Diamondbacks frustrated by tepid interest on trade market: Sources
Arizona Diamondbacks officials sounded frustrated by the lack of movement in the market for their top position players available at the trade deadline.
Sources said rival clubs showed little aggressiveness in the way of offers for third baseman Eugenio Suarez and first baseman Josh Naylor, both of whom ended up traded to the Seattle Mariners in separate deals.
The situation speaks to the difficulty teams often face when it comes to moving rental bats at the deadline.
Suarez was sent to the Mariners on July 30 in exchange for first baseman Tyler Locklear and pitchers Juan Burgos and Hunter Cranton.
Suarez is having one of the best offensive seasons of anyone in baseball, hitting .248/.320/.576 with 36 homers and 87 RBIs, picking up where he left off midway through last season.
The Milwaukee Brewers and Detroit Tigers, two clubs that conceivably could have been fits for Suarez, barely dipped their toes in the water, sources said. Both clubs apparently saw Suarez as an imperfect fit and/or a minimal upgrade relative to what they already had — particularly when factoring in Suarez’s average, at best, defense at third base.
“It was our opinion that he was roughly a league-average third baseman,” one rival source said. “Would guess a lot of the industry agreed he’s much more likely to perform more at his career level moving forward,” rather than the player he has been over the past year-plus.
The New York Yankees opted for third baseman Ryan McMahon instead, a move several sources said was made because of a preference for a more defensive-minded player at the position.
The Chicago Cubs, for whom Suarez would have been an upgrade over rookie Matt Shaw, might be more focused on upgrading their pitching staff.
The industry consensus on the Diamondbacks’ return seemed to be somewhere in the range of “fine, but nothing special.” Some saw it as a little less than that.
That said, there are rival evaluators who see reason to believe Locklear, in particular, might be a solid return, noting he has made significant mechanical adjustments in recent weeks.
“Earlier in his career and even earlier this season, he had a unique setup,” a rival evaluator said. “Very high hands, out overhanging, and there just wasn’t a lot of rhythm and timing to it. It was like brute force, straightforward grunt, and if it’s out there when the barrel comes through, you’ve got to watch your lips. But there were also big holes given how he set up.
“He has since softened the hands, brought them closer to his body and he’s just gotten better. The strength component, there’s a real first-base offensive profile there. You still have, for me, you still think it’s power over pure hit and all that stuff, but he’s done enough here the last six weeks-ish to make you think there’s a chance he covers enough different types of pitching to keep himself viable.”
To that evaluator’s point, Locklear’s past six weeks with Triple-A Tacoma have been phenomenal. In 32 games, he has a .387/.463/.798 line with 14 homers in 124 at-bats.
Burgos and Cranton are both fairly well-regarded, as well, but both are straight relievers — Burgos likely more of a middle relief type and Cranton a possible back-end option, but with some development still ahead of him.