The Detroit Tigers (probably) need to trade Nicholas Castellanos for more prospects.
The Boston Red Sox would be prudent to flip Rick Porcello’s salary and need a catcher.
Atlanta needs a right fielder.
Solving all that with one three-team trade proposal.
It’s trade season. Ok, well, one of two trade seasons.
There’s the trade season that crops up every July and August—at least in terms of concentrated trade activity.
And then there’s the offseason trade season. Generally, if you want a bevy of trades over a period of a few days in the winter, you go to the winter meetings. That’s generally when a bunch of them happen.
But that wasn’t the case this winter. The most notable transaction to come out of this year’s annual event—the Carlos Santana/EdwinEncarnacion/Jake Bauers three-team trade—happened as many were leaving Las Vegas.
It was hardly eventful, but that hasn’t stopped the rumor mill or reports coming out about various teams being interested in various players. The J.T. Realmuto sweepstakes carries on. Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are still without teams. It may be that other teams are waiting for bigger dominoes to fall before putting other moves into place.
Regardless, the offseason hasn’t been rife with trades. Yet.
Here’s a trade idea for the Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox and Atlanta that would help all three in their various pursuits next year (adding prospects for Detroit, aiming for a World Series for the other two).
Detroit Tigers acquire: Rick Porcello, Bryse Wilson and Michael Chavis
Boston Red Sox acquire: Matthew Boyd and Tyler Flowers
Atlanta acquires: Nicholas Castellanos and Mikie Mahtook
For Detroit—
On the surface, this trade doesn’t make much sense for the Tigers. Detroit shouldn’t be looking to add someone with Porcello’s salary—which, just for kicks and whistles is $21.125 million, per Spotrac.
However, he’d be the only player in the swap guaranteed to make the Tigers’ Opening Day roster.
Plus, if both Nicholas Castellanos and Matthew Boyd earn the arbitration salaries for 2019 that MLBTradeRumors projects($11.3 million and $3.0 million respectively) them to, it only becomes a $6.825 million hit for the Tigers in 2019.
That’s just a bit more than the Tigers are reportedly paying Tyson Ross in 2019. Like Ross, Porcello is a free agent next winter.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported on the specifics of Ross’ deal, tweeting the following on December 10:
Later that day, Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan reported on Ross’ potential bonuses in a tweet:
Porcello hasn’t been the frontline pitcher he was in 2016, but he was still a quality hurler in 2018 (191.1 IP, 2.7 fWAR, 4.01 FIP). If he can pitch in a similar fashion in the first half of 2019, the veteran would—also like Ross—potentially become one of the better rental trade assets available in July and August.
Speaking of trade assets, the Tigers would essentially be pooling two of their best in Castellanos and Boyd in order to get the best return.
Al Avila has greatly improved the depth in the Detroit farm system in the past few years, and while Avila and company have added prospects with high ceilings (see Casey Mize, Daz Cameron, Franklin Perez and Isaac Paredes) but the Tigers could use more impact prospects.
They’d get two in Wilson and Chavis. Both fit the timeline of prospects like Mize, Cameron, Perez, Paredes and Matt Manning in terms of being ready for MLB action in 2020.
Plus, both could fill prominent roles in Detroit as soon as June or July. Wilson could step into the rotation following a trade of either Porcello or Ross, while Chavis could be Detroit’s first baseman of the future. He could also occasionally spell Jeimer Candelario at third and help extended Miguel Cabrera’s career by allowing the future Hall of Famer to spend more time at designated hitter.
Add in some significant financial flexibility next offseason—should Detroit make this deal, the contracts of Porcello, Ross, Jordy Mercer and Matt Moore will all expire next winter and the long-term, likely growing, financial commitment to Boyd will be wiped away—and the Tigers could be poised for a return to prominence in a season or two.
Packaging Castellanos and Boyd might not seem like the best way to get there, but both are flawed players where trade value is concerned.
The former’s defensive metrics don’t grade out well at all, sapping his overall value despite a plus bat. The latter is certainly controllable and has been a quality starter for Detroit, but he seems more of a backend-rotation arm than a frontline type. He also had the 12th-highest hard-hit rate among qualified starters, which isn’t ideal.
Those factors make it harder for Detroit to extract high value by trading each individually. Moving them together, while also taking the entirety of Porcello’s contract back, should increase their chances of getting a better return.
Mahtook’s inclusion
Adding Mikie Mahtook in this deal is another way for the Tigers to get value. They probably aren’t going to be able to get anything significant in return for the outfielder straight up due to his past struggles. But for an Atlanta team needing outfield depth, he could be a fit. The fact that he isn’t yet arbitration-eligible doesn’t hurt either.
