Grading how recent Rangers’ trades have worked out — for the other teams

Jamey is a lifelong Rangers fan who has been blogging for nearly 20 years at newbergreport.com and traces his fandom back to the days of Bump Wills, Bert Blyleven, and the powder blues.

On Thursday, we dug into some of the Rangers’ player moves (and non-moves) over the last decade or so that haven’t worked out.  But some of those haven’t exactly panned out on the other end, either.

To be fair, you can’t judge the trade of a prospect without looking at both sides of the deal.  Take these four examples:

• July 31, 2007: Texas trades first baseman Mark Teixeira and lefthander Ron Mahay to Atlanta for big league rookie catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, High-A shortstop Elvis Andrus, rookie-level righthander Neftali Feliz, AA lefthander Matt Harrison, and Low-A lefthander Beau Jones.
• July 9, 2010: Seattle trades lefthander Cliff Lee and righthander Mark Lowe to Texas for big league rookie first baseman Justin Smoak, AA righthanders Blake Beavan and Josh Lueke, and AA infielder Matt Lawson.
• July 17, 1993: Florida trades righthander Cris Carpenter to Texas for AAA righthander Robb Nen and AA righthander Kurt Miller
• January 14, 2002: Texas trades big-league rookie first baseman Carlos Pena and lefthander Mike Venafro to Oakland for AA lefthander Mario Ramos, High Class A catcher Gerald Laird, AA outfielder Ryan Ludwick, and AAA first baseman Jason Hart

And a fifth trade:

• August 1, 2016: Texas trades AA outfielders Lewis Brinson and Ryan Cordell and AA righthander Luis Ortiz to Milwaukee for catcher Jonathan Lucroy and righthander Jeremy Jeffress

The Teixeira trade was productive for both sides.  Atlanta got a 1.020 OPS out of Teixeira down the stretch that summer and traded him the following July, at a time when his OPS was .902. Of course, the Rangers got a haul of young talent in return.

The Lee deal worked tremendously for Texas.  It did not for the Mariners, as none of the four players they received met expectations — including Smoak, whom they eventually waived before he figured things out with Toronto.

The Carpenter deal was the opposite for the Rangers, as the veteran flopped — Carpenter famously admitted he didn’t feel like closing games in Texas, having worked in middle relief for the Marlins — and Nen went on save more than 300 Major League games.

The Rangers-A’s deal, one of Grady Fuson’s first moves after arriving from Oakland as the Rangers’ new Assistant GM, didn’t live up to hopes on either side.

The Rangers’ 2016 trade with the Brewers is instructive, not because it was a win-win (Teixeira) or a win-lose (Lee) or a lose-win (Carpenter) or a lose-lose (Pena).  It’s too soon to really know which category it’s part of.  But the deal is worth looking at because of its opportunity cost.

Had Texas not moved Brinson or Ortiz in that deal, they might have stayed here and developed into players of need — or they might have been available to use in other trades.  Milwaukee flipped Brinson at the top of a trade package four months ago to get Marlins outfielder Christian Yelich, who is now part of the core of a Brewers club whose window is wide open.

With that, here’s a look at what has happened with the prospects the Rangers moved near the trade deadline since the World Series years in an effort to get back there — some of whom they’d surely like to be able to go to battle with now, others of whom they might have moved at just the right time, and still others who, if still here, might have been useful in other deals going forward.

• July 31, 2012: Kyle Hendricks and Christian Villanueva to the Cubs for Ryan Dempster

Hendricks has obviously blown by whatever Chicago dreamed it might be getting.  Neither team had anything close to this type of ceiling on him.  As for Villanueva, he’s sort of following the Smoak path on a lesser level.  In three seasons in AA and AAA with the Cubs, he hit for moderate power but not much else, and they let him go as a minor league free agent after the 2016 season.  The Padres signed him, and after one season in AAA with a cup of coffee in San Diego, he made the club this year and has been a bit of a revelation, hitting 11 home runs in 38 games.  Chances are that he would have reached free agency here as well; if the Cubs had any real opportunities to trade him, they would have.

• July 31, 2012: Jake Brigham and future considerations to the Cubs for Geovany Soto

Brigham made only two AA appearances for Chicago before getting hurt, and he was returned after the season to Texas for fellow righthander Barret Loux.  After another year in the Rangers system, Brigham joined Pittsburgh (2014) and then Atlanta (2015), for whom he made a dozen mid-season appearances before moving on to Japan (2016) and Korea (2017-18).  Loux, a former Diamondbacks first-rounder, spent 2013 and 2015 in AAA with the Cubs, missing 2014 due to Tommy John surgery.  He spent 2016 in the independent leagues and hasn’t pitched since.

