Pitching wins championships. It’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason: It’s true, and everyone knows it. It’s why the best available pitchers can cost such a premium at the trade deadline. So, what if there were a way for a team to improve its pitching staff without trading for a pitcher? It’s easier said than done, but the Red Sox and Rangers are hoping they pulled it off after acquiring new catchers to help them over the final two months of the season.
On Saturday evening, the Blue Jays sent long-time backstop Danny Jansen to the Red Sox in exchange for infield prospects Cutter Coffey and Eddinson Paulino and right-handed pitching prospect Gilberto Batista. A little over 24 hours later, the Tigers shipped off Carson Kelly to the Rangers for a pair of minor leaguers: catcher/first baseman Liam Hicks and right-hander Tyler Owens.
Jansen established himself as a talented defensive catcher during his rookie campaign in 2019, and he broke out as a hitter in ’21. From 2021-23, he was one of the better catchers in baseball – when he could stay on the field. During those three seasons, he hit 43 home runs in 228 games, producing an isolated power of .246 or higher every year. His 121 wRC+ in that time ranked sixth among primary catchers (min. 500 PA), trailing only Adley Rutschman, Mitch Garver, Will Smith, and Willson and William Contreras. What’s more, Jansen produced an above-average Fielding Run Value (FRV) all three seasons thanks to serviceable framing and some of the best blocking numbers in the game. Unfortunately, Jansen has spent time on the IL in each of the past four seasons, with ailments ranging from a trifecta of strained muscles (hamstring, oblique, and groin) to various fractures of his fingers and wrist. He has never come close to playing a full season, topping out at 384 plate appearances and 107 games played in 2019. Nevertheless, he ranked 10th among primary catchers with 6.1 WAR from 2021-23.
Thus, Jansen entered the 2024 season, his free agent walk year, in a strong position. Not yet 29 years old on Opening Day, he was one of the better all-around catchers in the league and could hit well enough to DH on days he wasn’t catching. All he had to do was stay healthy, and he could set himself up for a nice contract as the top catcher on the open market in the upcoming offseason. A fractured wrist in spring training was worrisome, but Jansen returned by mid-April looking stronger than ever. From April 16 to May 26, he hit 10 doubles and five home runs over 27 games, walking in 12.1% of his plate appearances, striking out just 14.1% of the time, and putting up a 179 wRC+. His .324 BABIP was bound to come down (his career average is .236), but he was whiffing at his lowest rate since his rookie season, and he was on pace for a career highs in xwOBA (.388) and xwOBACON (.413).
Then, all of a sudden, Jansen crumbled for the next two months. From May 27 to July 26, he slashed .134/.233/.188 in 35 games. With three doubles and a lone home run, he produced a .054 ISO and a 27 wRC+. As you might imagine, unsustainable results on balls in play were part of the problem (.165 BABIP), but it was more than just that. Across 129 PA, Jansen produced a .236 xwOBA and a .233 xwOBACON. His average exit velocity dropped by more than 3 mph, his hard-hit rate fell by more than 10%, and his barrel rate plummeted from 12.3% to 3.5%. Amid this dreadful stretch, his wRC+ on the season came down below 100. He was still worth 0.6 WAR for the Blue Jays in 62 games, thanks largely to the best blocking performance of his career (11 blocks above average, second in MLB), but his stock certainly fell at an inopportune time for both Jansen and Toronto. Even if he bounces back over the rest of the season, he has only two months left to restore his value; a slump like this may have cost him millions in free agency. As for the Jays, one of their best trade chips significantly reduced his stock just before the deadline. Nevertheless, the Blue Jays had no reason not to deal their secondary catcher. Right now, it seems likely that he would’ve accepted a qualifying offer if they were to offer him one — meaning they wouldn’t get a compensation pick if he rejected it and then signed elsewhere — and with Alejandro Kirk under contract through 2026, Toronto was unlikely to seek an extension with Jansen.
Similarly, this move makes perfect sense for the Red Sox, who are trying to improve their chances in 2024 without mortgaging their bright future. Most people thought Boston would be selling right now. If anything, we thought the team would be trading away one Jansen, not acquiring another. Yet, the Red Sox are close enough to a playoff spot that it would be borderline malpractice if chief baseball officer Craig Breslow did not try to improve the big league roster. With that in mind, Jansen is a great fit. He is a definite upgrade over former backup catcher Reese McGuire, and a defensive upgrade over starting catcher Connor Wong. Furthermore, with Wong in place, the Red Sox aren’t dead in the water if Jansen continues to slump. If he does bounce back, however, Boston will have one of the better catching tandems in the AL. Manager Alex Cora has also suggested he could occasionally have Wong play first or second base with Jansen behind the dish. Wong has been one of the worst defensive catchers in the league this year (-9 FRV), but he has hit much better (124 wRC+) than any of Boston’s other healthy options at first or second base. This could prove to be a beneficial setup for the Red Sox, at least until Triston Casas returns from the IL. In addition, Jansen can also take over for Masataka Yoshida as a DH against left-handed pitching, as he did in his Red Sox debut on Sunday, earning two hits and a walk against Yankees southpaw Carlos Rodón.
