The Braves have been extremely active this offseason acquiring several under-the-radar pieces which may make them more competitive in their new ballpark until the vanguard of their cadre of pitching prospects arrives on the scene. The Cardinals have a surplus of veteran pitchers with several prospects trying to kick the door down, so they traded the talented, but oft-injured Garcia to the Braves for 3 prospects.
Garcia's ERA ballooned last year after a stellar 2015. The culprit seems to be an unusually high HR/FB which may or may not regress in 2017.
10-13, 4.67, 171.2 IP, 2.99 BB/9, 7.86 K/9, 56.7 GB%, 20.2 HR/FB.
Garcia, Bartolo Colon and RA Dickey will round out a Braves rotation with Julio Tehran and Mike Foltynewicz. Look for the 3 vets to be trade bait in July.
The Cardinals get...
RHP John Gant: 1-4, 4.86, 50 IP, 3.78 BB/9, 8.82 K/9.
RHP Chris Ellis(AAA): 4-7, 6.52, 67.2 IP, 6.92 BB/9, 8.65 K/9.
2B Luke Dykstra(A): .304/.332/.363, 17 2B, 1 3B, 0 HR, 7 SB, 1.8 BB%, 9.1 K%.
Gant may be a long man out of the bullpen for the Cardinals. Chris Ellis has some upside if he can ever cut the walks down. The Cardinals will try to fix that. Dykstra is the most interesting prospect here. He is the son of Lenny. As you can see, Luke is an extreme contact hitter with no power, zero. He doesn't even hit many doubles! Hey, a few players have made MLB careers out of that profile. Matty Alou seems to the the top comp I could find. He just has to keep on hitting .300 all the way to the majors. I'm thinking the Cardinals see him as a player who with some work can eventually turn into something like Matt Carpenter.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I like the trade for the Cards. They have a lot of arms competing for those 5 slots and Garcia was probably 7th, or possibly 8th, on the list of potential starters. Plus, as an organization, they were weak in relief prospects and bringing in a couple could only help. Last, they may end up needing to replace Wong at 2B in the near future as he's become a head-case in the batters box.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit of a gamble for the Braves, but it could work out for them too. I agree that Garcia was only blocking the future for the Cardinals. Alex Reyes and Luke Weaver are the #6 and 7 starters for them even after the trade.
Delete