Transmogrified Tiger

As a thought exercise or way to pass the time until more legitimate rumors come about, let's do a roundup of hypothetical bold trades. These are not necessarily endorsements, but I can see the logic for them and they pass the BBTV calculator so there's some external validation that they aren't way off in left field even if they may not be everyone's cup of tea. Kevin Alcantara for Michael Kopech Why? To piss people off right at the start. More seriously, the Sox will be selling, and Kopech offers velocity at a cheaper cost than you can find most anywhere else, along with the pedigree to dream on a Diet Arrieta turnaround. The Sox have both the lack of prospect depth and short term urgency to be able to push Alcantara to MLB as fast as his option clock requires him to. Christopher Morel for Edward Cabrera Why? Morel has been a young, controlled offensive success so why trade him? Because the front office doesn't appear to trust him to play any position, and while the skills are there the consistency is not(case in point: Morel has a 91 wRC+ since his HR streak ended in May). Cabrera is another premium velocity SP who hasn't put it entirely together, and the Marlins are the rare org that would be looking to deal from a surplus of pitching talent for additional oomph in their lineup. Pete Crow-Armstrong for Dylan Cease Why? Because we didn't learn our lesson from the first trade involving Cease. Kidding aside, prospects fail, and a future with Cease + an extended Bellinger is arguably more attractive than PCA + FA SP. The Sox get a big time headliner for their big trade chip that other orgs are likely unwilling to offer. Justin Steele for Coby Mayo and Heston Kjerstad Why? The odds of Steele staying at this level for the entirety of his team control given his age and stuff are slim. Mayo and Kjerstad solve multiple short & long term problems at 2 of 3B/1B/DH (depending on your view of Mayo's D) and make the offseason a more straightforward task of reassembling the rotation. Baltimore borrows from the thing it has the most(hitting prospects lower in the defensive spectrum) to get the thing it has least(controllable SP with MLB success).

As a Cub, Stroman has a 6.55 ERA in 35.2 IP against the Cardinals, and a 2.72 ERA in 216.2 IP against everyone else.

https://theathletic.com/3187914/2022/03/16/mlbs-collective-bargaining-agreement-guide-to-the-changes-in-the-2022-26-labor-deal/

The Cardinals are 10 games and 3 teams out of the division and 9.5 games and 6 teams out of the wild card. Mozeliak has very publicly declared them sellers(albeit with an eye on 2024 contention). Their race is run for 2023.

I get the skepticism, and I'm not gonna put a hard sell on Aranda in particular. I like FG better than the other options(Pipeline) that put grades on everyone, and it ties into the FG valuation stuff via fWAR well, so while it's far from infallible I like it as a first stop. FWIW all teams are currently updated, and the 50 on Aranda is from this year. And while I think Bowden's understanding of trade value is stuck in 1996, I think what he said there is representative of how teams have hoarded prospects in recent years, particularly for rentals. I'd love to be wrong and someone like Mead or Mayo or in my deepest dreams Painter is accessible for Stroman, but after multiple years of finding that the rentals the Cubs had to sell simply didn't have the juice they would have had a decade ago, I've tried to be more measured for my own excitement's sake.

This was the specific quote

I'm not certain this is true, Fangraphs put a 50 on Aranda if he were still eligible and that's about the peak I can imagine getting for Stroman, but even setting that aside I think it's closer when you consider roster fit and availability. With corner OF and middle IF spoken for, plus Morel and Amaya clouding things further, it's harder than it was a year ago to plug and play a prospect. And on the availability side, you have folks like Bowden already saying that basically the Orioles Top 10 is off limits, a couple teams who are excellent matches for Stroman but have very little quality/roster fit to offer(Philadelphia, Arizona), and the range of good matches to help them in the short and long term dwindle a fair amount.

I'm still skeptical that even in a seller's market that a prospect like Mead is in play for Stroman. The Rays would potentially be a team that might be willing to take on a prospect with a Stroman in the right deal to make value align though. Given their farm system depth it would have to be something far from the 40 man/Rule 5 line though, so my preferred guys in this space(Alcantara, maybe Herz) wouldn't be fits. For me, the Rays play* is Aranda. He's a good quality prospect but has had enough initial failure to cast doubt, and he doesn't have a clear path to a role I think you throw him and Mervis at 1B/DH for the rest of the year you have pretty good odds of feeling confident you have one of those spots covered well in 2024 heading into the offseason. *I'd also check to make sure they aren't completely soured on Baz, but that's likely wishful thinking.

Tom you and I are in alignment more than most about this trade deadline but I'm concerned that a ground ball killed one of your loved ones.

Jackie Bradley Jr's peak is the upside you can dream on I think. Maybe trade a few walks for SB, especially in the current environment. Season Team Level Age G PA HR R RBI SB BB% K% ISO BABIP AVG OBP SLG wOBA xwOBA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR 2016 BOS MLB 26 156 636 26 94 87 9 9.9% 22.5% .219 .312 .267 .349 .486 .354 .331 118 5.1 19.1 13.9 5.6

Kinda got hosed because one of my guesses literally becomes correct later today

The Mets buyer's remorsed themselves all the way into a wild card loss last year and still decided to spend a zillion dollars on geriatric pitchers instead of trading any prospects, so even setting aside the buy/sell decision they aren't going to take decisive action on a hypothetical catching surplus with Parada still in A ball.

