The First Big Trade and the M’s Approach to 2019

Sorry for the delay in writing this one up, but I ended up writing about this for Baseball Prospectus. Uh, yeah, so I’m going to be contributing over there now. It’s a big honor, as I’ve read BP for *almost* as long as I read this blog, and of course, it was through USSMariner that I found BP in the first place.

The upshot is that the M’s are essentially paying Tampa as a professional development contractor. The M’s have tried desperately to find a CF, and they’ve failed. Guillermo Heredia – also included in the trade – never developed despite the ability to work a walk and defense that looked good at times. Leonys Martin seemed to get into a slump midway through 2016 and just was never able…