Trades Ten Years Later - Logan Forsythe, Brad Boxberger, and Matt Andriese to Tampa Bay for Alex Torres and Jesse Hahn
Rays receive: Several worthwhile contributors. Padres receive: Not much!
Welcome back to Trades Ten Years Later, and apologies to anyone who has been waiting on the extremely minor NBA trades scheduled for yesterday (and coming later this week). This is the last “scheduled” trade until February 13 (which is followed by a dozen NBA trade deadline moves the next week), so posts may deviate slightly from actual transaction dates over the next month in the name of smooth content distribution.
The Names: San Diego Padres receive: Alex Torres, Jesse Hahn. Tampa Bay Rays receive: Logan Forsythe, Brad Boxberger, Matt Andriese, Matt Lollis, Maxx Tissenbaum.
The Team Context: The Padres were smack in the middle of a decade of mediocrity and were probably starting to realize it. San Diego had led the NL West for much of the 2010 season before collapsing down the stretch to finish out of the playoffs at 90-72. At the same time, Padres owner John Moores was finalizing a divorce that would result in the sale of the Padres to a group led by Jeff Moorad. Moorad, a former minority owner of the Diamondbacks, hired Josh Byrnes away from Arizona’s front office and promoted him to general manager in 2011, taking control of baseball operations as his group’s stake in the franchise reached 49%. However, the sale began to collapse as it became clear that MLB’s other owners would not be willing to approve the proposed sale to Moorad. This was bad news for Josh Byrnes, who was suddenly a leftover GM for his new boss, Ron Fowler. The Padres ran low payrolls from 2012 through 2014 as Fowler evaluated what to salvage from his scuffling franchise.
The Tampa Bay Rays were one of baseball’s most mysterious emerging juggernauts, rising from an initial decade of mediocrity as the Devil Rays to become one of the premier franchises in baseball from 2008-2013. The Rays won their first AL pennant in 2008 and made the playoffs in each of 2010, 2011, and 2013, narrowly missing in 2009 and 2012 despite an 84-78 and 90-72 record, respectively. These competitive teams were hamstrung by a combination of low revenues and miserly ownership philosophies, resulting in bottom-end payrolls that necessitated trades of increasingly expensive players each and every offseason. Fortunately, Rays GM Andrew Friedman had developed a reputation as a savvy trader, always able to sell high and buy low.
The Player Context: The Padres were targeting a left-handed reliever to balance their bullpen and swung for the fences (is there a pitching version of this cliche) with Alex Torres. Torres had developed as a starter in his early minors career with the Angels and continued to do so after his trade to the Rays in 2009. He made his MLB debut in 2011, but struggled with control in AAA through the 2012 season. In 2013, Torres worked exclusively as a reliever across 58.0 big league innings, posting a dominant 0.897 WHIP and 1.71 ERA that were each the lowest of his career at any level. He had just turned 26 the month before and promised to slot into the present and future San Diego bullpen.
The Padres also picked up compelling pitching prospect Jesse Hahn. Hahn had been hyped as a potential first-round pick out of Virginia Tech in 2010, but slid in the draft on medical concerns that were ultimately vindicated by his post-draft Tommy John surgery. He returned to pitching in 2012 and 2013, posting incredible minor league numbers for low-level Rays affiliates while pitching against players much younger than he. He was 24 years old and had yet to pitch at AA at the time of the deal.
The headliner of the five players sent back to Tampa Bay was Logan Forsythe, a 2008 first round pick who made it to the majors by 2011. Forsythe had a strong year in 2012 while playing primarily 2B, but had more of a utility role in 2013 as he battled plantar fasciitis and his offensive production cratered. With Jedd Gyorko set at second for the Padres following a strong rookie season and no carrying tools that justified keeping him around, Forsythe looked like an expendable trade piece.
Brad Boxberger joined Forsythe as a departure off the MLB roster. The delightfully named Boxberger had spent parts of two seasons in the San Diego bullpen, pitching to a 2.72 ERA even as he walked 31 batters in 49.2 innings. His profile was somewhat similar to Torres, but his right-hand dominance made him a suitable price to pay in the name of platoon balance. Matt Andriese was another right-handed pitcher sent to Tampa. He had yet to make the majors, getting as high as AAA in 2013, and ranked in the top-20 prospects in the Padres system. He seemed likely to reach MLB, even if his upside was limited. The final RHP sent to the Rays was Matt Lollis, a 15th-round draft pick in 2009 who had ridden a roller coaster to top prospect status by 2011 and lost it by 2013, when he began to work exclusively out of the bullpen. It had been quite some time since he had invoked optimism in observers; the type of lottery ticket that already had a few losing numbers scratched off.
