Tepera to the White Sox

[Bertz]

[Irrelevant Dude]

Bailey Horn - High-A LHP who will be 24 going into next season.

 

https://www.milb.com/player/bailey-horn-690544

 

He was a 5th round pick in 2020 and received the 3rd-highest signing bonus from that White Sox draft class.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Irrelevant Dude

[CubinNY]

WS pitcher is Bailey Horn

 

Any details on this guy?

[squally1313]

5th round pick last year out of Auburn, pitched well in single A (2.63 ERA in 27 innings) and has gotten rocked in 4 starts in high A.

[Bertz]

This is clearly a guy that they think they can Pitch Lab up, because on the surface he seems to be pretty meh

[Andy]

WS pitcher is Bailey Horn

 

Any details on this guy?

FanGraphs had him ranked #30 in the Sox system as of last December. Looks like realistic best-case scenario is a reliable middle relief guy.

 

My notes on Horn’s Fall exploits aren’t great; a scout told me his fastball was very hittable in the outing they saw. But he had been a consistent “arrow-up” prospect throughout the previous year and a half. He had surgery while at junior college then pitched out of the Auburn bullpen as a draft-eligible sophomore, and his velo climbed the further away from the surgery he got. Horn won a rotation spot in the Fall of 2019 then came out touching 96 as a junior and had four really good starts before the shut down. He’s another up/down relief prospect with two quality breaking balls and could probably stand to use the curveball as a srike-one pitch more than he did in college.

[Tryptamine]

WS pitcher is Bailey Horn

 

Any details on this guy?

 

None that you'll want to hear.

[muntjack]

Underwhelming, certainly

[sneakypower]

eh seems to me like he would've been better served as a sweetener, like an add on to Bryant to get Giants to give up Bart or whatever

[Outshined_One]

Guessing the medicals on Tepera weren't great.

 

Kind of a meh return.

[d_money]

Fuckin gift to the trash Sox

[Bertz]

 

Sitting mid 90's is a big diff from touching mid 90's like the reports from the winter say

[Hawk4Hall]

Blah.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

HE CAN DUNK

[Post Count Padder]

Hard throwing lefty for a rental non-closer reliever. Seems fine. Maybe not as good as we might have liked but it is what it is. The return for Chafin was better. I assume if we move Brothers we'd get something like this or a deep lottery ticket.

 

Also others have noted the Cubs likely heavily scouted this guy recently as a 2020 draft pick and have their own reports and ideas about him.

 

And goodbye, MVP vote getter.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Post Count Padder

[Derwood]

Cubs traded guy for another guy

[David]

seems fine to me. not sure what people were expecting to get for tepera that would be much better than a mid 90s sitting lefty with a good breaking ball.

 

i could see the sweetener argument but that's about it.

Edited July 29, 2021 by David

[David]

[toonsterwu]

It is what it is. I mean, there's been cases where guys like this really don't get traded for that much (Daniel Hudson went to Washington a couple years for an A ball prospect that I can't remember, Mark Melancon was dealt for was dealt for Winkler and Tristan Beck). So to complain about the return in this trade ... yeah, everyone hoped for more, but it's reasonable.

 

That said, it does feel like the non-closer relief market went from, at least the rumors and talk, a potential seller's market to very much a buyer's market. Tepera's numbers were strong enough that I thought he could pull in more than Bailey Horn, so either the market swerved hard into a buyer's market (Brad Hand only got Riley Adams) or the Cubs really liked Horn that much. I'm sure they liked him, but I tend to think it's the former moreso than the latter.

[champaignchris]

I knew the Cubs would get less for Tepera than they did for Chafin, but a guy barely scraping the top 30 of a bad farm system still seems pretty light.

[Tim]

I knew the Cubs would get less for Tepera than they did for Chafin, but a guy barely scraping the top 30 of a bad farm system still seems pretty light.

Meh - a lefty with the arm strength to sit mid-90's and ability to spin the ball well enough to get 21" of vertical on the fastball is interesting. Get him in the pitch lab and work on his slider/curve and changeup.

 

Keep in mind that Tepera cratered in performance, velocity and spin rate after the crack down on sticky stuff.

[toonsterwu]

I mean, Tepera did bounce back with a decent run in July.

 

At the end of the day, I think non-elite pen arms, their trade value tends not to be that much in general. There will be some cases where guys go for more, but I think the industry has simply adjusted in some respects.

 

To be honest, what I find baffling about isn't the Cubs - it's that a team hanging around with pen problems (plenty of teams fit that mold) didn't try to buy some pen arms on the cheap to see if they can creep back in. I mean, the Cubs have been known sellers for a few weeks now. A team like the Angels could've bought a couple arms on the cheap, and if they couldn't get back in, they could spin them off by the deadline again and likely be just fine.