks, that sort of deal. And, you know, I, I, I'm sympathetic to, uh, a group within the A's fandom that has always thought that he didn't get enough of a shot and he hits the ball hard when he hits the ball hard when he hits the ball that i'm sympathetic to however you know we're talking about 219 plate appearances now yes spread out over a different year so you can't necessarily all lump them together but the trend is clear three percent walk rate 42 percent strikeout rate that puts a lot of pressure on your batted balls and uh i just think it's untenable. So he needs to get it down to kind of, I think of like sort of Paul de Jong

when he was starting out territory, where he can be like 7 and 30. And even then, he needs to show plus defense to go along with his power. And, you know, is he a shortstop? If he's a shortstop, then maybe he can play his way into their future as the next shortstop. But I'll say this.

I think he has sort of like a 10% chance of playing regularly next year. So now there's another question I want to put out there. This is kind of a prospect of the week sort of segment as we get ready to sign off for today. I see an interesting piece from Eric Langenhagen today over at Fangraphs where he's ranked all the traded prospects. I think we mentioned this up top. Taylor Trammell was the only top 100 prospect on anybody's list who was moved. I've seen Hudson Potts in the past higher up on our friend James Anderson's list

over at Roto-Wire, but he's been dropped down a little bit in recent years because there's been a lot of swing and miss as he's moved up through the minor league system. Potts was one of the prospects sent to Boston in the Mitch Moreland trade. I saw the names that were sent to Baltimore are pretty interesting.

Taron Vavra, who was kind of buried in Colorado's system. I think he played his college ball at the University of Minnesota. And Tyler Nevin, both go to Baltimore for givens. Nevin is a guy that I had rostered in the Roto-Wire Dynasty Invitational for a little while. I think he was sort of blocked forever in Colorado on the corners. But opportunities should be there in Baltimore, so at least in deep, deep dynasty leagues. Those are two guys who I'm looking at a little more closely

with the move to Baltimore. Yeah, it's a good point. I thought one of the weirder deals was the Rays sending out Lucius, not Luscious, Fox for Brett Phillips. In fact, I had to text somebody in the Rays organization and be like, what? Because I love Brett Phillips, but he hits the ball so softly, and he hasn't improved that.

But the response was that they kind of value his entire package. Sorry about that. Pause. I'm not deleting that. Okay, but I think I could see it, I guess. Phillips walks some, plays good center field defense, runs the base as well. Maybe they just see him as a guy they can use situationally. And I think that some of the underlying stuff that you, when you,

when you see a deal like this and you don't know what's going on, or when you see like the, the pick, the, the, the players that the Padres traded, some of this stuff is 40 man crunch. So I believe Hudson pots would have been maybe rule five eligible this

year. And there's a fair amount of the other guys for the Padres that would have been in the same situation. I think maybe Munoz, despite being young, might have been in that situation. Owen Miller was definitely going to be Rule 5 eligible pretty quickly. So that might have been part of why you saw some of those guys traded. I think Arias, to me, when we look back, he might be the best prospect traded at the deadline.

Most of the other guys have a big question mark. In fact, if you showed me this list of prospects, I think I would say no thanks to most of them, especially in a dynasty league where there's so much pressure on them to be better. You need to get someone that's good. I think Arias might be the only guy on this list that kind of moves the needle for me in terms of great upside. Maybe we don't know everything about him because we're missing this year's information. Almost the other guys have proven some sort of flaw that puts a big

asterisk on whatever future value ranking you're giving them right now. The other guy that I think was pretty interesting who I really didn't know anything about prior to the deadline was one of the pitchers that Cleveland picked up in the Clevenger deal, Joey Cantillo. It's not big velocity, but a young lefty with a good changeup. I mean, if he gets a little stronger and picks up some velocity, he's a guy that I think Eric had a 45 grade on right now. I mean, that could easily tick up to a 50 with the addition of more velocity or if he picks up another pitch along the way future command is a 55 so if you're talking about a you know a tall lefty that fills out a little bit already has a good change up he's one of those guys that didn't really make any headlines at all as a part of a nine player deal but later on we could say hey remember joey cantillo was actually part of that blockbuster and now he's an impact arm for Cleveland. Yeah, and I do know that he's been

working on adding the velocity. I know he's been using, I think it's called a core belt or something. I've seen some clips of him. I know that the Velo was adding a little bit. I think there was some excitement about his Velo in spring 1.0 this year. I think there really is something there. At the same time, I think he went down with a shoulder injury.

I think he's currently injured. It's always interesting to see talented prospects get moved with injuries. We saw, I think, last year, Corbin Martin at the deadline was acquired by the D-backs. He's actually getting closer to returning. I don't know. I didn't even include him in my list.

That gives him five. Another guy that could be ready to go. I guess the latest update from the end of August is that he's not expected to join the team this year, but he should be ready for the start of spring training, just based on the timetable of when he had surgery and more time to recover. So, yeah, I mean, I do kind of putting a bow on the D-backs in passing. I do like the moves they've made at each of the last two deadlines,

even though I thought they were good enough to just try and play it out this year and see what happens. They could have been hot enough to possibly make it to the postseason. But I think that's the main takeaway as I look at this group of prospects. It's a lot of guys who still need to develop something, either better plate skills or hitting the ball in the air or a third pitch or velo. We just didn't see a lot of surefire regular contributors moved.

It doesn't mean we won't get there. It just means that from a keeper and dynasty perspective, especially, it's going to be a lot more speculative than usual. But more broadly speaking, this seems to be the trend at trade headlines. These are the types of players who get moved now because teams increasingly are unwilling to deal established top prospects. Yeah, yeah. Like Gavin Lux was going nowhere. No chance. No chance he was going anywhere. And I think that this is the new norm that we're seeing. I think that even when you look at the choice to maybe go for major league players over prospects like the Diamondbacks did,

you're still not seeing the same kind of return as you saw, say, for Neil Huntington when he was trying to get Chris Archer. Maybe that deal really soured the market, but they got Austin Meadows and Tyler Glassnow and Shane Baz, where the D-backs get... I mean, I guess there was fewer years of control, and it's more complicated than that. At the same time, what was the best young position player with lots of years of control that was traded? I don't think there was really a single position player. You saw some pitchers with multiple years of control that were traded. I don't think there was really a single position player. You saw some pitchers with multiple years of control

that were traded. Yeah, it really wasn't much in terms of bats. I mean, like Barreto has multiple years of control, but is he going to be on the same roster for those years? Probably not based on what we've seen to this point, but a lot of pitchers moved. A lot of interesting things happened. It just wasn't the big names that we were hoping for in some cases.

But again, I think this is kind of where the game is at right now. Front offices that think very much alike. And it's going to be a question of just how much these players that were acquired actually develop if we get some impact guys who were moved at this deadline. If you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review the podcast, please take a moment to do that. We'd greatly appreciate that. If you don't already have a subscription to The Athletic, you can get one for 40% off at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Get Eno's articles, get Keith Law's prospect stuff, get all the baseball coverage on the site, plus league and team by team articles and fantasy coverage as well and as always you can reach us via email rates and barrels at the

athletic.com we'll take more mailbag questions on our episode on thursday just be sure to spell out the word and if you go the email route on twitter he's at you know saris i am at derrick van ryper that is going to wrap things up for this episode of rates and barrels we are back with you thursday thanks for listening.