Rounding out the five-player package was Maxx Tissenbaum, a Canadian second baseman the Padres had drafted out of Stony Brook in 2012. Tissenbaum walked twice as often as he struck out in the 2011 collegiate season, then somehow improved on that by walking 250% as often as he struck out in the 2012 season. He continued to demonstrate a profound eye in professional baseball, walking 43 times for the 2013 Fort Wayne TinCaps against just 36 strikeouts. This was about all he was doing well, but Maxx had a notable skill! Logan Forsythe couldn’t say as much.
The Trade: The first reported trade piece was Forsythe, who Chris Cotillo reported would be part of a “4-player trade.” Twenty minutes later, Jeff Passan raised the stakes with a tweet that the deal would include “at least five players.” Finally, Marc Topkin blew them out of the water with the scoop that the Rays would be receiving five players by themselves, setting the stage for a true blockbuster. That was probably the peak of excitement for this trade given who the players ended up being.
Just as the Padres hoped to deal from a surplus of right-handed relievers to balance out their bullpen, Andrew Friedman expressed comfort in the Rays’ left-handed relief depth in explaining the decision to trade Torres. Forsythe was described as “a guy that was very high on our target list,” again hammering home how uninspiring it must be to work for a baseball team most of the time.
The Reaction: The most cogent reply to Cotillo’s initial report was “just based on the two known players involved [Torres and Forsythe], SD is ripping off Tampa. Forsythe is nothing special.” This echoed much of the pro-Torres reaction available elsewhere, with Torres given such complimentary references as “no platoon monster” and “young stud.” But some pointed out that Torres was a prime regression candidate if his suddenly improved control took a step back, with plenty more simply willing to give the Rays front office the benefit of the doubt.
The Results: Alex Torres had a K/BB ratio of 3.1 in 2013 and 1.55 in 2014, experiencing equal setbacks in stuff and control. He was still effective, but an effective reliever is much less exciting than the dominant reliever San Diego thought they were acquiring. Josh Byrnes was fired during the 2014 season and his successor, AJ Preller, traded Torres away in the spring of 2015 to much less fanfare than accompanied his arrival. Torres’s most notable achievement as a Padre was wearing the isoBLOX hat, designed to serve as a quasi-helmet that protects pitchers from the impact of comebacker line drives. Although a good and noble idea, it looked funny:
Jesse Hahn continued his stellar minor league performances at AA in the 2014 season, posting a 1.91 ERA in 42.1 innings before being called directly to MLB. He started intermittently for San Diego that season on his way to a 3.07 ERA in 73.1 innings. Although Hahn had shown some promise, the new Padres regime didn’t want to keep him around either. One season after the trade was completed, both Torres and Hahn were off the team. All five players received by the Rays remained in the organization.
Forsythe had a slow 2014 as he adjusted to Tampa Bay, but surged in 2015 and 2016. He played strong defense as the Rays everyday second baseman and slugged enough to make an impact, with 17 home runs in 2015 and 20 in 2016. In each of those years, he single-handedly put up more WAR than Torres and Hahn combined for in their careers. The Rays won the trade just on the basis of acquiring Forsythe.
Brad Boxberger also proved to be an exciting member of the haul, assuming you have a very low excitement threshold. He immediately posted a dominant season out of the Tampa bullpen in 2014 and took over as the team’s closer in 2015, leading the AL in saves and making the All-Star team. Injuries diminished Boxberger’s effectiveness in 2016 and 2017, after which he started to get comparatively expensive and was traded to Arizona. Matt Andriese followed him in exile to the desert a few years later after throwing 339 innings for the Rays from 2015 to 2018, mostly pitching out of the rotation until he was displaced in 2018. Andriese was never among the Rays’ best pitchers, but was worth his price.
