Hill, Rich ($15)
2020 Draft Pick, Round 3 (Capital City Income)
Senior Squids trades away
Gattis, Evan ($9)
2020 Draft Pick, Round 2 (Senior Squids
Hustle’s $.02
From a value standpoint. I think the trade is pretty even. Rich Hill clearly is the more risk reward player here and probably warrants the pick upgrade. This pick upgrade is for 2020 so it could be an upgrade of one pick or as many as 32. I’m going to guess in between.
For Bailey: I understand the appeal. He has some pitcher depth (after acquiring Happ/Vargas) and having a capable 2nd catcher is very useful in this league. Currently he has Martin as his guy, and that’s likely not to change on most nights. Catchers get hurt, and Gattis is a huge upgrade to anything he could get on the wire. It’s also useful for those days Martin just won’t play. It was about 2.5 months ago when Bailey traded away a 3rd rounder (essentially), Chris Carter, and Grichuk for Hill. Grichuk has been worthless and won’t be kept and Chris Carter has been a sparingly useful 1b/UTIl (5 pph) on the last place team. So he’s played musical chairs with some assets and ended up with a very nice backup catcher. If Rich Hill does get it going, this may look foolish with the current pitching landscape. I’d say on the surface this looks like Bailey selling high after one of Hill’s best starts, but it’s not like the sell-high netted too much.
Bailey’s Rating: 
/5 Sticks
For Elton: We’ll find out pretty soon how this deal goes, because Rich Hill is the only real factor here. I think he’s going to either be a very good-great pitcher averaging close to or over 30 ppg or he’s going to continue to implode and the Dodgers will give him less starts and perhaps put him in the pen. He’s basically either a $30-40 pitcher or a $0 one. The Dodgers paid him, so he’ll get his chance, but there are some red flags in healthy, age, some diminished stuff, and the Dodgers have a plethora of options.
In a year where pitching is so difficult is the answer to just get more bullets or just strengthening your hitting and hope for the best on pitching? Squids is clearly doing the former.
The catcher isn’t so much a need for Squids because he has Zunino and Gary Sanchez. For me, this is a low risk “I’m going for it” deal. At 5-7 Squids chances at playoffs are losing steam each week so he needs to do something now and pitching is his biggest need. If he thinks he can do it, then I really like this deal for him. If he doesn’t make playoffs and Rich Hill is a pumpkin, then he loses a trade chip in Gattis, but hardly a significant one.
Squids Ratings Rating 
/ 5 Sticks