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Nick's Blog Post #7 - 2019 Trade Deadline
July 31, 2019

As mentioned in my last post, we made a (presumably) unprecedented 13 trades in the month of May. Not every one was a blockbuster - but some were! Here's a rundown of each deal we did leading up to the deadline:

Major Trades

Reds receive: SP Darwinzon Hernandez (22), 3B Michael Chavis (23), SS Antoni Flores (18), SP Mike Shawaryn (24)
Red Sox receive: 2B Scooter Gennett (29), CF Albert Almora (25), SP A.J. Cole (27)

The writing was on the wall (and on this blog!) when it came to Scooter's time in Cincinnati - as a 29 year old impending free agent coming off an All-Star year at a position where we have a lot of prospect depth, there was no realistic scenario in which we were bringing him back next season. Given that context, I think we did very well for ourselves in this deal. We had to give up Almora - a decently young player at a premium position - which hurt a bit, but he hadn't been producing much for us and I am confident that we will be able to more than replace his production next season. We also gave up Cole, a mid-season waiver pickup who gave us some solid innings but was never part of our long-term plans. In order to grease the wheels, we retained 85% of Scooter's remaining salary for the season, but given the amount we've slashed off the payroll throughout the year it really wasn't too much of an issue for us.

The key piece of the package we received in return is Hernandez, a highly advanced 22 year old starter who is already holding his own in Triple A. He's got a plus-plus fastball that reaches 97 MPH, along with a superb curveball and a decent changeup. He's a big-time strikeout guy, and if he can get his walks under control, he has the potential to be an All-Star. We'll likely see him in the majors by next season.

Chavis is a bat-first, near-ready prospect with the potential to be a valuable middle-of-the-order hitter with some pop. We have a number of prospects just like him, though, so we didn't necessarily acquire him with the intention of keeping him - but more on that later.

Flores is a very raw 18 year old but looks like he has the tools to be a plus fielder at shortstop with above-average hitting.

Shawaryn is a high-minors SP with 4 solid pitches and a high floor, though he looks like his ceiling is that of a 3rd or 4th starter.

Reds receive: 1B/OF Ryan McMahon (24), 3B John Cresto (22), RP Reid Humphreys (24)
Rockies receive: OF Scott Schebler (28), C Max Stassi (28), OF Brian Goodwin (28)

One could reasonably argue that we lost this trade - Schebler is a league average (or better) outfielder with 3 years of control remaining, and the other two players we gave up are cheap, solid bench pieces (although they came at no cost to us, as waiver wire pickups, in our defense) - in other words, the kind of cheap, controllable talent that you hope to see your prospects turn into. However, we are currently in the business of acquiring assets with upside, and when it comes to upside, there is no debate that we gained more upside than we gave up.

At the time of the trade in mid-July, McMahon had about 450 major league PAs under his belt with a career OPS of around .650. However, we love his tools and his approach at the plate, and think he can turn into a star. So far, 14 games into his Reds career, he's done his best to prove us right with a 1.017 OPS and 7 home runs. Obviously he's unlikely to sustain that level of production, but it hints at the upside that comes with acquiring a player like him.

We also picked up an intriguing prospect in the deal in Cresto, a 22 year old 3B/OF who has the potential to develop extreme power and a good feel for hitting at the plate. His discipline is a bit questionable, with a penchant for strikeouts, but otherwise he looks like a superb prospect. He'll be finishing out the season with our Single-A affiliate.

The third player we received, Humphreys, is an intriguing bullpen arm with a 98 MPH fastball and consistently huge strikeout rates throughout his minors career.

Reds receive: SS Nicolas Torres (19), SP Spencer Howard (22), C Edgar Cabral (23), RP Trevor Bettencourt (24), RP Luke Leftwich (25)
Phillies receive: 3B Michael Chavis (23), C Mark Kolozsvary (23)

Remember when I said we didn't intend to keep Chavis when we acquired him from Boston? Well, just a few days later we found a landing spot for him, shipping him to Philadelphia for a bevy of exciting prospects who aren't as close to the majors as Chavis. The only other piece we had to give up was Kolozsvary, a low-minors prospect who we don't see as having much potential.

Torres looks like an incredibly exciting prospect - a speed demon who could potentially develop the contact skills to hit leadoff, with the defensive chops to be a plus defender at second base.

Howard looks like he hast the potential to end up being the best player in this trade. A 2017 2nd round pick, he's got a 5-pitch repertoire and enough command and control to be a #2 or #3 starter one day. He's already 23 and still in High-A, and he's not a huge strikeout guy, so it's not a guarantee that he'll reach his ceiling, but the potential is definitely there.

Cabral is an excellent receiver with the potential to become a league-average hitter, which is a rare and valuable combination.

