Grading the Trading: How did Matty K do this year?

The trade deadline has come and gone, marking the end of the rumor mill churning out crazy and far fetched ideas about team’s “interest” and those “keeping an eye on” other team’s rosters. Apparently, there were a few big trades that went down, but we’re not here to discuss those minor deals. We want to talk about how Klentak and company did!

Before doing this, I highly recommend checking out fellow TGPer John Stolnis’ podcast with Justin Klugh about the deadline, as they do a great job of giving their ideas about how it all went down. Now that you’ve had a chance to catch your breath, what with all the edge of your seat action the Phillies gave us, what we’ll do here is just go back over the last week. Here’s a recap of what exactly the team did:

Who went?

Pat Neshek to the Rockies
Jeremy Hellickson to the Orioles
Howie Kendrick to the Nationals
Joaquin Benoit to the Pirates

We all knew that Neshek was as good as gone. Much ink has been spilled around the blogosphere, Twitterverse and local media about how the team was going to cash in their best trade asset at the deadline, so his trade came as no surprise. The other three? Safe to say that most of our jaws were on the floor. Kendrick seemed most likely to be traded in August after being placed on waivers since his health this season has been a huge question mark. Neither Hellickson nor Benoit seemed to be wanted by any team this year, whether that be due to salary or performance, yet there they were, shaking hands and saying good bye on their way out the door.

Who entered the organization?

minor league pitchers J.D. Hammer, Alejandro Requena, McKenzie Mills, Garrett Cleavinger, Seth McGarry
minor league infielder Jose Gomez
outfielder Hyun Soo-Kim
~$1.5 million in international bonus money

You can look at how the team did by perusing our individual trade recap pages (here, here, here and here), but by all accounts, the team did pretty well to gather some inventory for the lower minor league teams. With the roster crunch that is coming, that seems to have been the focal point of each trade. Of all the players joining the organization, the two with the highest upside seem to be Mills and Gomez. Gomez, for some reason, leapt immediately into the team’s top 20 prospect list on mlb.com, but that’s probably a stretch. If he maxes out, he’ll be a utility player that have become very valuable to playoff rosters nowadays. Mills projects as a starter, but according to Keith Law, still needs better secondary stuff. You can read Law’s reviews of the trades made by the Phillies here.

Perhaps interesting only to me, but of the five pitchers Klentak acquired, three of them are lefties, something the team doesn’t have too many of. Was that on purpose, the team focusing on an area they were lacking in in the minors? I don’t know, which is why it’s interesting to me.

Kim is nothing more than a fourth outfielder at this point, though his acquisition seems to signal that the team is fairly confident they can move Daniel Nava in August. They’re basically the same player so they don’t need to be on the same roster. If Nava can show he’s healthy, he’ll more than likely be dealt soon.

The international bonus money is nice to have, perhaps more so than the actual players coming back. Consider this:

That’s a big deal. The Phillies are known for making more with less when it comes to international money, so the fact that they were able to acquire more might just make this entire deadline worth it.

Where do they go from here?

As we enter August, you know that players need to clear waivers before they can be traded. This is where discussions about Nava, Joseph and others will happen. Joseph is where the team must make a decision. Will the peddle him to the highest bidder, therefore opening up the position for Rhys Hoskins, or will the just stay with the status quo to end the year? Will Nava get traded? What about players like Freddy Galvis and Cesar Hernandez? Do they get traded now, or will they wait until the offseason to deal with them?

Final grade

As silly as it is to put letter grades on a trade deadline where the players coming back will not make an impact until a few years down the road, if at all, it seems that most people do so. I’ve seen the team get A’s, B’s, and even D’s for their deals. I won’t spoil what Stolnis and Klugh said (listen for yourself!), but it’s probably what you would guess. My grade is pretty simple: incomplete.

I want to see what August brings. I’m almost certain that Nava will be gone, and even though he won’t bring much back, it’s still something to be added to the overall bounty. Most of all, I want to see if the Joseph/Hoskins quandary gets solved. If Joseph is moved, it will affect my overall grade of the deadline greatly. I’m firmly in the camp of “it’s time to see Hoskins”, but they have to deal with what they have first. Until then, I’m going to reserve my judgement on this year’s trading deadline.