The Phillies are in a unique position this trade deadline. Young talent they’re leaning on, like Maikel Franco and Vince Velasquez, haven’t supported them. Veterans they brought in to stabilize the roster and perhaps become trade chips for this very moment have faltered, too, leaving them to fall without grace to baseball’s basement.
And then there’s Pat Neshek, journeyman side-armer. He offers one of the brightest glimmers of hope they have. Not only do they need to trade him -- he was recently ranked the 3rd most valuable trade chip by MLB Trade Rumors -- but it can’t be for whatever they can get simply because he’s set to be a free agent. Shutdown relievers matter too much as the season goes on to get anything less than a top 50 prospect.
Neshek has been one of the best in the game this year by fWAR. And look at all the guys ahead of him -- the only one likely to be moved already has been, with Tommy Kahnle going from Chicago to New York. (Kahnle’s old teammate, Anthony Swarzak, hasn’t been mentioned much in rumors to this point.) And what did Kahnle help fetch for the White Sox? Blake Rutherford, the fourth-best Yankees prospect and 49th-best in baseball, according to Baseball Prospectus.
It’s not just about Kahnle, who was a part of a larger deal, though. Look at last year. Cleveland traded Clint Frazier to the Yankees for Andrew Miller. At the time, BP felt Frazier was the 26th best prospect in baseball. He’s already making an impact in the Yankee outfield.
A week before moving Miller, the Yankees traded Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs for Gleyber Torres. Torres was ranked by BP as the 36th best prospect in baseball. The Chapman trade is particularly relevant to Neshek’s case because Chapman, too, was slated for free agency after the season.
Neshek does not have the track record of either pitcher in these deals or the control of Miller, but it’s not necessarily about those things right now. It’s about “what have you done for me lately?” And Neshek has locked down the opposition this year about as well as one could want.
The Yankees didn’t just catch desperate clubs in these deals, either, even though that argument could probably be made and supported in favor of the Phillies’ trade landscape. They also showed that they’d buy at a price similar to what they sold for when they acquired Kahnle and company.
The question now for the Phillies is who might be looking to boost their World Series hopes with a relief ace like Neshek? Five Thirty Eight’s Neil Paine just published the site’s trade deadline guide, using what he and Nate Silver created and call the Doyle Number. It ranks all teams and categorizes them into Solid Buyers, Cautious Buyers, and Sellers. A score of 1 means the team might want to hold; higher means they should consider buying and lower means they should probably be selling.
Focusing on the Solid Buyers gives the Phillies five potential suitors for Neshek: the Dodgers, Astros, Nationals, Red Sox, and Indians. Every other team has at least one reason to hold back on making a move for Neshek despite his dominance in 2017, be it the context in which they currently sit or their general nature.
Combined, these teams have 11 prospects in BP’s Midseason Top 50. Now, remember, the highest ranked prospect in any of the trades mentioned above was Clint Frazier, at 26. That means we can probably cut half the list, unless Washington gets really desperate to continue improving their bullpen.
The Dodgers front office might be considered too smart to deal a long-term asset for a short-term acquisition, but maybe not. Their system is stacked beyond the players on this list and postseason success has been elusive for them. They might mimic the Cubs of this year, in that they’re a dominant force looking for a topper to round out the roster.
Maybe Cleveland lets the sting of last year’s 3-1 lead over the Cubs in the World Series and failure to seal the deal get under their skin, and they pull the trigger on another deal for a relief ace. Boston might not want to give up on the pitcher they drafted at 12th overall just a year ago, but they could be compelled by the Yankees having just pulled the rug from under them in their trade with the White Sox.
And then there’s Houston, who is pacing the Dodgers in the AL. And, like LA, they have a stacked system that could afford the risk of dealing for an older, uncontrolled asset like Neshek. Derek Fisher didn’t place on BP’s midseason list but he’s still a top prospect. He hasn’t worked his way into the Astros lineup despite mashing in AAA and could make sense for both teams.
These might not be the only options the Phillies have, but they might also be the best ones, based on consensus and recent history. A top young talent from the outside could provide the next step forward that their in-house players haven’t been able to provide this year.
Even if they have to add to Neshek, they have to find a way to get a deal done. Settling for anything less than a top 50 prospect would be another underwhelming moment in season that’s had far too many.
The All-Star Break brings a chance to reflect on what’s happened so far this season. For me, that means going back to examine a series of offseason pieces on various players. It’s fun to see what I might have been right or wrong about.
