T10YL - 2014 MLB Trade Deadline, Part 3
Specifically revisiting July 31, 2014
July 31, 2014 (Deadline Day)
The Names: Seattle Mariners receive: Chris Denorfia. San Diego Padres receive: Abraham Almonte, Stephen Kohlscheen.
The Team Context: This was the final trade that the Padres would make before hiring AJ Preller as general manager.
2014 seemed to be marking a turning point for embattled Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik (known and henceforth referred to as “Jack Z”). Jack Z was hired ahead of the 2009 season and generally oversaw a continued stretch of losing seasons in Seattle. In December 2013, Geoff Baker at the Seattle Times wrote an article headlined “Dysfunction at the Top” that pilloried Jack Z and, among other things, included the quote from former assistant Tony Blengino that “[Jack Z] began operating much like the Wizard of Oz, wielding his power from behind a curtain. Intimidating, manipulating, and pitting people against one another. Berating them for no particular reason. He set out to eliminate any type of disagreement, accumulating yes-men who meekly go along with his program.”
Despite the turmoil, the Mariners got off to a winning start in 2014 and dispelled any immediate job stress for Jack Z. They had just reacquired reluctant old friend Kendrys Morales and were positioned to keep buying at the deadline.
The Player Context: Chris Denorfia started his MLB career with hastily consumed cups of coffee in Cincinnati and Oakland, interspersed by a 2007 season where he didn’t play in MLB at all. Denorfia joined San Diego on a minor league contract in 2010 and reset his career trajectory with more opportunity, becoming a really solid player for the next four seasons. Denorfia was worth 9.7 Wins Above Replacement for the Padres across that span. In 2014, he was on the verge of free agency and having by far his worst season since joining the team. He would add just 0.2 to his WAR total over the first half of the season.
Abraham Almonte had arrived in Seattle in February 2013 in a trade for Shawn Kelley and was called up to the Mariners later that season. He was still spending more time at AAA and wasn’t hitting too well there or in MLB. Stephen Kohlscheen was a 43rd-round pick in the 2007 Draft who boosted his stock to become a 30th-round pick out of Cowley Community College in 2009. Unfortunately, he didn’t sign until the next season, when he was a 45th-round pick out of Auburn. Despite the lack of prospect pedigree, Kohlscheen had consistently performed as a minor leaguer and was holding his own as a reliever in AAA.
The Trade: Padres fans were sad to see Denorfia go. “Damn. Love Deno, what a gamer, plays it the right way. Mr. Hustle Padre - tough to see you go,” said Reddit user og_sandiego. “This is why I can't get into the Padres. They suck, so I try to grow attachments to players to get interested. And as soon as I start feeling familiar with the team, boom. Trading most of the people I've heard of to build for the future,” said Reddit user dagonn3.
Mariners fans were underwhelmed to see Denorfia arrive. “Ugh. Another underwhelming player,” said Reddit user superGreatAwesome. “For fans that have watched this team suck for 10 years now, it honestly feels like a slap in the face every time something like this is the big trade deadline deal,” said Reddit user Pete_Iredale.
It would seem fair to question the social utility of this transaction.
The Results: Denorfia was even worse in Seattle after the trade. He had 16 hits for the Mariners and a .317 slugging percentage. He was worth -0.2 WAR to close out his 2014 season at an even 0.0, then became a free agent in the offseason after Seattle missed the playoffs.
Almonte hit much more respectably after the trade and created the impression that the Padres might have made a great pickup, but then fell off in the first half of 2015 to put that suspicion to rest. At the 2015 deadline, he was traded to Cleveland for Marc Rzepcynski.
Stephen Kohlscheen pitched to a 1.32 ERA in AAA after this trade, but never got called up to the majors. He also never kept an ERA as low as 1.32 again, so second half of 2014 was as good as it got for him.