Bettencourt and Leftwich are both righty bullpen arms who look like they could become solid high-leverage relievers if they reach their potential - especially Bettencourt, who has a nasty curveball and two other solid pitches.

Reds receive: IF Joe Dunand (23), RP Julian Fernandez (24), RP Tommy Eveld (25), RP Dylan Lee (24)
Marlins receive: RP Zach Duke (36)

From our perspetive, I think this trade made a ton of sense - Duke is a solid lefty reliever who was having a good season with us, and as a 36 year old impending free agent he didn't really belong on our team. I think it made total sense to trade him, and it also made sense that another team was willing to give up an interesting prospect and a few young minor league relievers for him. What doesn't make sense is that the team that was willing to give up the most for him was the Marlins - the one NL team with a worse record than us! What were they thinking? No idea! Whatever their reasoning, I just know that I am happy that they felt the need to do this deal!

Dunand looks like Eugenio Suarez-lite - a well-rounded hitter with decent speed and defensive abilities at the hot corner. He's been playing well this year at Double-A, although he is already nearly 24 years old and the rest of the industry doesn't appear to be as high on him as we are. Even still, he is an intriguing prospect, and came to us at very little cost.

Fernandez looks like he could be an absolute monster of a reliever, if he can just figure out how to get his walks under control. His fastball touches 101MPH, and he has a decent curveball and changeup to go along with it. He's currently in Triple-A, along with Lee, who is a lefty with some potential of his own. Eveld, meanwhile, is already in the majors with us, and looks like he'll be a solid middle reliever in our bullpen for a long time to come.

Reds receive: SS Eddys Leonard (18), SP Jim Goodwin (23), 3B Jeans Garcia (18), OF Yunior Garcia (17), RP Shea Spitzbarth (24)
Dodgers receive: 1B Joey Votto (35), RP Wandy Peralta (27)

Sorry to bury the lede here - i was trying to keep things chronological - but yes, it's true: the Joey Votto era is officially over in Cincinnati. As a 35 year old who is owed $25 million per year for the next 4 seasons after this one, his presence on our rebuilding team didn't make a ton of sense. We wanted to give him the chance to compete, and when we found a competitive team that was willing to take on his full salary AND give up some top-tier prospects for him, we couldn't pass up the opportunity. Some might say we sold low on him given that he's on pace for his lowest full-season WAR total since his age-24 season way back in '08, but we see this as a risk-management move - he's not getting any younger, and injuries plus age could make this level of production the new normal for him going forward. In any case, we still managed to bring back some elite prospects and we won't be paying a dime of his salary, so I consider this a solid deal for us - even if it does hurt to see the face of the franchise leave without ever making it to the World Series with us.

Leonard is the main prize here, and he could really be a star. He's only 18 years old and still in Rookie league, so I don't want to get ahead of myself here, but he looks like he could be the next Carlos Correa if he puts it all together.

Goodwin is a hyper-athletic two-way player who we see as having more of a future on the mound. He was the 50th pick in the draft last month, and looks like he could develop 4 above-average pitches including a fastball that touches 98MPH.

Jeans and Yunior Garcia (no relation) are both raw prospects with high potential. Yunior is especially intriguing, as we think he has the athleticism and ability to play centerfield.

Spitzbarth is a high-minors reliever with 3 solid pitches and decent control, although he does have a habit of giving up homers.

Reds receive: SS Nico Hoerner (22), CF Cole Roederer (19), SP Yovanny Cruz (19), SP Cory Abbot (23)
Cubs receive: OF Taylor Trammell (21), SS Jonathan India (22)

This was a rare high-profile trade that involved 0 major leaguers, but a bunch of top prospects. We are not as high on Trammell and India as the general industry seems to be, so when the Cubs approached us about a Trammell-for-Hoerner swap, we decided to pounce on the opportunity to upgrade our farm, and ended up make the deal even bigger. Trammell looks like he'll be a great leadoff-hitter type player, and he's been doing great at Double-A this season, but we don't see him as having the defensive abilities to stick at center field (despite his 80-grade speed) and so his low-power, high-contact game loses its value in our eyes when it needs to be played in a corner outfield spot. India is a similar story - his bat profiles well at shortstop, but we don't think his defense there would be good enough to play him there. As a result, we were willing to let these guys go for the right price, and in this trade we feel that the price was more than right!

Hoerner is the complete package - his above-average speed and defensive abilities will allow him to play shortstop in the majors, while his bat looks like it will be good enough to play at just about any position. Right now he doesn't have much power, but his 6'1 frame projects to result in league-average power once he grows into it. His main skill is his contact, though - he should easily clear a .300 batting average once he develops. We see him as our shortstop of the future, and given that he's already putting up league average numbers in Double-A, the future might arrive pretty soon!