He’s surplus to requirements in Detroit. Even if Castellanos is traded, the Tigers simply have too many young outfielders to evaluate as potential future pieces—something at 29, Mahtook likely isn’t.
Fielding stalwart JaCoby Jones should be getting the bulk of the starts in center field, while Christin Stewart should bounce between left field and designated hitter. Recent waiver claim Dustin Peterson deserves an extended look in the Majors, while Daz Cameron, Jacob Robson and Victor Reyes could earn Major League plate appearances with successful starts with Triple-A Toledo.
For Boston—
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweeted the following about the Red Sox reportedly looking to shed some salary on December 11:
However, Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was quoted in a Boston Globe articleby Alex Speier on the same day as saying:
“We’re not looking to move anybody. I’m not closing the door on anything, that we’ll never do anything with our team, but we like the club that we have and that’s what our goal is.”
Dave Dombrowski, quoted in a Boston Globe article by Alex Speier
To be perfectly honest, and rather obvious, teams spend in baseball to win championships. That’s why the Yankees’ payroll is always so high. That’s why the Tigers poured so much money into their teams from 2006 to 2014.
That’s why everybody does it—to win.
And the Red Sox just won, so why break it up?
Still, from Boston’s standpoint, there is some logic to selling off some pieces. They just handed Nathan Eovaldi a rich, multi-year deal. Chris Sale and Xander Bogaerts will be free agents next winter and command similar, if not more expensive, multi-year commitments.
David Price and Dustin Pedroia are still both locked upthrough 2021 at high rates, while J.D. Martinez can, per Spotrac, opt out of his contract after next season. If he does so, he won’t be cheap to retain either.
Toss in two more years of arbitration raises each for Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr., not to mention Andrew Benintendi’s arbitration eligibility, which begins next offseason, and there’s the potential for even greater payroll commitments going forward.
This too is all without mentioning potentially replacing a trio of role players whose deals expire next winter (Steve Pearce, Eduardo Nunez and Mitch Moreland) and a pair of key relievers whose deals have already expired this winter in Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel.
So, yeah.
If you wanted to insert a gif of Scrooge McDuck diving into a room of gold coins, here, you wouldn’t be amiss. It’s going to take that kind of financial commitment to keep the band together long-term.
Which brings us to dealing Porcello.
If Boston actually does make a trade to save money, he’d be the player you’d trade. He’s a rental and of the nine Red Sox players making atleast $10 million next near (Price, Martinez, Porcello, Eovaldi, Pedroia and Sale are on veteran contracts. Betts and Bogaerts are both projected by MLBTradeRumors to take home $18.7 million and $11.9 million respectively), Porcello is the most expendable.
Plus, in the trade proposed, Boston would actually get a similarly comparable pitcher for a fraction of the cost. If Boyd makes what MLBTradeRumors projects him to make in arbitration, he’ll end up earning less than a seventh of what Porcello will take home in 2019.
Rick Porcello since 2017: 394.2 IP, 4.8 fWAR, 4.32 FIP, 8.46 K/9, 1.29 WHIP, 1.48 HR/9, 9.0 SwStr%.
Matthew Boyd since 2017: 304 IP, 3.9 fWAR, 4.47 FIP, 7.90 K/9, 1.33 WHIP, 1.33 HR/9, 10.1 SwStr%.
There’s also some familiarity with Boyd for Dombrowski, who acquired the southpaw (coincidentally) for Price in his final days in Detroit. Plus, the left-hander would be a long-term replacement for Porcello as well, preventing Boston from having to splurge to keep or replace the former Cy Young winner if he departs as a free agent.
Trading Michael Chavis
Surrendering Chavis is a steep-ish price to make this trade. But the reality is that he’s blocked at third base long-term by Rafael Devers. The Sox also have Bobby Dalbec in the prospect pipeline. Similarly, Triston Casas could be the long-term fit at first down the road, while Sam Travis and Josh Ockimey are both currently on hand as depth options behind Steve Pearce and Mitch Moreland.
In other words, Chavis is expendable.
And in dealing him with Porcello Boston would shave off $14.125 million in 2019 salary commitments—in this situation, Boyd would make the $3.0 million arbitration salary that MLBTradeRumorsprojects for him—while also adding a catching solution in Tyler Flowers.
(Flowers, per a tweet from Atlanta’s official Twitter account announcing his new contract, is making $4 million in 2019. Per the same tweet, he has a $6 million club option for 2020.)
Red Sox catchers finished with the lowest collective fWAR (-2.1) by a lengthy margin. For reference, Arizona’s backstops were next lowest with a -0.4 number.
Flowers, who quietly tied for the 18th-best fWAR among individual backstops (1.2), also posted a .341 on-base percentage and was one of baseball’s best pitch-framers, according to Statcorner.
