Looking Toward the Future Doesn't End with the Draft: Cutthroats and Madmen Deal

August 12, 2018, 08:06:14 PM

By Bul Mathewson

Draft season forces our eyes to the future and it seems that spirt has made its way into the trades that have marked it’s closing. After Friday’s blockbuster, Sunday gave us another trade with the River City Cutthroats adding pitching help in Rick Porcello and Blake Treinen and the Madmen a picking up a nice prospect haul of Lewis Brinson, Franklyn Kilome and Phil Bickford. Major leaguers Carlos Perez, Jayson Werth and Vance Worley will head to the Motor City to balance the sheets. We will be seeing many trades leading up to the deadline that will bring back prospects, but what’s most interesting about the latest trades, is that the primary major league players driving these deals, will provide their greatest yield in 2019.

Rick Porcello’s subpar season doesn’t offer much more than innings in 2018, but those innings do have value due to the off seasons playing time limit rule changes, and will help keep that trouble from hitting River City (I couldn’t help myself). But it is likely Porcello’s 2019 rebound that provided the greatest motivation in bringing in the 11.7M/2019 veteran righthander. The second piece in the trade, Blake Treinan, 2.5M/2019), offers more help this season and will buoy the Cutthroats stretch run where they currently find themselves siting in 4th place but only 4 games from the division leading Foothill Nomads in the wide open Northwest. Yet again, it’s Treinan’s move towards closing dominance for 2019 that likely inspired this deal.

Friday’s blockbuster between the Asterisks and Nomads shows similar future thinking where Alex Bregman won’t show elite until next season and Wilson Ramos will ride the pine before taking the starting catcher role in 2019.

For the Madmen, who look up at two of the Mutiny’s best in the Brooklyn Kraken and Ann Arbor Landlubbers, who happen to have the best and second-best records in the League, Managements focus is squarely on the future. Lewis Brinson heads the deal offering stellar defense in centerfield with tools that should make him a very good hitter. So far, he has struggled in the majors and will need promotion, but last year sat in the late teens to twenties in most prospect rankings and hit a brilliant .341/.400/.562 in AAA. Prospect Centrals highly respected rankings listed Brinson 3rd on the Cutthroats minor league roster which ranked 5th best in league.

Two pitchers add to the Madmen’ haul with Franklyn Kilome the better of the two. Kilome offers another player with impressive tools and with a 6’6” size that makes him imposing on the mound. With a fastball touching the upper 90’s and a curve that flashes plus, his stuff is elite. He has an improving changeup that should give him an average pitch in time and decent control but it’s his pitchablity that has gotten in the way of his success. With a strong makeup and intelligence he should be able to master his stuff and should be a good pitcher in the years to come.

Phil Bickford is a perplexing talent. It’s rare to be drafted in the 1st round twice, yet Bickford has done just that. It was during the 2015 draft that he was first flagged for illegal drugs. And in 2017 he failed a test again, forcing a 50 game suspension. Still his personal troubles have not impacted his game, with a yearly ERA has been in the twos, until 2018 where his ERA sored. He has been moved to a bullpen role which should allow his electric arm to play up and take some of the pressure off him as he works to get his personal life together.

Finally, as all transactions in a salary cap league, there must be salary filler. Carlos Perez (750K/18), Jayson Werth (960K/18) and Vance Worley (250K/18) bring the deal into financial compliance. Perez offers a few at bats at catcher which may come in handy towards the end of the year, Werth gives the Madmen 289 at bats in the outfield with good power versus lefties, and Worley offers 71.2 innings which again could be useful with playing time limit constraints.

Minor leaguers Chris Okey, Josh Staumont and and the recently drafted Ibandel Isabel who was draft just five days ago have been waived by the Madmen to meet the 25 man Minor League roster limit.

Baseball isn’t a game of checkers, it’s a game of chess and thinking ahead is essential to contending in a league that get’s more competitive by the year. Fridays and todays trades prove that point.

Re: Looking Toward the Future Doesn't End with the Draft: Cutthroats and Madmen Deal

Reply #1 – August 13, 2018, 12:44:52 AM

This manager can't stop gushing about the quality of the press. I LOVE THESE.

And the writer is spot on. Porcello and Trieten are needed for this season due to some usage concerns, but their real value is in 2019. When trading for players at the deadline with multiple years on their contract you'll always pay a premium, but with Cory Seager out for the 2019 MSB season and Moncado/Pedroia experiment at 2B proving a disaster this GM is going to have to get creative to be competitive in 2019.

Having Porcello and Trieten booked for 2019 allows the GM to focus on the offense.