• July 22, 2013: C.J. Edwards, Justin Grimm, Neil Ramirez, and Mike Olt to the Cubs for Matt Garza

Grimm had several very good, durable years in middle relief for Chicago.  He was released during spring training this year and signed with the Royals, who recently sent him out on a rehab assignment as he recovers from lower back stiffness.  Ramirez was tremendous in his big league debut with Chicago in 2014, posting a 1.44 ERA in 50 middle relief appearances.  Shoulder and abdominal issues dogged him in 2015, and he was DFA’d in 2016 . . . three times (Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minnesota).  And three more times in 2017 (San Francisco, Toronto, and the Mets).  After a brief stint in Washington’s system late in 2017, Ramirez joined the Indians this year and was just summoned to the big leagues.  Olt struggled in a couple of big-league looks with the Cubs and has since moved on to the White Sox, Padres, and Red Sox, where he is now splitting AAA time between first base, third base, and DH.  Edwards is a beast.

• August 9, 2013: Leury Garcia to the White Sox for Alex Rios

Garcia, now 27, has carved out a niche career playing all over the infield and outfield for the White Sox, not hitting much (.236/.278/.343) but making himself close to an everyday player the last two seasons for bad teams.

• July 31, 2015: Jorge Alfaro, Jerad Eickhoff, Nick Williams, Jake Thompson, Alec Asher, and Matt Harrison to the Phillies for Cole Hamels and Jake Diekman

This one has been moving in the direction of the Teixeira trade — on both sides  — but it’s not there yet.  Atlanta got plenty out of Teixeira but didn’t win with him — and it came at a steep price.  Hamels has been durable for the most part, logging 200 innings in his first full season with the club — and is on pace to do the same this year.  Diekman has been better in Texas than he was in Philadelphia.  Alfaro has flashed power and wowed on defense, but was hitting .216 until getting hot last week and has struck out in nearly half his at-bats.  He’s out of options, so this is go time, regardless.  Eickhoff established himself in the Phillies rotation before back and hand injuries cut into his 2017 season, and a right lat strain has had him sidelined all year in 2018.  Williams had an eye-opening debut last summer (.811 OPS) and has been less productive in a less consistent role this year.  Thompson has bounced repeatedly between AAA and the big leagues the last three seasons, so far failing to find a rhythm in any one stop.  Asher has been dumped by the Phillies, Orioles, and Dodgers, and now toils for the Brewers in AAA.  Harrison never pitched for Philadelphia.  The Phillies haven’t yet received what they expected out of this deal, but it’s early.  As for the Rangers, who can’t complain about the production they’ve received from their two lefties, it will be interesting to see whether they turn Hamels and Diekman this summer into more than the Casey Kotchman/Stephen Marek return the Braves got for Teixeira from the Angels . . . who then turned the compensatory pick they got from the Yankees for the loss of Teixeira into a New Jersey high school kid named Mike Trout.

• July 31, 2015: Cody Ege and Tomas Telis to the Marlins for Sam Dyson

Ege, a situational lefty, briefly reached the big leagues with Miami in 2016, and then with the Angels when the Marlins placed him on waivers that August.  He got roughed up in AAA for the Angels in 2017 and doesn’t appear to have a team in 2018.  Telis has split each of the last three seasons between AAA and the big leagues with the Marlins.

• August 7, 2015: Player to be named later or cash to the Red Sox for Mike Napoli

I’m pretty sure this turned out just to be cash considerations.  Napoli, who was struggling that summer for Boston (.693 OPS), was tremendous for the Rangers down the stretch (.295/.396/.513) as they erased a nine-game deficit in July to win the division.

• August 18, 2015: Jon Edwards and Marcus Greene to the Padres for Will Venable

Edwards, a tremendous outfielder-to-pitcher find by the Rangers out of the independent leagues, made 11 big league appearances for the Padres that summer and then missed the 2016 season with an elbow injury, making one rehab appearance in Class A in June before being shut down again.  He hasn’t pitched since.  The catcher Greene has played at two Class A levels with the Padres in the three seasons since the deal.

• July 27, 2016: Travis Demeritte to the Braves for Dario Alvarez and Lucas Harrell

Demeritte, the former late first-round pick, has spent 2017 and 2018 in AA with the Braves and is a .232/.313/.400 hitter at that level.  Atlanta left him off its 40-man roster this winter and he went undrafted.

• August 1, 2016: Dillon Tate, Erik Swanson, and Nick Green to the Yankees for Carlos Beltran

Strangely, this one has the chance to hurt as much as any of them.  Tate, who was a major disappointment in his first full season after Texas made him the fourth overall pick in the 2015 draft, had a 5.12 ERA and .310/.392/.448 slash line against Low-A hitters when the Rangers sent him to New York with Swanson and Green, the club’s seventh- and eighth-round picks in 2014.  Tate pitched sparingly the rest of the way in 2016, then re-established himself in 2017 — maybe not as what might be expected of the first pitcher taken in his draft, but as a legitimate prospect.  The hits and walks were down and his velocity was back up, and he went 7-2, 2.81 between High-A and Class AA.  Back in AA this year, he hasn’t been quite as consistent, but he’s back on the map.  The stunner has been Swanson, Tate’s rotation-mate at Trenton.  After Texas converted him from a reliever to a starter in 2016, the Yankees have kept him in that role, and thus far he’s gone 5-0, 0.44 in seven appearances this year, scattering 21 hits and 12 walks in 40.2 innings while fanning 52.  Green, who signed with Texas for just $5,000 out of Indian Hills Community College in Centerville, Iowa, is 4-1, 2.50 out of High Class A Tampa’s rotation, with more strikeouts than innings pitched.