The Aftermath: Abraham Almonte’s Baseball Reference page links to a Twitter account that belongs to a different Abraham Almonte. That Abraham Almonte is also a former professional baseball player and current pitching coach at Thomas Jefferson University. I was very confused why a career hitter was working as a college pitching coach. The present Abraham Almonte is spending his 2024 playing for Olmecas de Tabasco, where he has a .425 on-base percentage. This is his first year with no MLB playing time, even though he’s never had more than 196 plate appearances for any team in a single season. He’s managed to play for eight franchises, including a return back to San Diego in 2020.
Chris Denorfia had one more MLB season in 2015 with the Cubs, where he was once again below replacement level. He ended his career with 10.8 WAR, 9.9 of which were accumulated with the Padres. Denorfia’s final two seasons as a baseball player were spent in AAA for the San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies, both of which ended with his in-season release. In 2018, he became a coach in the Cubs system, then manager of the AA Hartford Yard Goats for the 2020 season (prior to its cancellation). Denorfia managed the Yard Goats through 2023, and then was “promoted” to be outfield and baserunning coordinator with the Rockies.
Jack Z received a multi-year contract extension in August of 2014. He was fired in August of 2015 and currently works as a radio host for KDKA-FM in Pittsburgh.
The Names: Baltimore Orioles receive: Andrew Miller. Boston Red Sox receive: Eduardo Rodriguez.
The Team Context: The Red Sox were bad after winning the most recent World Series and were in the midst of trading away their supply of good pitchers. This is the third example we’ve discussed and it isn’t going to be the last.
The Orioles were good for basically the first time in the 21st century. They moved into a tie for lead in the AL East on July 3rd and took sole possession on July 5th. On July 31st, the Orioles lost 1-0 to bring their lead to a relative trough of 1.5 games, though their bullpen’s ability to stretch the game to the 13th inning before allowing the one run was evidence of this team’s greatest strength.
The Player Context: Andrew Miller was traded four times in his career and this trade was firmly the third-most notable. The fourth-most notable trade was the one that brought him to Boston (he was swapped for Dustin Richardson). The first-most notable trade was in 2007, when he was one of the top prospects in baseball and headlined the trade that sent Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis from Florida to Detroit. Miller wasn’t successful as a starter in Florida and the team gave up on him after the 2010 season. Boston non-tendered Miller a month after he joined the team, but they were able to re-sign him and kept him as a starter in 2011, which still did not lead to any success. Miller started the 2012 season with an injury and was moved to the bullpen once he was healthy.
It turned out to be a good career move. Miller’s 3.35 ERA in 2012 was a new career-low, with particularly impressive numbers against left-handers. Miller’s 2.64 ERA in 2013 was another career-low, though it was a shortened season after a foot injury prevented him from pitching after July. He took yet another step forward in 2014, with 69 strikeouts in 42.1 innings and an ERA of 2.34 that was pacing for yet another career-low. Miguel Cabrera had just won consecutive MVP awards for Detroit, cementing Andrew Miller as something of a relative bust. But suddenly, he had a claim as one of baseball’s elite relievers.
In December, Eduardo Encina reported that the Orioles would “need to be blown away” in order to trade Eduardo Rodriguez. Rodriguez was somewhat overshadowed in a minor league system that was headlined by megaprospects Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman, but was still a consensus top-70 prospect in baseball in his own right. He spent the second half of his 2013 season pitching in AA as a 20-year–old and was keeping up at the level in the first half of 2014.
The Trade: It’s a little rare to see meaningful trades between division rivals. With so much of a team’s ability to make the playoffs dependent on the performance of other teams in their division (a phenomenon that becomes less true with each new Wild Card spot), giving up a prospect who becomes a superstar can cause much more pain than if he were sent to another league. On the other side of the coin, fans won’t enjoy seeing a player who they’ve spent years rooting for crossing over to become the enemy.
Miller’s departure was expected, but his move to Baltimore was surprising. Reddit user itsmuddy clarified that Boston was willing to trade their rental pitchers to Baltimore or Toronto with hopes of re-signing them in the offseason. The only bridge too far would be to send a quality pitcher to the Yankees, which would be too much for Red Sox fans to stomach.