The Aftermath: Alex Torres was traded to the Mets in 2015 and played his final MLB season there, closing his career after 154.1 innings with a very strong 2.68 ERA that would be good for 75th in baseball history if he had somehow kept it up for 850 additional innings to qualify for the leaderboard. His final MLB appearance came against the Padres, where he walked three batters and struck out two in 2.2 relief innings, culminating in a strikeout of Will Venable to end his MLB career on a high note. Torres signed minor league contracts with the Braves and Giants and was done in affiliated baseball after a 2016 season with the AAA Sacramento River Cats. Torres continued to pitch in the Venezuelan Winter League through 2020, where his poor stats indicate that his 2013 control improvements were in fact extremely temporary. His career ERA in Venezuela is 4.79, more than two runs worse than his MLB career ERA. Wikipedia indicates that he signed with the semi-pro Gunma Diamond Pegasus of the Japanese independent Baseball Challenge League, but provides no information about this signing, including date thereof and if Torres ever played for the Diamond Pegasus. His isoBLOX hat is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Jesse Hahn was sent to Oakland, where he made 38 starts across three seasons. His most effective Athletics year was 2015, where he pitched a career-high 96.2 innings and posted a 3.35 ERA. Hahn was traded to Kansas City prior to the 2018 season, then missed the entire season and most of 2019 with another UCL injury. Now working out of the bullpen with a twice-repaired elbow ligament, Hahn posted his most baffling masterpiece yet in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, with a 0.52 ERA across 17.1 innings that almost constituted a full workload in the context of that year. Unfortunately, this renaissance would be short-lived, as a shoulder injury in 2021 would shut down his season. He has not pitched since then, but signed a minor league contract with the Dodgers last week. Good luck, Jesse!
Despite a recent run of competitive seasons, the Padres have still not matched their 2010 season win total of 90 games.
Forsythe played for the Rays until he started to earn a meaningful salary, at which point he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Jose De Leon. Forsythe was mediocre for the Dodgers in 2017 and dreadful in 2018 before he was sent to the Twins at the deadline as part of the package for Brian Dozier, who would replace him at second base for LA. He posted sub-replacement level numbers in short stints for the 2019 Rangers and 2020 Marlins to end his MLB career. His final MLB game was the second half of an August 25 doubleheader with the New York Mets, where he grounded out twice and was pulled for the bottom half of the seventh and final inning (remember that pandemic rule?). He spent May-June 2021 with the AAA Nashville Sounds before he was released and he called it a career. 9.4 of his 12.1 WAR came during his three seasons as a Ray.
Brad Boxberger was traded to the Diamondbacks after the 2017 season. He resumed working as a closer in 2018, saving 32 games for a competitive Arizona team. Boxberger achieved immortality that year as the first MLB player to represent his name on a uniform with emojis when he made his Players’ Weekend nickname “📦🍔.” He became a free agent that offseason and has bounced around from team to team since then, playing with the Royals, Marlins, Brewers, and most recently the Cubs as an effective late-inning reliever. Boxberger has occasionally had to settle for minor-league contracts, but has pitched in the MLB in every season since he debuted. He posted a 4.95 ERA in 20.0 innings with Chicago last year and is currently a free agent.
Matt Andriese was traded to the Diamondbacks at the 2018 trade deadline and pitched poorly for the remainder of that season, improving some in his second year with Arizona. He pitched for the Angels, Red Sox, and Mariners before hopping to Japan for the 2022 season as a Yomiuri Giant. He’s now entered into the minor-league contract phase of his career, spending 2023 with the AAA Oklahoma City Dodgers and signing a minor league pact with the Marlins for 2024. His final MLB appearance (for now?) came in mop-up duty, pitching the final inning of a 13-4 victory over the 2021 A’s and striking out the side.
Maxx Tissenbaum stalled out in Hi-A for the Rays in 2015, then had a few games with Miami’s Class-A affiliate in 2016 before joining the Capitales de Quebec of the Canadian-American Association. Tissenbaum played with the Capitales for three seasons, making the four-team playoffs each year and winning a championship in 2017 in a 3-0 series win over the Rockland Boulders. He hit .344 that season, one point away from leading the Can-Am Association in batting.
Matt Lollis spent two years pitching for the Class AA Montgomery Biscuits, then pitched in AA and AAA for the White Sox in 2016 before calling it quits. It is incredibly difficult to find any information about what he’s been up to since then. He updated his Facebook profile picture and cover photo in November 2023 for the first time in several years, but his occupation is still listed as pitcher for the Montgomery Biscuits.