Twins and Marlins Trade Seems Like a Win-Win

Issue #59

Some sort of trade had been rumored for a few days, and then yesterday it happened: the Twins have traded 2022 batting champion Luis Arráez to the Marlins for starting pitcher Pablo López. The Twins are also getting two prospects, infielder Jose Salas (No. 5 in the Marlins’ system) and 17-year-old outfielder Byron Chourio. For the purposes of this analysis, I’m going to ignore those two—no offense to them, but we won’t know their MLB value as players for a while. Even leaving them aside, this trade of Arráez for López is an interesting one.

From the Twins Perspective

The initial reaction I’ve seen from some Twins fans is dismay and a feeling that this was not a good deal for their side. I get that Arráez has become popular with many Minnesota fans, and yes he did just win the 2022 batting title with a .316 mark, five points higher than Aaron Judge which kept him from winning the AL Triple Crown as part of his epic 62-HR season.

Maybe Arráez will keep hitting over .300 for many years to come—certainly both his minor league and major league track record suggest that is likely. And maybe he'll even improve in one or more ways as a player—after all, he only turns 26 in April. The Twins had him through 2025, so it is tough to give up a young All-Star that you would otherwise have for at least three more seasons.

But it is also possible that Arráez is at or near his peak value already. Consider the following:

• Arráez is quite one-dimensional: his value mostly comes from his batting average. He has no power (14 HR in 389 games) and is not a base-stealer either (8 SB in 389 games). This was the same in the minors, so it seems unlikely to change. His career batting average is an impressive .314, so if he hit 15-20 HR a year or stole 25-30 bases a year, his overall value would be far higher. But how likely are either of those scenarios?

• He also doesn't walk a lot, with only 50 walks in 144 games last year. This was also true of his time in the minors. He has a career .374 OBP on top of his .314 average—if that were .410 or higher, then he’d again be much more valuable.

• The one-dimensional criticism extends to defense, where he isn’t bad but isn’t a standout either. The Twins have tried to get his bat into the lineup by playing him at 2B, 1B, 3B, and even 48 games in LF across four seasons. Last year he was in 38 games as a DH—short of a Bryce Harper injury type of situation, you don't get someone's bat into the game 38 times as a DH if they are a stellar fielder somewhere.

• He doesn't play every day. Why? Because he really doesn't hit lefties all that well. He only started 131 games last year—the year he won the batting title. He only started 110 games in 2021. This is partly because he has some of the most extreme L/R splits of anyone in the game:

  • .330 vs. RHP (including .330 in 2022)

  • .261 vs. LHP (including .266 in 2022)

• When he doesn't start, he's not much a pinch hitter for some reason. He has a career .240 average as a pinch-hitter, including going only 2-11 in that role in 2022.

While the Twins might have been thinking of trading Arráez for more pitching anyway, I think once the Correa saga brought Carlos back to Minnesota, the Twins found themselves with an abundance of infielders. With Nick Gordon’s even greater position versatility, and better power/speed combo potential, the Twins were looking at mostly playing Arráez as their DH in 2023. Here is how I currently see their most likely starting position players:

• C Christian Vazquez / Ryan Jeffers

• 1B Alex Kirilloff

• 2B Jorge Polanco

• SS Carlos Correa

• 3B Jose Miranda

• OF Joey Gallo, Byron Buxton, Max Kepler

• UT / Super-Sub… Nick Gordon

• DH… would have been mostly Arráez

With Arráez traded, they could use another bat—and there are options still available as free agents who would be low cost and either provide some power or some added position versatility. Or if Nick Gordon is going to now play every day, they can just rotate various guys at the DH spot to give them a break from playing the field.

Good and still-young starting pitching is expensive. Arráez, even with his batting title, is a one-dimensional, no-power, non-base-stealing, DH-and-utility guy. They might have made a mistake here, or they might have just traded him at the very peak of his value.

What the Twins wanted was a good starting pitcher, and I think they are getting that in Pablo López. He turns 27 in March, but doesn't have a lot of mileage on his arm with only one major league season of over 115 IP. Presumably they’ll have him for at least 2023 and 2024—unless they sign him to a longer-term deal now.

