This Rays-Brewers trade seemed to come out of nowhere; we so seldom see trades of major-league regulars such as Willy Adames before the start of July, and even more uncommon are contending teams trading away starting shortstops.
Adames’ breakout year in 2020 hasn’t carried over to this season, however, as he’s still striking out more than a third of the time and is swinging so far uphill that he’s hitting fly balls and popups at the highest rates of his career. He’s had a few more barrels, but all of the other indicators are flat or negative, and it’s quite likely the breakout in 2020 was a function of a smaller sample than anything else. Milwaukee still could see an upgrade here, adding Adames and reliever Trevor Richards for hard-throwing reliever Drew Rasmussen as well as right-hander J.P. Feyereisen.
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The Brewers have struggled at shortstop for a while now as first Orlando Arcía and more recently Luis Urías have failed to hit enough to hold down the spot — and Urías, who was always projected as a future second baseman while he was among the Padres’ top prospects, has been a disaster in the field as well. Adames might be a below-average regular, but he would probably still be worth a win over Urías for the rest of 2021, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Urías hit a little better if he’s no longer trying to play a position that’s beyond his capabilities. He has hit lefties in his big-league career so far, with a .315/.364/.465 line, and even if that comes down a little as the sample improves, he’d be a perfect platoonmate for Kolten Wong.
Of course, the biggest news of this trade was that the Rays didn’t recall shortstop Wander Franco, the No. 1 prospect in baseball who is hitting .281/.329/.516 so far as a 20-year-old for Triple-A Durham. This was mildly surprising, but their choice to recall shortstop Taylor Walls instead is probably the more logical baseball move in the short term. Walls is 24 and a plus defender at short whose bat looked like it might be a little light for everyday duty on a championship-caliber team, but he has posted high contact rates ever since he signed as a third-rounder in 2017, and was off to a .327/.468/.490 start for Durham, striking out more (29 percent, but who isn’t striking out that much at this point?) but making more hard contact. He has a compact swing on both sides of the plate without much of a load but with good bat speed and enough strength to make solid contact, projecting to hit for some average but probably grade 40 power.
With Walls’ defense, he doesn’t have to hit that much to be a solid regular and he gives the Rays more time to figure out where to put Franco and Vidal Brujan later this year. Brandon Lowe is off to a slow start, but I’d bet on his bat over Joey Wendle’s for the rest of this year, given their track records. The Rays could also move Lowe to right field, pushing Manuel Margot to fourth outfielder status, freeing up second base for one of their two star prospects still with Durham. They could also push Yandy Diaz, who gets on base but has lost all his power with two homers in his past 77 games (2020 and 2021 so far), to a platoon role to try to create more at-bats for Franco and/or Brujan. It’s an embarrassment of infield riches, to be sure, but eventually those two kids will need to play in the majors to continue their development.
Of the three relievers involved in the trade, the most interesting one is Rasmussen, not in the least because he is now heading to the team that drafted him No. 31 overall in 2017 and didn’t sign him when he flunked his post-draft physical. (Rasmussen is one of the most egregious examples of a college coach overusing a pitcher in the past five years; he had Tommy John surgery in spring 2016, was back on the mound in games barely 12 months later so Oregon State coach Pat Casey threw him right back in the rotation for outings of up to 84 pitches at a point where most MLB pitchers would still be rehabbing. After the Rays declined to sign him, Rasmussen required a second Tommy John surgery that fall.)
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Rasmussen can show two plus pitches in an upper-90s four-seamer and a power slider with huge vertical break, and if he just throws both pitches for strikes a little more often — he’s at 62.4 percent on the fastball this year, 56.5 percent on the slider — he could be an elite, high-leverage bullpen arm. Right-hander Richards gives the Brewers a depth starter/swingman option, and Feyereisen is probably just a middle reliever but at least has three pitches to be able to pitch to hitters on both sides of the plate.
(Photo of Willy Adames: Douglas P. DeFelice / Getty Images)