The Results: Miller was otherworldly down the stretch, allowing just three runs in the 20 regular season innings he threw in Baltimore to go with 34 strikeouts and 4 walks. In the postseason, he faced 24 batters and got 22 outs, with eight strikeouts and no runs allowed. In the offseason, he signed a four-year, $36 million contract with the New York Yankees, fulfilling the worst nightmares of the Red Sox organization.
Don’t worry, there were also some nightmares coming true in Baltimore. Rodriguez clicked down the stretch in 2014 and pitched to a 0.96 ERA in his six starts after the trade. He made his MLB debut by 2015 and was an instantly-effective contributor to the Red Sox rotation, pitching to a 3.85 ERA across 121.2 innings. He was a mainstay for Boston through the 2021 season, missing time only as a result of leg injuries and a COVID-19 induced bout of myocarditis in 2020. He was worth 14.3 Wins Above Replacement for Boston, healthily outpacing the still-impressive 1.0 that Andrew Miller managed in 20 innings with Baltimore.
The Aftermath: As seemed natural for a suddenly-elite relief pitcher, the Yankees turned Miller into their closer and let him pile up 36 saves in 2015. But when the team signed Aroldis Chapman ahead of the 2016 season, they moved Miller back to a primarily setup role before trading him to Cleveland in one of the biggest moves of the 2016 trade deadline (and the second-most notable trade of Miller’s career). Miller was described as “the perfect reliever” as Cleveland continued to employ him in a non-closing, high-leverage capacity that was more of a “stopper.” With his reputation now firmly matching his accolades, Miller closed his career by signing a three-year contract with St. Louis for about $35 million. Last month, he joined the MLB Players Association in the new position of “Special Assistant, Strategic Initiatives.”
Eduardo Rodriguez hasn’t been traded in the last ten years, though he came close. Rodriguez signed a multi-year contract with the Tigers after the 2021 season that included an opt-out after the 2023 season. Rodriguez bounced back to health and was an effective pitcher on a scuffling Tigers team in 2023, positioning him to be a trade deadline target once again. The Dodgers agreed on a deal to acquire Rodriguez, but they were one of the teams on his 10-team no-trade clause and he rejected the move when the Dodgers declined to add additional financial considerations onto his contract. Rodriguez cited his family as a rationale for not wanting to make the mid-season move, saying “my family feels happy in Detroit, and I’m happy with my teammates and the organization. I’d love to stay here.” Three months later, he opted out of his contract with the Tigers and signed as a free agent with the Arizona Diamondbacks. I hope his family loves it just as much as they loved Detroit.
The Names: New York Yankees receive: Martin Prado. Arizona Diamondbacks receive: Peter O’Brien.
The Team Context: The Yankees were trying (and generally failing) to keep pace with the typical basement dwellers of their division. They were remarkably short on effective hitters and could use an upgrade at every infield position (besides shortstop, where they could objectively use an upgrade but were unlikely to supplant Derek Jeter in the midst of his retirement tour). The Diamondbacks were quite bad and on their way to securing the #1 pick in the 2015 MLB Draft.
The Player Context: This was the middle of the only turbulent period in Martin Prado’s career. It began with seven seasons with one team (the Braves, with whom Prado had signed as an amateur free agent five years before his MLB debut) and ended with five seasons for another team (the Marlins). But between January 2013 and December 2014, Prado was traded three times. The first trade sent him from Atlanta to Arizona as part of a package that made Justin Upton a Brave. Prado had taken a slight step back from Atlanta to Arizona, going from a slightly-above-average hitter to a precisely-average hitter, but still offered consistency and defensive versatility that would make him valuable to any baseball team. He had also signed a 4-year, $40 million extension upon arrival in Arizona, giving an acquiring team reasonable long-term cost certainty.
