The Royals and Cubs made a rare one-for-one trade of current big leaguers, which I think emphasizes how important years of control are now for lower-payroll teams like Kansas City. The move keeps the Cubs out of the wildly overheated market for free-agent closers (compare Mark Melancon’s four-year deal) and gives them the flexibility to re-evaluate the ninth inning for 2018 if an internal option like Carl Edwards emerges.
Wade Davis has put together a Cy Young season for the ages over the past three years, with a combined 1.18 ERA/1.86 FIP in 182⅔ innings, 234 strikeouts, 59 walks and just three homers allowed. But his 2016 season was curtailed by two DL stints for a flexor tendon strain, a frequent precursor to more serious elbow problems.
When Davis returned in September, he seemed to still be the same pitcher he’d been in 2014 and '15: His velocity was intact and his cutter and curve were still there. It’s a one-year, $10 million bet on Davis being healthy enough for 60 innings plus October work, even if it means he has to be used more gingerly than most teams want to use their closers. When healthy, though, he’s better than the closer the Cubs just had, Aroldis Chapman, without the domestic violence arrest or major character questions, and the cost is a solid outfielder for whom the Cubs had absolutely no playing time available.
I’ve long been a Jorge Soler fan because of his quick wrists and tremendous bat speed, but he hasn’t had the performance or the injury-free seasons to fulfill the expectations I laid out for him when he first signed. Even with those caveats, Soler was a slightly above league-average hitter in 2016 thanks to an 11.7 percent walk rate and .198 ISO, with most of his production coming in his .258/.348/.515 second half after a DL stint.
His main issue at the plate has been hitting the ball on the ground too often, surprising given his bat path but more a result of poor pitch selection than mechanics. If his second half of 2016 is all Soler is, he’s still a valuable asset for the Royals, with four years of control remaining for a good every-day player, and given his bat speed and flashes of big exit velocity, I’m optimistic that there’s more production here going forward. I’m more concerned about his glove than his bat. Soler is a bad right fielder, for no readily apparent reason, and there isn’t any specific cause for optimism that he’ll become a good one. He’s certainly athletic enough to handle either corner, but his reads on balls hit to him are not good and he hasn’t improved with experience yet.
The Royals must like Soler, as I do, to choose to make him the entire return for Davis, rather than diversifying the portfolio so that they reduce the chances of getting nothing in the long term from trading such a valuable asset. They do have the DH spot open for him if his right-field defense can’t get to average, and I think the floor here is fairly high -- if he’s healthy, he’s probably a 2-plus win player without any progress at the plate.
It also could be that Davis’ elbow questions have sapped his value to the point that a multiplayer return was not available to the Royals, whereas before 2016 it would have been unthinkable to move Davis unless it were for a package comparable to the Yankees’ returns for Chapman and Andrew Miller.