As for the prospects the Red Sox had to give up for Jansen, here’s what Eric Longenhagen wrote about the Blue Jays’ newest farmhands in his post on Boston’s top 47 prospects from the beginning of this month:
Eddinson Paulino, 3B (Blue Jays No. 24)
After a rough start to 2024, Paulino’s contact rates have rebounded back to his career norms, and though he’s still a little rough around the edges as a defender, he continues to project as a lefty-hitting utilityman. Paulino is well-rounded but lacks a plus tool. He swings hard for a guy his size but does so at the expense of contact, as it requires visible effort for him to take such big hacks. The bat speed Paulino produces and his swing’s uppercut path make him a dangerous hitter on the inner third of the zone, but he isn’t moving the barrel all over to do damage or anything like that. Paulino runs pretty well, and his athleticism and effort translates to defense, where he’s a rangy and flashy defender whose hands still need polish. Though he’s playing everywhere on the dirt except first base, third seems like his most comfortable spot. The Sox left Paulino off of their 40-man last offseason and it feels like a less than 50/50 shot that he gets added after this year. But given his profile (lefty hitting, well-rounded, versatile) and age, he projects to play a lower-impact part-time infield role eventually.
Cutter Coffey, SS (Blue Jays No. 25)
Coffey (who I preferred as a pitcher in high school) is having a fine start to his 2024 season, already doubling his career home run total in the season’s first half. He is still expanding the zone frequently enough to project that poor pitch recognition will mar his output as he climbs the minors, but for now Coffey is performing in a well-rounded fashion, having maintained a 22.5% K% in full-season ball the last two years. Coffey’s short levers allow him to have a bit of a scooping bat path, the type that tends to pull mistake breaking balls but drive most fastballs to the opposite field. His hitting hands are fairly explosive and generate something approaching average big league raw power right now. Coffey has filled out in pro ball and likely doesn’t have much power projection remaining, but the juice he has now makes him dangerous enough to be a prospect despite his looming chase issues.
Coffey’s defense is still a mixed bag. His hands (and, increasingly, his range) aren’t great, but his arm and actions are. He’s mostly playing a mix of third base (where hotshot grounders are often too much for him) and shortstop (where his range may end up being an issue). He’s great operating around the second base bag and is capable of making long throws from behind third, with flashes of big league ability and flubs in equal measure. Coffey has a utility infielder projection so long as he can maintain the range to play short. If he can’t, then he’s more comparable to someone like Daniel Robertson
Batista, the final prospect in the deal, was not included on our latest Red Sox top prospects list, though Eric describes him as an honorable mention type. The 19-year-old right-hander is a sinker-slider pitcher who sits 91-93 on his fastball; his breaking ball velocity ranges all the way from 82-90 mph. He throws with an unorthodox arm angle, but a bad delivery and poor extension limit his ceiling right now. He spent the past two months pitching in the Florida Complex League.
Like Jansen, Kelly has spent a significant amount of time on the injured list since the 2021 season. On the field, however, his recent career trajectory has been almost the polar opposite. After a couple of solid seasons with the Diamondbacks in 2019 and ’21, Kelly struggled tremendously in ’22 and ’23, putting up a 69 wRC+ and 0.7 WAR across 156 games during that span. The D-backs eventually released him last summer, and while he latched on with the Tigers soon after, he hit just as badly with Detroit over the final two months of the 2023 season.
Kelly continued to flounder to kick off the 2024 campaign, putting up a .176/.236/.255 slash line with a 40 wRC+ over his first 20 games. Since then, however, he is slashing .266/.358/.445 with six home runs and a 129 wRC+ across 40 games. His .295 BABIP over that stretch is notably higher than his .256 career mark, and he is outperforming his xwOBA by about 20 points. Still, his .333 xwOBA on the season is comfortably higher than league average (.317). Moreover, his 44.6% hard-hit rate is easily the best of his career, and his 19.7% strikeout rate is his lowest since his early-career tenure with the Cardinals backing up Yadier Molina. His 29.3% squared-up rate on swings would rank in the 81st percentile if he had enough swings to qualify on Baseball Savant. No one is going to confuse Kelly for an impact bat, but he is putting up more-than-acceptable numbers for a catcher – especially a catcher with defensive metrics that are consistently above average. And to that point, Kelly is also putting up some of the best defensive numbers of his career. In his age-29 season, he ranks in the 90th percentile in blocks above average and the 89th percentile in caught stealing above average; he’s also 15th among catchers in framing runs (FRM). With a 105 wRC+ and 4 FRV on the year, he is on pace for a new career high in WAR, as long as he plays semi-regularly for the Rangers down the stretch.