Peter O’Brien was one of the flashier highlights of the Yankees’ farm system. O’Brien defined a certain archetype of baseball player that recurs somewhat frequently if you follow prospects. He was listed as a catcher, though it was apparent to observers that he couldn’t actually catch well enough to make that his occupation. Actually, O’Brien couldn’t do most baseball activities well enough to make it his occupation. What he could indisputably do was launch dingers. When Fangraphs profiled him on May 23, 2014, O’Brien had already hit 17 home runs in 41 minor league games. That gaudy number contrasted with some shoddy accompaniments, like the fact that O’Brien had walked just four times in those same 41 games or that he’d committed 21 errors in a 38 game stint playing third base in 2013. The hope was that O’Brien would learn how to do literally anything else at an acceptable level, allowing his prodigious home run power to propel him into MLB effectiveness. O’Brien had just played in the MLB Futures Game on the weekend of his 24th birthday, providing a nice narrative setup for a pivotal moment in his career.
The Trade: Yankees fans were excited to receive such a suitable player in exchange for Peter O’Brien, who they collectively decided would never figure it out. Diamondbacks fans were generally happy to receive a high-upside prospect in exchange for a player who was starting to feel more like a financial liability. The only victims were Atlanta Braves fans, who were now forced to watch a longtime favorite suit up for the Yankees.
This trade ended the career of longtime Oriole Brian Roberts, who had been scuffling through his first and only season with the Yankees. He was designated for assignment after the trade and was released without playing another game in MLB. In his final MLB game, he grounded out twice and struck out swinging against Yu Darvish.
The Results: Martin Prado surged upon arrival in New York, knocking seven home runs in his first 37 games compared to five in 106 games in Arizona. But his success was cut short after his appendix exploded, resulting in an emergency appendectomy on September 16 that ended his season. Instead of giving Prado the opportunity to build on his success over the two remaining years on his contract, the Yankees sent him to Miami as part of an exciting trade we’ll discuss in December.
Peter O’Brien continued to be exactly what he was. Despite strongly-stated intentions to keep O’Brien as a catcher and injuries at the position that created a profound need in 2015, the Diamondbacks had given up on the dream of O’Brien catching by May, instead treating him as a full-time outfielder. Across his 2015 and 2016 stints in MLB, O’Brien slashed .176/.228/.446 for Arizona, with six of his 13 base hits going for home runs. He was waived after the latter year.
The Aftermath: Martin Prado became an entrenched presence for the Marlins, signing another extension in September of 2016. A couple of days later, the Marlins let Prado serve as player-manager for their season finale, causing him to lambast himself to the media after he was caught stealing at third base in the first inning. “It was a bad idea with two outs. You have to make sure you steal third and not be out … it was a bad decision by the manager,” Prado said. Presumably to self-punish for internal subordination, Prado pulled himself from the game in the third inning.
2016 would be the last healthy and effective season of Prado’s career, even if he would remain on the Marlins roster for the next three seasons. In the latter two years, he was periodically joined by Peter O’Brien, who spent 2017 in minor league transactional hell before making it back to MLB with the Marlins in 2018. The two shared a roster in 2018 and 2019, but were only barely “teammates.” In 2018, O’Brien only made it to the majors after Prado was injured and a roster spot opened up. Both were on the roster simultaneously in 2019, but Prado’s limited availability due to age and O’Brien’s limited availability due to defensive incompetence kept them from overlapping too often. There were six games in 2019 where the Marlins started both Martin Prado and Peter O’Brien; the team went 1-5 in these games, with their one win coming in a game where both players were replaced on defense going into the 9th inning. Prado was replaced by 33-year-old Neil Walker, while O’Brien was replaced by 38-year-old Curtis Granderson.
Prado retired after that season. O’Brien began playing in Mexico, where he seems to have found his level. He won the Serie del Rey in his first two seasons in the league and has 16 home runs in 73 games this season for Pericos de Puebla.
