The trade: The Minnesota Twins acquired RHP Tyler Mahle from the Cincinnati Reds for IF Spencer Steer, 3B Christian Strand-Encarnacion and LHP Steve Hajjar.
Heading into the 2020 season, the Reds made a run for it, signing some free agents for the first time in forever, increasing their payroll ... and then COVID-19 hit. They squeaked into the expanded playoffs but lost two games to the Braves -- shut out both times. They then went 83-79 in 2021 and decided to tear the team apart rather than compete. The trade of Mahle completes the exodus of tradable players: Luis Castillo, Tyler Naquin, Sonny Gray, Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suarez, Tucker Barnhart and Wade Miley, all members of the 2021 squad, are gone.
Let's get to the grades.
The Twins, holding a slim lead over the Guardians in the AL Central, needed a starting pitcher. They're 18th in the majors in rotation ERA; only the Red Sox and Orioles have a lower rotation ERA among playoff contenders. The Twins are also 26th in innings pitched from their starters, so they haven't gotten much length either, putting added pressure on a bullpen that earlier in the day added Jorge Lopez from the Orioles.
Mahle is an underrated right-hander who comes with team control through 2023. He's not as big a name as former teammate Castillo (who is also under control through 2023 and was traded to the Mariners this past weekend), but check out their opponents' batting lines over the past two seasons:
Mahle: .233/.306/.394, 27.0% SO rate, 8.6% BB rate, 3.2% HR rate
Castillo: .238/.313/.377, 24.5% SO rate, 8.9% BB rate, 2.3% HR rate
Mahle gives up a few more home runs, but otherwise ... dang, they're pretty similar. Mahle even has the higher strikeout rate, though he's a much different pitcher than Castillo. Whereas Castillo is one of the hardest-throwing starters in the majors, Mahle's four-seam fastball sits at a more pedestrian 93-94 mph, although it's an effective, fairly high-spin pitch that he locates well up in the strike zone.
Against right-handed batters, Mahle is more of a fastball-slider guy, but what really works for him are his splitter and cutter secondary pitches that he utilizes a lot more against left-handed batters and have given him a strong reverse platoon split. Over the past two seasons, lefties have hit .200 with a .593 OPS off him while righties have hit .268 with an .810 OPS.
His 4.40 ERA looks a little high, but that's in large part due to two bad blow-up starts this season, a seven-run outing against the Dodgers in April and an eight-run outing against the Cubs in May. Since that start against the Cubs, he has a 2.83 ERA over his past nine starts. He goes to a much better pitching environment in Minnesota than he had in the bandbox in Cincinnati -- with Byron Buxton in center field to run down those fly balls. Don't be shocked if Mahle matches Castillo's performance down the stretch -- and the Twins got him for a much lower price than the Mariners paid for Castillo.
Grade: A-
The interesting part of this deal from the Reds' perspective is that they acquire two more infielders after just getting a pair of shortstops, Noelvi Marte and Edwin Arroyo, as the two main players in the Castillo trade. Look, you make the best trades you can, and Marte, in particular, is a player who some scouts believe may end up in an outfield corner anyway.
In this deal, Steer is the top prospect going to the Reds. A Futures Game participant this summer, he's hit .269/.361/.528 with 20 home runs between Double-A and Triple-A. His numbers have dropped significantly after the promotion, though, from .307 average to .242, with resulting drops in OBP and slugging.
A shortstop in college at Oregon, he has played all three infield positions, but he probably projects best as a second baseman in the majors -- a potential low average/good power infielder, similar in some ways to Brian Dozier (although Dozier greatly exceeded expectations with a couple huge power seasons). Kiley McDaniel gave him a 40 FV grade before the season, and he has maintained that in 2022. The Reds obviously have Jonathan India at second base, so Steer could battle for the third-base job in 2023.
Strand-Encarnacion -- good luck fitting that on a uniform back -- is in his first full pro season out of Oklahoma State and has hammered 25 home runs in the minors while hitting .302, recently earning a promotion to Double-A. He's also fielding .863 at third base, so his future looks to be at first base, where the offensive bar is obviously higher. But there's certainly power potential here. Steve Hajjar was a second-round pick out of Michigan in 2021 who has pitched 45 innings in Low-A ball with 73 strikeouts, but given his college experience, dominating at that level doesn't tell us too much about his probability of reaching the majors, let alone remaining a starting pitcher.
While the Reds got a lot of upside in Marte and Arroyo in the Castillo trade, this one feels like a much lesser return, although maybe that's underselling Strand-Encarnacion's ceiling as a hitter. Overall, it's a nice group of prospects, but I'm a little surprised the Reds didn't get a top-100 guy and other stuff for Mahle.