Would Boston like to have one of the 17 catchers with a higher fWAR than Flowers like J.T. Realmuto, Jorge Alfaro, Yasmani Grandal or Francisco Cervelli? Sure. But Realmuto and Alfaro are going to cost too much in prospects via trade and Grandal and Cervelli are going to cost too much in actual salary.
Flowers is the perfect compromise and he’d be a fix for arguably Boston’s most glaring need.
The presence of the current Atlanta catcher on the roster would also allow the Sox to shop Blake Swihart around for upgrades elsewhere on the roster. Swihart struggled at the plate in limited playing time last season, but at 26 is still young enough to turn things around and live up to the billing that made him a consensus top-100 prospect earlier in his career.
The Red Sox could flip him as part of a larger deal for bullpen help to replace Kelly and possibly Kimbrel.
For Atlanta—
Last season, right field wasn’t much of a problem, from a batting standpoint for Atlanta. Atlanta right fielders finished eighth in wOBA (.443) and 10th in wRC+ (115).
However, that production was mainly courtesy of Nick Markakis and Lane Adams. Markakis soaked up the lion’s share of plate appearances at the position and is now a free agent. Adams, meanwhile, went bananas in a 29-plate appearance cup of coffee, collecting 10 runs scored, six hits, six RBI, four walks, two home runs a double and a stolen base.
However, all that game time largely as a pinch hitter. Adams only played a full game on two occasions and it might be unrealistic to expect him to produce at a similar rate as a starter over the course of 162 games.
Enter Castellanos, who while not the perfect defensive fit—more on that in a bit—would be the perfect addition to Atlanta’s lineup.
Despite a National League East crown and the ensuing playoff appearance that followed, Atlanta’s lineup on the whole was largely pedestrian in the hitting department.
Atlanta finished 15th in wRC+, 14th in ISO, 12th in wOBA and 11th in OBP.
In a vacuum, those numbers are essentially fine. But for a team with World Series aspirations after picking up Josh Donaldson, the franchise needs more hitters to pair with Freddie Freeman, Donaldson and Ronald Acuna Jr. The ex-Blue Jay will certainly help, but Atlanta has already lost two of the team’s better offensive players form 2018 in Markakis and Kurt Suzuki (.335 wOBA, 108 wRC+, 11.1% K%).
Only five right fielders had a higher wRC+ than Nicholas Castellanos last season. Two of them were the respective AL and NL MVPs in Mookie Betts and Christian Yelich. Another was Bryce Harper. The last two were Brandon Nimmo and Mitch Haniger. Pretty good company for Castellanos, who was also sixth in all of baseball in hard-hit rate with a 47.9% metric.
He’s a rental, but Castellanos’ bat is the kind that can make an impact in October. He’s only 26 and registered a .363 wOBA, a .854 OPS and a .202 ISO in 678 plate appearances last year.
Fielding
And now we get to the tricky bit.
There’s now way to sugar coat it, but Castellanos’ defensive metrics weren’t pretty last year. He had a -20.7 Def, a -12.3 UZR/150, a -19 DRS and a -1.5 ARM.
There’s no way around that, but in fairness 2018 was Castellanos’ first full season at the position and he doesn’t completely fail the eye test when you watch him in games. With more reps, he could improve.
And even if he never wins a Gold Glove, if Castellanos can take his DRS from a -19 to say a -9, it’ll make him all the more valuable.
Plus, Atlanta can mitigate this somewhat by using defensive replacements late in games.
Mikie Mahtook
One of those defensive replacements could conceivably be Mikie Mahtook. The former first-round pick is 29, but is still another year away from being arbitration eligible. His hitting wasn’t exactly ideal (71 wRC+, .276 wOBA, .276 OBP) in 250 plate appearances last season, but the outfielder spent significant time shuttling between the Majors and Triple-A Toledo.
He was also much better in the second half (.326 wOBA, 105 wRC+, 10.9% BB%) and can play all three outfield spots. The former Ray would primarily be a depth piece for Atlanta, a team that has just four players capable of manning the outfield (Acuna Jr., Ender Inciarte, Adam Duvall and utility man Charlie Culberson) on the 40-man roster.
Catching vacancy
Trading Flowers would open up a need at catcher for Atlanta,who have already signed veteran Brian McCann as a compliment behind the dish.Atlanta has both the financial and prospect flexibility to go after either free agent Yasmani Grandal or potential trade target J.T. Realmuto.
Or, the team could simply augment the position with another free agent like Martin Maldonado, Nick Hundley, Devin Mesoraco or Jonathan Lucroy. Prospect Alex Jackson is also waiting in the wings at Triple-A Gwinnett. William Contreras (Willson’s brother), arguably the backstop of the future in Atlanta, finished 2018 as a 20-year-old at Advanced-A Florida.
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