• August 1, 2016: Lewis Brinson, Luis Ortiz, and Ryan Cordell to the Brewers for Jonathan Lucroy and Jeremy Jeffress

And here we are, back to the example we started with.  Brinson, a standout center fielder with a power/speed offensive profile, is hitting just .160/.208/.273 this year, striking out 53 times in 160 plate appearances.  Ortiz, at AA, hasn’t pitched in a month, sidelined with a hamstring injury.  Cordell missed half of 2017 with a back injury and is now out for two months with a broken collarbone.

But part of the lesson here is that prospects aren’t always players to put a big league jersey on.  Sometimes, their greatest value is in their marketability.  The Brewers flipped Cordell to the White Sox last summer for reliever Anthony Swarzak, who was exceptional (39 strikeouts and seven unintentional walks in 29 innings) in the Brewers’ valiant run at a playoff spot.  And they moved Brinson this winter as the headliner in a four-player package for Yelich and his five years of team control.  Brinson, Cordell, and Ortiz haven’t distinguished themselves, but by trading Lucroy and Jeffress, Milwaukee got a strong pennant-race run out of Swarzak — part of that club going for it in 2017 — and now has Yelich.  Brinson hasn’t been any more effective as a big leaguer than Ronald Guzman, Cordell is a question mark, and Ortiz will go onto the 40-man roster this winter. If he resumes pitching soon enough to earn 100 innings for the season, it will be his first time doing that.  But Milwaukee no longer has to evaluate the Lucroy trade based on how the prospects develop.

Could Alfaro turn into an Andrus-level fixture who impacts both sides of the ball and leads a run of contention for a young team, or will he be a Smoak- or Pena-type who doesn’t figure things out until he’s on his third team?

Or is he going to be Saltalamacchia, the flashy trade-headliner who ends up moving off the position, playing for seven clubs, each of which wants to believe they’ll be the one where he gets unlocked (but never does)?

What if Swanson turns into a Hendricks-like golden ticket?  Chances are better that he’ll find himself looking up at the 13 big league innings Ramos got.

Maybe Tate flashes greatness for a very long time like Nen.  Or in a short burst like Feliz.  Maybe he remains a starter and flashes a very brief spark of decent-ness like Beavan.

Or maybe Dillon Tate (4^th overall) is Kurt Miller (5^th overall).

Maybe, had Texas not parted with Eickhoff or Brinson, they’d be frontline fixtures here now.

Or maybe they’d be somewhere else, not Texas and not where they are now, each put into another trade that would have impacted this team differently from the way those two deals have.  Maybe better than the Hamels-Diekman-Lucroy-Jeffress returns they helped bring.  But maybe not.

Look over those 11 trades Jon Daniels has made in the July’s and August’s in contending years since 2011.  There are probably fewer impact losses — at least at this point — than it might have felt like at the time, or after the pennant races that prompted the deals fell short of a parade.  There’s a cost in going for it.  But that doesn’t always mean the seller gets to nap on a bed of Benjamins.

If this was a Dodgers column, maybe we’d ask, after three months of Yu Darvish that didn’t end well, how it’s going to feel if Willie Calhoun turns into a power/average monster like Travis Hafner (traded badly by Texas), and whether it will have been worth parting with A.J. Alexy if he goes out and wins 32 games in his first two full seasons in a big league rotation.

It’s not a Dodgers column, though.  It’s a Rangers column.  But to be fair when assessing the trades Daniels has made in the years he’s spent trying to help Texas get the World Series title that had narrowly eluded the club, you can’t view those deals merely Rangers-centrically.  It’s useful to see how things have worked out for the other guys, too.

EXIT VELO

• The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports that the Rangers “are telling clubs they are open to trades,” with Hamels “likely to be the most prominent Ranger moved.”  The goal for Texas, Rosenthal writes, as it eyes the opening of its new ballpark in 2020, is “to add young talent in preparation for that season and beyond.”
• Texas named its minor league award winners for April: Low-A Hickory (since-promoted to High-A Down East) catcher Melvin Novoa was the player of the month. Down East righthander Jonathan Hernandez was the pitcher of the month. AAA Round Rock (since promoted to the Rangers) lefthander Brandon Mann was honored among the relievers, and Down East outfielder Leody Taveras was the club’s outstanding defender.
• The Rangers signed veteran infielder Cliff Pennington to a contract with Round Rock.  The 33-year-old Corpus Christi and Texas A&M product has played for five big league clubs in 11 seasons.  The Express had been an experienced middle infielder short with Hanser Alberto’s return last week to the big leagues.
• AA Frisco infielder Luis Marte, in his eighth season with the organization, was released.  The defense-first 24-year-old never hit much, and more importantly, never found a way to get on base, drawing one walk for every 44 plate appearances, an exceptionally low rate.
  
  Photo courtesy of Walt Barnard