The first such piece was on Jimmy Nelson. This one checks in on Jaime Garcia, on whom the Braves reasonably gambled by giving up three lower ranked prospects. I felt that if he could get on pace to be worth three-ish wins that Atlanta could flip him at the deadline for better prospects than they gave up.
But to do that I thought he’d need to do something about the movement of his slider, which had become a sweeping, lateral thing. I also thought he could benefit by closing the velocity gap between that and his sinker. Certain findings didn’t bear that out for pitchers overall, but I still felt it could help Garcia, in particular, given the way his offerings moved on hitters and considering the same gap in his most successful seasons. Before we get to that, it’s worth digging into his contact profile this year, compared to last year.
Overall, Garcia is generating more swings while hitters are making less contact. The numbers aren’t eye-popping but they’re enough that they should be contributing to a difference. His 11.6% swinging strike rate is 17th in the majors right now, and he’s inducing more soft contact than he has since 2011.
And yet, Garcia is putting up an ERA almost identical to last year and an xFIP that’s half a run-per-nine worse. He’s striking out less and walking more. He’s been worth less than one win and is on pace for just under two for the season.
The movement here, per Brooks Baseball, tells us two things: the horizontal run on the ball is moving in on righties and away from lefties slightly less than it did last year, and the vertical drop on the ball is even less. It’s actually performing like a cutter.
The velocity on Garcia’s slider is slightly up this year, and the gap between that and his sinker is just shy of 9 miles per hour. Compared to last year, it’s decreased by about a half mile per hour -- not a lot. Combine it with less bite and we can see how he’s inducing more soft contact, but also how it simply might not be strong enough to bring down his ability to prevent runs.
Despite this, I could still see teams taking a chance on acquiring Garcia at the deadline. The whiffs are up and he’s not getting knocked around a ton overall, even after a rough go in his last handful of starts.
Atlanta will have to make a decision in the next couple weeks. Do they want to try to extend a league average but experienced starter for their young staff, or do they want to try to upgrade on the prospects they gave up for him in the winter? Given the value of a league average starter in the current run-crazy environment, I could see them holding out for a prospect overpay.
Stating exactly what Luis Severino would be at the start of the season was a puzzle. He flashed such different versions of himself over the previous two years that there was no telling if he’d stick in the rotation or be relegated to the bullpen, whether because of his own lacking presence or a less deniable one amongst other in-house competition. But after six starts, he’s given us -- and the Yankees -- an emphatic answer.
Luis Severino is a starter. And maybe more.
We’re at the point where the basis for these numbers has largely become reliable for what we could expect moving forward. There are a couple key components. Austin Yamada explains how two-plane movement in Severino’s slider has been giving hitters fits. Matthew Mocarsky forecasted at the season’s start that Severino’s changeup could be critical to balancing his line drives and grounders, which is exactly what’s happened.
Pitches are rarely distributed dead equally. Acknowledging each one’s weighted value as if they were can provide a solid picture of just how much impact a certain pitch is having in a guy’s repertoire. And for Severino, his changeup has been crucial.
The caveat with weighted pitch values is how the amount thrown directly dictates how often a hitter has the chance to knock it around. Severino hasn’t thrown a ton of changeups and that certainly contributes to the offering’s weighted value. But the numbers suggest that when he has thrown it, he’s paced play with it.
We could wonder what would happen if he started throwing it just a little more and his fastball just a little less, but let’s zoom out. Let’s regard what Luis Severino is showing us in 2017 as his first well-planted foot in the majors. He’s already shown he can make adjustments, so let’s also consider he’s got one or two more in him that elevate his game.
What would that mean for the Yankees?
Severino could represent a home-grown anchor in their rotation and that’s something they haven’t had in a long time. Chien-Ming Wang’s best work was a flash in the pan that wasn’t completely supported by his peripherals. Andy Pettitte was more impressive for his steadiness than his dominance. And before that? You’re going back to at least the 70s.
It would be interesting to see how the Yankees would approach Severino’s contract if he continues on his current course. They haven’t really been in a position to sign a young star to a sweetheart deal like, say, the Rays. They also have the financial wherewithal to not feel such pressure.
But the fact remains that he could be more important than any other player in their young core, and how they decide to go about keeping him in New York could have sizable implications for the franchise.
We can say it’s only six weeks into the 2017 season but Luis Severino is a big reason the Yankees have one of the best pitching staffs in baseball. And he’s a big reason it could stay that good, too.