Don't be fooled by López’ 28-31 career record and 10-10 record last year. Beyond the fact that W-L records don’t really mean much, the Marlins have been pretty bad, so he is a better talent than his record indicates. His SO/9 ratio has been solid the past three years: 9.3, 10.1, an still 8.7 in 2022, the first year he worked a full season of 32 starts. And he limits both walks and hits allowed, as his WHIP was 1.167 last year.

And the simple fact is that the Twins could use another top-of-rotation starting pitcher. I see him slotting in behind Joe Ryan and Sonny Gray as a very strong #3, though he could end the year as the best starting pitcher on the staff. Their fourth and fifth starters look to be Tyler Mahle and Kenta Maeda, with Bailey Ober, Chris Paddack, Josh Winder, Louis Varland, and 22-year old Simeon Woods Richardson in the mix. This deal adding López at least helps the Twins compete in the relatively weak AL Central, but might also give them some pitching flexibility to trade a starter for whatever bullpen or positional needs arise during the season. Or, if they find themselves not competitive in 2023, they could deal a starter at the trade deadline.

From the Marlins Perspective

So given all that I just said above, why is this a good deal for the Marlins? I just detailed all the reasons that Arráez, while a good contact hitter (against righties), is a rather one-dimensional player who might have already reached his peak value. Well, everyone knows the Marlins’ strength is young starting pitching, so they could deal someone proven like López and just reload with the next young arms either already with the major league team or soon to arrive. This was especially true after they signed veteran free agent Johnny Cueto, who not only will slot in as the #2 in their rotation behind 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara, but can also help the other young pitchers on the team mature faster in their careers. Here are the six guys most likely to see starts for the Marlins in 2023, along with their ages:

• Sandy Alcantara (27)

• Johnny Cueto (37 in February)

• Jesús Luzardo (25)

• Edward Cabrera (25 in April)

• Braxton Garrett (25)

• Trevor Rogers (25)

They also have former top prospect Sixto Sanchez. He hasn’t pitched in two years due to right shoulder issues. He is still only 24 and showed a lot of promise rising in the minors from 2015-2019, before jumping from AA to the Majors for seven starts during the abbreviated 2020 season. That year he posted 33 K in 39 IP with a 3.46 ERA. If he has a strong spring training he could compete for the rotation or at least a roster spot.

As for their lineup, the acquisition of Arráez is helpful as it allows them to shift budding star Jazz Chisholm from 2B to CF. GM Kim Ng has described the thinking here, and Chisholm seems on board with it. Their starting position players would then seem to be lining up as:

• C Jacob Stallings / Nick Fortes

• 1B Garrett Cooper

• 2B Luis Arráez

• SS Joey Wendle

• 3B Jean Segura

• OF Bryan De La Cruz, Jazz Chisholm, Avisail Garcia (with 25-year old Jesús Sánchez as a fourth)

• UT / Super-Sub Jon Berti

• DH Jorge Soler

Jon Berti is versatile, having play 10+ games last year at 2B, 3B, SS, and LF. He is also, like Arráez in being pretty one-dimensional—in his case that one dimension being stealing bases, where he led the NL with 41 last year. He and Jorge Soler are both right handed hitters, and Soler in particular hits lefties better, so perhaps a platoon of sorts will arise between the three of them between 2B and DH.

Overall, the Marlins had depth in starting pitching and needed some help offensively. I think Arráez was a good fit for them in particular given his versatility, the better mix they now have between right-handed and left-handed hitters, and the fact that they were fourth last in all of baseball last year with a .230 batting average (and fourth last with a .294 OBP). They were second in stolen bases, so they are solid there. They could use more power in 2023 after being 7th worst in HR and 3rd worst in SLG last year—but I assume their hope is that getting full seasons from Soler and Garcia will help in that regard.

Two Final Interesting Tidbits

• Both Arráez and López are from Venezuela.

• It is admittedly rare for a player to be traded the year immediately after winning a batting title. The last time it happened also involved the Minnesota Twins, who dealt Rod Carew to the Angels after the 1978 season. That was very different of course, as Carew was 33 years old, and that was his seventh—and last—batting title. He would still hit .314 in his seven seasons for the Angels, but his speed and extra-base hit abilities declined quickly. 

Did you know? I wrote a book with the same title as this Substack newsletter / blog: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises. It was published in early 2019, by ACTA Sports, the publisher of the annual Bill James Handbook and other popular titles. You can learn more about it at www.NowTakingTheField.com, or buy directly at Amazon and other booksellers.