The 2024 Trade Deadline

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Malike said:

"Over the offseason, Guerrero first said he would never play for the Yankees in an interview with Dotol Nastra"

"When asked if he'd ever play for the Yankees at the time, Guerrero replied, "No, not even dead."

OK, the quote I saw said sign with. 

Never play is just dumb, if he's traded he doesn't have much choice.  Is he going to hold out?

[Malike]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

OK, the quote I saw said sign with. 

Never play is just dumb, if he's traded he doesn't have much choice.  Is he going to hold out?

No of course not, he walked it back today for the first time ever.

[e16bball]

1 hour ago, Greg Pappas said:

Borrowing from a prior post in the thread, one trade target that makes, perhaps, the most sense to me, is:  

LHP Tarik Skubal (Age 27) of the Tigers, with 2.5 years of control:  Skubal is among the league's best starters but has never thrown more than 149.1 innings in his young career.  That was in 2021.  Since then, he threw 117.2 in 2022 before the flexor tendon injury derailed the remainder of the season.  He rebounded well after returning last season, throwing 80.1 IP.   Thus far this season he has been very good, as usual, with 90 IP and a 2.50 ERA.  He looks great this season and will likely exceed his prior high of 149.1 IP if he remains healthy.  My thoughts: I really like Skubal.  Having him two seasons beyond this one is crucial, as it adds a stabilizing starter to the top of the rotation and helps offset the potential loss of Burnes.  Also, as a lefty, he would be an ideal fit in between Burnes and Rodriguez this playoff push.  Like many pitchers, his health is cause for concern, but he looks to be past his prior issues.  He is my current favorite as a potentially available starter.

Detroit has some high upside young starters, but few impact hitters.  They have little hope to make the playoffs this season and really need an infusion offensively.  Trading Skubal would be the best way to start that process.
Who we would have to trade for him is the key (or anyone else for that matter).  I have very strong doubts that Holliday, Basallo, or Mayo would be made available (unless -- maybe -- you're talking about someone like Gilbert from Seattle) but if Detroit would make the deal without them the O's might become very interested.  I'd think it could be done. 

I would also be hugely interested in Skubal. But I would put the likelihood of getting him for a Kjerstad-headlined deal at approaching zero. 

He’s arguably the best pitcher in baseball. And I think I might take up that argument on his behalf, if I had a gun to my head forcing me to choose. The last two seasons, he’s 2nd in ERA, 1st in FIP, and 2nd in xFIP. He’s 6th in xERA so far this year and was 1st last season (couldn’t find a way to combine the two seasons and find rankings). 

Would freely concede durability is the issue. But he basically just had the flexor tendon injury in August 2022 and has since seemingly returned to a normal workload.

The thing Detroit has on its side is that they don’t have to trade him. A couple more years of control means they have absolutely no pressure to take any deal they don’t love. And unfortunately, I find it pretty hard to believe they’d view a Kjerstad-led package as some sort of Godfather offer. I think we’re looking at having to lead with Mayo at least in order to get their ear on that one.

[Greg Pappas]

1 minute ago, e16bball said:

I would also be hugely interested in Skubal. But I would put the likelihood of getting him for a Kjerstad-headlined deal at approaching zero. 

He’s arguably the best pitcher in baseball. And I think I might take up that argument on his behalf, if I had a gun to my head forcing me to choose. The last two seasons, he’s 2nd in ERA, 1st in FIP, and 2nd in xFIP. He’s 6th in xERA so far this year and was 1st last season (couldn’t find a way to combine the two seasons and find rankings). 

Would freely concede durability is the issue. But he basically just had the flexor tendon injury in August 2022 and has since seemingly returned to a normal workload.

The thing Detroit has on its side is that they don’t have to trade him. A couple more years of control means they have absolutely no pressure to take any deal they don’t love. And unfortunately, I find it pretty hard to believe they’d view a Kjerstad-led package as some sort of Godfather offer. I think we’re looking at having to lead with Mayo at least in order to get their ear on that one.

You may be right, but I just can't see Elias dealing Mayo for Skubal.  Kjerstad is no slouch as a Top 20 prospect in baseball.  With 5.5 seasons of Kjerstad as the headliner, the O's should be able to put together a strong package for 2.5 seasons of Skubal. 

[Bemorewins]

8 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

You may be right, but I just can't see Elias dealing Mayo for Skubal.  Kjerstad is no slouch as a Top 20 prospect in baseball.  With 5.5 seasons of Kjerstad as the headliner, the O's should be able to put together a strong package for 2.5 seasons of Skubal. 

Kjerstad who is already in his prime at age 25 headlining a trade for one of the best starting pitcher’s in baseball?

You don’t think anyone else will beat that kind of offer?

[joelala]

7 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

You may be right, but I just can't see Elias dealing Mayo for Skubal.  Kjerstad is no slouch as a Top 20 prospect in baseball.  With 5.5 seasons of Kjerstad as the headliner, the O's should be able to put together a strong package for 2.5 seasons of Skubal. 

Kjerstad has little defensive value and is older than your average top prospect. I think you’re over-estimating how much he’d fetch. Skubal would require Mayo+. 

[Greg Pappas]

3 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

Kjerstad who is already in his prime at age 25 headlining a trade for one of the best starting pitcher’s in baseball?

You don’t think anyone else will beat that kind of offer?