Roederer comes with more risk, given that he's only 19 and has never taken an at-bat above Low-A, but he has a chance to be even better than Hoerner! Our scouts project him to become one of the best hitters in the game, with a rare mix of elite bat control, power, and plate discipline. He's also a great athlete who has a chance to stick at CF.

Cruz looks like a future league-average starter, and has held his own in Single-A this season despite not yet turning 20 years old.

Abbot also has the potential to be a mid-rotation arm. He has 4 pitches that project to be above-average, and while he doesn't strike out a ton of guys he's great at pitching in the zone and limiting walks.

Reds receive: OF Austin Hays (24), RP Ken Keele (18)
Orioles receive: SS Alfredo Rodriguez (25)

This trade can be best explained as a differing of views between two teams' front offices. We see Hays as having the potential to be an above-average hititer and corner outfielder, whereas the industry consensus is that he is probably more of a 4th or 5th outfielder. In 65 major league games this year he's put up a 95 OPS+, which we see as being below his potential but others around the industry think he's overperforming his abilities.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez is an incredible fielder - think Jose Iglesias - but doesn't look like he'll ever approach league-average as a hitter in the majors. He's also already 25 years old, so at this point what you see is probably pretty much what you get. I am not one to sacrifice a spot in the lineup in the name of defense, so his value was more limited to us. Presumably the Orioles value his defense and are willing to put up with his mediocre offense, so this trade makes a lot of sense.

As an added bonus, we got Keele, a raw pitcher taken in the 7th round of the draft last month. He's only got two pitches at the moment, which relegates him to the bullpen, but he is onnly 18 so if he can develop a 3rd pitch he could become an even more exciting prospect.

Smaller Trades

Not all of our trades were of the blockbuster variety, and this post is already getting a bit wordy, so I'll just quickly run through the rest of them:

- We got 39 year old C Erik Kratz for C Sandy Leon in a swap of backup catchers with the Giants. Leon might be the better player at this point in his career, but we felt it would be valuable to add a renowned leader like Kratz to our clubhouse in order to help offset the turnover and the loss of our captain in Votto.

- We acquired 25 year old SP Framber Valdez and 27 year old IF Tony Kemp from the Astros for 25 year old 3B Yonathan Mendoz and 30 year old C Juan Graterol. Neither of the guys we gave up were considered by us to be more than org players, whereas both the guys we got back are MLB-level players who can add value and contribute for the foreseeable future. Kemp can play just about any position and hits for average (though not much power), so he'll be a valuable bench utility player for us going forward, while Valdez has a bit of a walk problem but is otherwise a solid back-end starter with some upside. Not sure what the Astros were thinking on this one - might have been a move to clean up their 40-man roster a bit.

- We dumped RP Kelvin Herrera's 2 year contract on the Nationals for RP Shane Greene's 1 year contract. This was entirely a salary-driven move for us, as we didn't want to pay $10 million for Herrera next year. Instead, we'll pay only 20% of that, and we get the rest of the year to see if Greene pitches well enough to tender an offer to in arbitration in the offseason.

- We picked up 26 year old 3B Maikel Franco from the Phillies in exchange for RP Anthony Bass, who has been toiling in the minors as a 31 year old this season. This was clearly just a dump by the Phillies, who have evidently had enough of Franco's constant underperformance. We see it as a low-risk opportunity to potentially participate in Franco's considerable upside - he's got an OPS+ of 75 on the season but he definitely has the talent to do better than that. It's a very low cost move for us, and if he doesn't pan out for the rest of the season, we can just non-tender him in the offseason.

- We traded away 26 year old 3B Alex Blandino for 23 year old C Daulton Varsho from the Diamondbacks. We see Blandino as a low-ceiling Quad-A type player, and haven't had a spot for him on our major league team this year. Varsho, meanwhile, looks like he is a year or two away from being a decent backup catcher, which makes him more valuable to us than Blandino was.

Other Teams' Trades

Obviously we weren't the only team that made moves leading up to the deadline (although we probably were involved in about 50% of the trades made in July). Here's a few of the bigger trades that went down without our involvement:

- The Red Sox shipped SP Nathan Eovaldi to the Cubs for C Victor Catarini and a prospect

- The Cardinals moved on from CF Dexter Fowler, sending him to the Tigers in exchange for SP Matt Moore and CF Victor Reyes

- The ageless Nelson Cruz was acquired from the Twins by the Giants, who sent SP Drew Pomeranz and a prospect to Minnesota in return.

- In perhaps the biggest non-Reds trade of the month, the Brewers received SP Zack Wheeler from the Mets for 3B Travis Shaw and a prospect

- Similar to the Wheeler trade, the Cardinals picked up SP Colin McHugh in exchange for 1B Jose Alberto Martinez, who is now on the Astros

That's all for now - tune in next month for the August update, which will probably be considerably less interesting than the last couple of updates given that the trade deadlne has passed.