The Rays — unexpectedly — just completed a three team trade of Wil Myers and Ryan Hanigan with the San Diego Padres and Washington Nationals. The deal is pending physicals of all the players involved, and final confirmation from the Rays.
Padres, Rays, Nationals Agree To Three-Team Trade http://t.co/kvayqzkKJv
— MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) December 17, 2014
#Rays deal in place, per medicals, players being notified. Keys: Myers + Hanigan to #Padres, get Souza from #Nats, Rivera plus from #Padres
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) December 17, 2014
Per a tweet from Ken Rosenthal, SS Trea Turner (SD) and RHP Joe Ross (SD) are headed to the Nationals, OF Wil Myers (TB), C Ryan Hanigan (TB), and C Jose Castillo (TB) are headed to the Padres, and OF Steven Souza (WA), LHP Travis Ott (WA), C Rene Rivera (SD), RHP Burch Smith (SD), and 1B Jake Bauers (SD) are headed to the Rays*. (Players previous teams are in parenthesis) Overall, the Rays are netting five players for two big leaguers and a minor league prospect (Castillo) who, incidentally, received an honorable mention in Keith Law’s top-ten prospects piece last season.
The immediate reaction: the team flipped Myers for Souza and Hanigan for Rivera, allowing the Rays to wipe $8M off the books — Hanigan was to earn $3.5M in 2015 and $3.7M 2016, and his contract also boasted an $800K buyout on his $3.75M option for 2017. Furthermore, the Padres are giving the Rays two decent prospects with major league trajectories, while the Nationals are handing over a player in Souza who projects to be a top hitting prospect. For the detractors of the deal, there really isn’t a certainty that Myers would bounce back from his down year, something Marc Topkin touched on previously,
…Some combination of concern over his ability to reach his potential and a sense of maximizing his remaining value to restock their system with premium prospects led them to at least strongly consider doing just that, potentially continuing what has been an extensive remake of the roster under new baseball operations president Matt Silverman. …Teams always know their own players best, so if the Rays are willing to move Myers – as it certainly seems – there must be some questions, whether talent, health, work ethic, consistency, potential.
Still, the three-team trade has its share of pitfalls. Minus the obvious — that Tampa Bay dealt the centerpiece of the James Shields/Wade Davis trade, and the catcher who was thought to be the Rays catcher of the near-future — Souza hasn’t quite passed the seeing-eye test, while there’s the question whether the 31 year-old Rivera (a career .228 BA/.279 OBP/.358 SLG/.587 OPS hitter) can repeat his big 2014 season. Without fully analyzing the deal**, this trade tends to leave an immediate bitter taste in the mouth.
I can’t help but wonder how this will help the team in the here and now? The Rays, who were strapped for a backup catcher and a productive bat previous to Wednesday afternoon’s deal, are now potentially down a full-time catcher and two big bats. While the Silverman/Bloom/Neander brain-trust is doing what Friedman wouldn’t dare, there’s an impetuous anxiety inside revolving around one simple question: When will Silverman acquire players who will bolster the lineup? The elephant in the room begs to be acknowledged and answered.
Noteworthiness
- Your tweet of the day:
New #Rays 1B prospect RT @JakeBauers11: Hey hey Tampa Bay!”
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) December 17, 2014
* The Rays may include a second minor leaguer. If so, Gerardo Reyes would go as well.
** Expect lots of analysis to follow.