Isn't throwing to an uncovered base a balk

He hit it 103 mph off the bat, good for a .440 xBA. Good swing, unlucky placement

Kyle calls his own game, so I think the already tenuous value that catcher ERA has is even less relevant.

Ah, Brock may know best then, not sure where settings that are unique to mods begin and end on this platform yet.

Try the Display Name setting here: https://northsidebaseball.com/settings/

I've been thinking about what types of moves might happen at the deadline that mirror the Martin/McKinstry deal from last year. Moves that don't move the needle in a significant way, but add a hopefully useful player that fits the roster well. This is a bit ironic since McKinstry didn't make it to Opening Day 2023, but given his success with the Tigers hopefully you can see the intent behind the exercise. The state of the org doesn't have a ton of these compared to previous seasons, but a couple come to mind: Platoon CF - In a perfect world, this is someone who is a strong defender(to keep the defense-first approach strong), and hits RH to provide a natural balance with Tauchman in the short term and PCA in the longer term(assuming Bellinger isn't kept). By doing this in a lower stakes deal you get that benefit without much cost. Some names that pop up from scanning teams that may be buying: Johan Rojas (PHI) - Maybe a bit beyond the grasp of a trade for someone like Fulmer, but possibly if they decide to move Merryweather or even Wisdom given their roster setup. Rojas is gonna struggle to break through with his CF-specific profile and Marsh in front of him, plus Pache having a very similar profile already on the roster. Jorge Barrosa (ARI) - A little lesser a prospect but really fits this profile. Biggest downside is that he's a switch hitter that hits better from the left side. Barrosa is down the list in an OF heavy 40 man that is gonna be looking to add at the deadline. Positionless bat - 1B/DH is very much unsettled, and while there are players around who could fit into this especially at DH(looking at you Morel), having another option to roll the dice on could help with striking gold. Increasingly if you look at the 1B leaders you see lots of pop up prospects so there's a chance to get some nice arbitrage in fixing a big hole at potentially a trivial cost. Some names that come to mind Matt Wallner (MIN) - Wallner has hit everywhere but despite a stellar couple weeks on the MLB roster he went back to AAA because there's no room. Dustin Harris (TEX) - Harris probably needs some more seasoning to make sure his future power plays, but he's not an imminent contender for a big league role and Texas is gonna be making a playoff push. Taylor Trammel (SEA) - More of a failed prospect profile that's closer to McKinstry, he hasn't shown he belongs at MLB level yet but the all around package is enticing if a new org can unlock him. What other roles would you think of for a more minor trade that has the possibility to be bigger than the sum of its parts?

Welcome!

The Mervis decision comes down to 3 overlapping things: 1. How Mervis best becomes a successful big league hitter, can he demonstrate in AAA that he's made the adjustments or can that only come with MLB reps? If he can demonstrate that in AAA has he done it, so that he's not set up to fail again with a promotion? 2. Is the team ready to prioritize 2024 over 2023? Mervis didn't really make the case for more PA while he was here(and his AAA performance while good isn't a notable improvement over his previous stint), and right now when folks are healthy you have Morel, Wisdom, Amaya, and Madrigal all playing well of late that would conflict with Mervis getting everyday at bats. 3. Is the team ready to eat Mancini's 2024 money? Sending down one of the folks above is necessary to get Mervis on a roster when Swanson/Madrigal are healthy, which is a tough pill to swallow when all of them are playing well and could have a 2024 role. You can bypass that by getting rid of Mancini, and while they clearly aren't going to let Mancini's 7 million dictate the roster build, it's an irrevocable decision that they may want to have more time to make.

Pete Crow-ArmstrongCade HortonMiguel AmayaMatt MervisBen BrownMatt ShawJordan WicksOwen CaissieKevin AlcantaraCristian HernandezAlexander CanarioJackson FerrisMoises BallesterosJames TriantosHaydn McGearyBrandon BirdsellKevin MadePorter HodgeLuis VazquezJefferson Rojas

Incredibly, three of them lost

Maybe some of that goes to Bowser?

Only having all 3 of these guys on the roster(not even in the lineup) for 50% of games is unexpected, it doesn't mean the expectation was 100%. Again, the team was built to be average, and needed particularly good fortune to be more than that. It has had in my opinion slightly bad fortune(the specifics of injuries, underperforming pythag, etc) so they've dropped the one game/month they're off of being a .500 club. Say that's not good enough or shouldn't have been the expectation if you like, I wouldn't necessarily agree but that's not what I'm arguing. The argument is that Jed didn't build this team as if it was a 90 win finished product, yet there's multiple folks openly wondering why he thought this team was good enough to be a 90 win finished product.