The Rangers led the American League in catching WAR last season, thanks largely to the tandem of Gold Glover Jonah Heim and DH/occasional catcher Mitch Garver. This year, on the other hand, the Rangers rank 26th with 0.0 WAR from the catcher position. Heim has taken a huge step back after his breakout season, going from an above-average offensive catcher (103 wRC+) to a liability at the plate (73 wRC+). Just as detrimental has been his shockingly mediocre framing. Heim was one of the better pitch framers in the game from 2021-23, with an average of 8.7 framing runs per season. This year, he has a pitiful -0.7 FRM. He’s an above-average blocker for the first time in his career, which has helped him maintain a positive WAR, but all the same, he has been one of the most disappointing performers on a disappointing Rangers squad. Meanwhile, backup Andrew Knizner has been a poor replacement for Garver, to say the least. Even the struggling 2024 version of Garver would be a huge upgrade over Knizner and his 4 wRC+, a number so low I feel compelled to clarify that it’s not a typo.
Presumably, Heim will remain the Rangers’ starting catcher, considering his high upside and familiarity with the Rangers’ pitching staff. Then again, every win counts for Texas as it tries to claw back into the playoff race, and Kelly has been a better player than Heim this year in just about every respect. What’s more, the Rangers have so many pitchers who have been on the IL for most (if not all) of this season that Heim’s familiarity with them is not quite as much of a factor as it otherwise might be. All that is to say that Kelly should be far more than just a backup in Texas if the Rangers are as serious about contending as their acquisition of him suggests. After all, there is no reason the team would have given up prospects for a rental if not to improve in 2024.
As for the Tigers, trading Kelly does not mean they’re ready to throw the towel in on the 2024 season. Jake Rogers remains their primary catcher, and thanks to his phenomenal framing, he has racked up 1.4 WAR in 65 games this year despite a 67 wRC+. In addition, the Tigers’ No. 10 prospect is 25-year-old catcher Dillon Dingler, who has been lighting it up at Triple-A as of late. He is expected to be called up today, and the Tigers are hoping for a seamless transition from Kelly to Dingler. After all and funnily enough, they’re ahead of the Rangers in the Wild Card standings, so if the Rangers are going for it, the Tigers can too.
Thus, the Tigers are hoping this trade is a win-win. They signed Kelly last summer when his value was at its lowest, and less than a year later, they were able to flip him for a pair of prospects. Hicks, 25, and Owens, 23, ranked 33rd and 35th, respectively, on Eric’s recent update to the Rangers’ top prospects list. They now rank 26th and 30th in the Tigers system. Both are 35+ FV prospects, though Hicks may be the more interesting of the two given his impressive contact skills and ability to play a serviceable catcher. Playing for the Double-A Frisco RoughRiders this season, he has an 11.7% walk rate and a 12.6% strikeout rate, supported by an impressive 87% contact rate and a minuscule 16% chase rate. On top of that, he has hit the ball with a launch angle between 10 and 30 degrees 37% of the time, which Eric notes is a standard deviation above the minor league average. The problem is that he has almost no power to speak of, with an 86-mph average exit velocity and a 98.8-mph 90th-percentile exit velocity. He doesn’t boast any speed, either, so his future hinges on his contact skills and his capability to stick behind the dish. Owens is a hard-throwing right-hander, with an upper-90s fastball that plays up thanks to good extension for a pitcher so small. Unfortunately, he has below-average command on the fastball and lacks a plus secondary pitch. He needs to improve his slider (and/or develop a true cutter) if he is going to earn a regular role in a big league bullpen.
The next time you turn on a Blue Jays, Red Sox, Tigers, or Rangers game, you might not notice anything different behind the plate. More likely than not, you’ll see Kirk catching for Toronto, Wong catching for Boston, Rogers catching for Detroit, and Heim catching for Texas. However, all four teams accomplished a key deadline goal this past weekend. The Blue Jays traded one of their better rental players to make the most of a bad situation. The Red Sox improved their defense at catcher (and potentially their offense at first or second base) without giving up any of their best prospects. The Tigers freed up playing time for a talented young catcher without completely punting on their 2024 playoff push. The Rangers addressed one of their weakest positions as the defending champs try not to embarrass themselves down the stretch. As for anyone else looking for catching help, they’ll have to give the Rockies a call. With Jansen and Kelly off the board, Colorado has the two best catchers left on the trading block: Jacob Stallings and Elias Díaz.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com