The Names: Milwaukee Brewers receive: Gerardo Parra. Arizona Diamondbacks receive: Mitch Haniger, Anthony Banda.
The Team Context: Impressively, this is the first trade the Milwaukee Brewers made in the Trades Ten Years Later Era. The Brewers had gotten out to a hotter start in 2014 than most observers expected, taking the division lead on April 9 and holding steady. The team was short on “stars,” with players like Ryan Braun and Aramis Ramirez having declined from their reputational peaks, but was enjoying breakout years from the nationally-underrated Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Gomez. With the Pirates and Cardinals climbing back towards the NL Central perch, the situation demanded additions to the roster.
The Player Context: Gerardo Parra could definitely play outfield defense. He won a Gold Glove in each of 2011 and 2013 while hitting at a respectable level for the Diamondbacks. In 2013, his defense was proficient enough to make defensive metrics go wild – according to Baseball Reference, Parra was worth precisely as many Wins Above Replacement in 2013 (5.3) as Buster Posey and Freddie Freeman. But defensive metrics are something of a divine incantation, and Parra evidently incurred holy wrath in 2015. His offense declined slightly (from “above-average” to “below-average”) and his defense declined precipitously (from “elite” to “below-average”), with Parra grading out as a sub-replacement player overall. Making matters worse, Parra’s past performance and increasing tenure in the game meant that his arbitration salaries would grow increasingly expensive in this and subsequent offseasons.
By consensus, Mitch Haniger was a top-10 prospect in the Brewers’ system. Haniger was the Brewers’ 1st-round pick in 2012 and was performing capably at AA in 2014. Anthony Banda was taken in the 10th round of the same draft and was a consensus non-prospect, though he had already elevated his stock substantially from his status as a 33rd-round draft pick in 2011. Banda was continuing to work as a starter, but was clearly further from MLB than Haniger.
The Trade: On June 30, Ken Rosenthal described Gerardo Parra as “among the least likely in Arizona to be traded.” The justifications for keeping Parra around were political (fan favorite), practical (few other outfielders on roster), and pecuniary (unlikely to fetch a high return given arbitration status and poor production). One month later, Parra was actively being shopped.
The move was somewhat surprising for Milwaukee given the presence of another 2013 Gold Glove outfielder in Carlos Gomez, but made sense on closer examination with Parra as a left-handed bat. Gomez, Braun, and Khris Davis each hit from the right side, with Davis in particular seeming like a likely platoonmate for the still defensively-gifted Parra. Brewers fans reacted to the acquisition of Gerardo Parra with the kind of excitement that can only be mustered through years and years of disappointment, with Reddit users reporting “jump[ing] up and down in [their] chair,” and using exclamation points when saying “we have him for another year as well which makes this deal even better!”. Nary a thought was spared for Mitch Haniger or Anthony Banda.
The Results: One month after making this trade, the Brewers lost their fifth straight game to fall into a tie for first in the NL Central. They’d lose four more to make it an even nine and would never approach first again, finishing the season eight games back at 82-80.
That’s not to blame any of this on Gerardo Parra, who bounced back to hit at his typical levels down the stretch in 2014. But his arrival definitely coincided with the end of Milwaukee living the high life. In 2015, Parra got off to a rocket start for a Brewers team that immediately plunged into the basement and never returned. They were 22.5 games back by the trade deadline, when Parra was flipped to the Orioles in exchange for Zach Davies.
Both of the prospects traded for Parra are major leaguers in 2024, though they’ve taken weird journeys to get there. But for this section, we just need to focus on the Diamondbacks tenure, where both guys did basically the same thing. As expected, Haniger made it to MLB sooner and debuted for Arizona in 2016, but was quickly sent away in one of the more exciting trades of the decade for, among other things, current MVP candidate Ketel Marte. Banda made it to MLB by 2017, then was traded away in a bizarre 3-team transaction that most notably (for our purposes) included 2023 MLB player Nick Solak. It’s hard to render a verdict given the scarce set of time that both prospects spent in Arizona, but the clear link between Gerardo Parra’s departure and Ketel Marte’s arrival makes this an inevitable win for the Diamondbacks.