 

7 minutes ago, joelala said:

Kjerstad has little defensive value and is older than your average top prospect. I think you’re over-estimating how much he’d fetch. Skubal would require Mayo+. 

You both may be right.  Probably right, actually.  

[CaptainRedbeard]

1 hour ago, Bemorewins said:

It’s interesting to see how many of our fans are laughing at the “unrealistic expectations” of other fanbases. But then go on to pose similar trades where we get back top notch pitchers and don’t have to surrender comparable talent.

I guess there are some similarities/commonalities amongst all fanbases?

Crochet is a top notch pitcher with 2.5 years of control. It’s not unreasonable for the White Sox fans to say they want Mayo OR Basallo for him, but it’s hilarious to think he could get both, given he’s barely been a SP before this year and has massive injury and workload concerns. But Kjerstad, who is a top 25-50 prospect in his own right, is a fair headline piece for him rather than Mayo or Basallo, who are more around top 10 prospects. I don’t think the Orioles will agree to Mayo or Basallo for Crochet even though that’s undoubtedly who the White Sox want, but I do think they will consider Kjerstad. I will be surprised if any team offers a prospect better than Kjerstad to headline a deal for Crochet, although the White Sox may choose to hold him if they are holding out for a top 10-20 prospect.

Fedde is not a top notch pitcher. He’s a 31 year old who was pitching in the KBO last year and was freely available to every team this last offseason before signing a 2/15 deal. He’s pitched well but is a lower-K, ground ball type with mediocre stuff. A mid-rotation SP with 1.5 years of control remaining without a MLB track record to support his performance prior to this season. I don’t think he will get a top 100 prospect back, but he’ll get at least one solid prospect like Norby back, who in the past has made some top 100 lists and has hovered around “next best” lists since then. 

So Kjerstad is a fair main piece back for Crochet and Norby is a fair mean piece back for Norby. But it will require a number of other lesser but still good prospects to fill out a trade package as secondary/tertiary pieces. Hence the question. 

And Kopech of course is not more than a flier. He has a great arm but a 5.28 FIP and has never been able to find the strike zone in his whole career. 

[Sports Guy]

I would risk Kjerstad to get Crochet with the thought that we get crochet and he likely ends up in the pen soon..but that could still be worth it.

I just don’t know what I would put with Kjerstad and I doubt I would come up with a deal that works for Chicago.

I wouldn’t trade any of the top 3 straight up for Crochet.

[Greg Pappas]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I wouldn’t trade any of the top 3 straight up for Crochet.

Would you trade any one of them for Skubal straight up?

Edited Wednesday at 00:08 by Greg Pappas

[CaptainRedbeard]

21 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

Kjerstad who is already in his prime at age 25 headlining a trade for one of the best starting pitcher’s in baseball?

You don’t think anyone else will beat that kind of offer?

Skubal has a lot more trade value than Crochet given the far lesser (but still present) injury/workload concerns and a longer track record of this type of performance. He would definitely require Mayo or Basallo, and he’s one of the few guys in baseball where the Orioles shouldn’t hang up the phone when those names are mentioned.

However, I don’t think Kjerstad’s trade value is astronomically lower than Basallo and Mayo. He is 25 but he missed a lot of time due to COVID, myocarditis and a bad hamstring injury, all of which are no longer a concern and he hasn’t had any issues being durable since. He’s moved through the minors very quickly for the amount of time he’s been playing, particularly after his first season and getting himself physically back to where he was. Starting with his stint in the AFL that offseason he has torn the cover off the ball at every level and shot through the upper minors. He has a .300/.400/.600 line in AAA with 16 homers this year and has only been in AAA because of the depth of the MLB team. A 25 year old plug-and-play potential middle of the order bat with 6 years of control is pretty darn valuable.

If the Orioles trade Kjerstad at the deadline there’s a very good chance he’s the best prospect who gets traded this deadline. 

[Bemorewins]

3 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

Would you trade any one of them for Skubal straight up?

I would trade Mayo or Basallo plus for Skubal. IMO we have ways of future planning that can make one of those two redundant. 

I don’t see a credible way in the near future that we get a pitcher as good as Skubal. Also, I shudder to think about this team next season with the rotation as is minus Burnes. I don’t even think it is a playoff team. Maybe competing for one of the last Wild Card spots at best?

[CaptainRedbeard]

3 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

Would you trade any one of them for Skubal straight up?

If Skubal hadn’t had the injuries I’d trade Mayo or Basallo + more for him. But it’s hard to know how much to discount him for injury risk as a young hard thrower who has had the injuries he’s had. MLB teams I’m sure have much more sophisticated means of doing that than what is publicly available, and if those weren’t throwing up big red flags I’d probably do Mayo or Basallo even with the past injuries.

But I think it’s a moot point, even if the Tigers feel they’re going to be sellers and not buyers at the deadline this year they almost certainly will not be trading Skubal. I think they believe they are close to being contenders and aren’t going to entertain trading him yet. 

[Sports Guy]

18 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

Would you trade any one of them for Skubal straight up?

I’m not sure. Skubal also scares me with his injuries and I think you only have him for 2 more years. 

It’s really hard for me to find someone I would deal those guys for without any thought.

 

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, Greg Pappas said:

Would you trade any one of them for Skubal straight up?

Detroit wouldn't with the exception of Holliday.