When prospect list season arrives in January, the talk is almost always centered around players who managed a breakout, or who regressed to a degree than warrants dropping them down and diminishing expectations. Less common is the young prospect who simply holds serve, but that was certainly the case for righthander Elvin Rodriguez in 2019.
Much has been made in recent years about the fact that teams are far less willing to trade quality upper level prospects than they might have been five or 10 years ago. The takeaway? In order to maximize a return when trading a veteran player, teams need to look to the rookie ball level for unpolished gems.