The Aftermath: Gerardo Parra spent most of his time (and made most of his money) post-trade in Colorado, where he played for the Rockies from 2016 through 2018. Like most free agent additions by the Rockies, the signing of Parra went poorly and resulted in the team buying out his team option for the 2019 season. Parra started that year on a minor league contract with the Giants and ended it as a franchise icon with the Washington Nationals. He honestly didn’t even play that well in Washington, but had the foresight to make his walkup song “Baby Shark” during the only World Series season in Nationals history. Believe it or not, this was sufficient to make Parra a franchise icon by Washington National standards. He signed a couple of minor league deals with the team before taking a front office job in 2022 and taking over as first base coach starting in 2023.
Mitch Haniger has gone on to have an MLB career just good enough to make you wonder if it’s been worth it. He made the All-Star team in 2018 and received MVP votes that year and in 2021, when he socked 39 home runs. He’s made $42 million playing baseball and has a player option for $15.5 million next year. Seems like a nice life.
And yet. In Haniger’s first season in Seattle, he took a fastball to the face from literally Jacob deGrom, then returned to hit a grand slam off Jake Odorizzi in his first game back from the injury. He had a healthy season in 2018 and was promptly an All-Star, then returned to misery in June of 2019 when he fouled a ball directly into his testicle, causing a rupture that led him to miss the rest of the season. I’m not sure on the specific dysfunction that requires you to miss 99 baseball games after you rupture your testicle and I pray that I never find out. Wisely, Haniger chose not to play baseball during the pandemic-impacted 2020 season and was rewarded with his second-ever healthy season in 2021. The two seasons where Haniger received MVP votes turn out to have been the only seasons of his career where he was healthy enough to play a full season. In April of 2022, Haniger swung awkwardly at an outside breaking ball, knocking it into left field for a single while simultaneously giving himself a grade 2 high ankle sprain that kept him out until August.
Despite clearly incurring the wrath of a vengeful god, Haniger was able to attract a healthy free agent contract from the San Francisco Giants ahead of the 2023 season. His annual misfortune was a hit-by-pitch from Jack Flaherty that fractured his forearm and ultimately required surgery. The Mariners re-acquired Haniger in a trade ahead of the 2024 season and he’s managed to stay healthy, but unfortunately this has come at the expense of playing well. At time of writing, he’s managed to string together a four-game hitting streak and I can’t find much else that’s positive.
If Mitch Haniger’s career is a testament to the physical suffering inherent to a career in professional athletics, then Banda’s is a testament to psychological suffering. Banda made his Rays debut on May 15 of 2018 and tore his UCL after just three appearances for the MLB club. He was able to return by the end of 2019 and got a few appearances in the 2020 season, but was now out of minor league options and subject to regular designation for assignment as a fungible left-handed reliever. Between 2021 and 2022, Banda threw 46 innings for the Pirates, 7.1 innings for the Mets, 6.1 innings for the Blue Jays, and 0.2 innings for the Yankees, which doesn’t include his four innings for Seattle’s AAA Tacoma Rainiers. Banda spent 2023 in the Nationals organization, generally pitching at AAA and performing poorly regardless of level.
Entering this past offseason, Banda was 30 years old and had yet to have an MLB season where he eclipsed 33.2 innings. He had been affirmatively cut from about a quarter of organizations already and it would’ve been reasonable to give up. Instead, Banda accepted a minor-league contract from Cleveland and made 12 effective appearances for the Columbus Clippers. He attracted the attention of the Dodgers, who bought Banda and added him to their active roster in mid-May. It took him a month to allow an earned run and he’s continued to be highly effective, with a 2.48 ERA in a new career-high of 36.1 innings. He will almost certainly be on the playoff roster. Baseball is a weird sport.
