The Foundation trades away
- 2020 Draft Pick, Round 4 (Who’s Your Haddy?)
- Montas, Frankie $5
- Waters, Drew (prospect)
Who’s Your Haddy? trades away
- Sale, Chris $94
Jordan’s Thoughts
I mean its Chris Sale. He used April for Spring Training, and now he’s a top 5 pitcher again. Frankie Montas got caught doping, he won’t pitch again this year, at least in a Dynasty Grinders season window. For $5, based on his performance gain, Montas is a huge piece of this trade. He’s hard to lose. But, anytime with PEDs, there’s just a ton of questions that cloud the value.
Perhaps he comes back next season and he’s a top 10 pitcher at essentially no cost. Perhaps he comes back and he’s average. Who knows. He had value, but no longer had value to me for this year where I’m trying to win. Easy for me to move away from.
Being in the 6th spot in a 6 team playoff format, this kind of trade helps me hang on. Once you’re in the playoffs, in our head to head format, pitchers like Chris Sale can swing a playoff week for you. Who knows? He could help me make a run.
For Haddy’s, selling Sale makes enough sense. I’m guessing when he shopped Sale around he was hoping for a stronger market. Getting back Montas is fine. Drew Waters is a FV55 center fielder who in double-A is crushing the ball. His 152 wRC+ over 80 games trends well for the 20-year-old. Waters has been climbing prospect charts for a while now and shows no real signs of slowing down.
Overall, I love this trade for myself. Losing Montas and Waters is easily worth the gamble to hold on and solidify myself for a playoff run. Even if I miss the playoffs, Sale is keepable at whatever price tag. He’s just that consistently good.
BAILEY’s Thoughts
A lot of what I wrote about the Verlander trade applies here and I don’t want to go heavy negative again twice.
So having said that, predictably, yes, I like this for Jordan. When this deal first went down, I sort of assumed it’d be tough for Jordan to keep Chris Sale at $99 — but he’s probably gonna cost around $110 when all is said and done — but that’s not true. Andrew McCutchen coming off injury at $54 is an easy cut. Jose Quintana, who went for an inflated auction lack-of-pitching price and will be $60, is an easy cut. That right there is $114, which is Sale’s max value. Anyone in their right mind is trading McCutchen/Quintana for Sale, so sure. Obviously that doesn’t include raises, greed, or cost control arbitration, but it’s close enough to where Jordan can move around lesser, meaningless pieces and make it work. Like, you don’t keep a $28 Yasiel Puig if it means losing Sale. Ditto a $68 Corey Seager. So yeah, great deal for 2019 Jordan and beyond.
For Haddy, I’ll stay positive: I love Drew Waters. I picked him up last year and think he’s going to be really good. The Braves future outfield looks stacked. The 4th round pick is… literally nothing. I can’t be positive there.
The best part of this trade is Frankie Montas, who will be $7 pre-greed and while he’s risky, at least we’ve seen flashes of excellence at the major league level. Montas is the type of piece missing from so many of these rebuild deals, where teams seem hell bent on picks and prospects and blind to actual major league talent.
This year Montas pitched to a brilliant 2.90 FIP and 3.38 xFIP over 90 innings. And contrary to what Jordan wrote, I don’t feel like the PEDs are a big red flag over his performance. He added a splitter to his repertoire this year, giving him a fourth pitch, and it worked out great for him. PEDs won’t change that. In fact, for Haddy, the suspension is pretty great. He just gets to sit and rest his arm for three months. Yay.
To me, at 202 career IP and now that he’s got this new pitch, Montas is essentially still a prospect. He’s only 26 and pitchers take time. But unlike any other pitching prospect on a Top 100 list, he’s done stuff at the majors. There’s a track record here. He’s not a total dart throw. So for Haddy, I like the main piece coming back being one of immediate, somewhat proven fantasy relevance.
