The Braves have acquired right-handed pitchers Bronson Arroyo and Touki Toussaint from the Diamondbacks in exchange for infielder Philip Gosselin, reports Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (via Twitter). Both teams have confirmed the move via press release.
The move appears to be monetarily motivated for the Diamondbacks. Arroyo is owed the balance of $9.5MM this season plus a $4.5MM buyout (or $13MM option), tweets Rosenthal. The total guarantee is about $10.1MM. He could return from Tommy John surgery as soon as August. Prior to landing on the disabled list last season, Arroyo was the perfect workhorse. He made at least 32 starts in nine straight seasons. He owns a 4.19 ERA in 2,364 innings.
The inclusion of Toussaint in the deal comes as a surprise. FanGraphs’ Kiley McDaniel rated him the 114th best prospect prior to the season. Toussaint, 19 today, was one of the youngest players in the Midwest League. He had a 3.69 ERA with 6.69 K/9 and 3.46 BB/9 in 39 innings. He was the club’s 16th overall pick in the 2014 amateur draft. Prior to the draft, he was rated No. 8 in his class by MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo and Jim Callis and No. 13 by both Baseball America and ESPN.com’s Keith Law.
Gosselin was a useful utility infielder for the Braves, but the presence of Jace Peterson and prospect Jose Peraza likely made him expendable. He hit .325/.357/.525 in 42 plate appearances this season. Atlanta will have to swallow the cost of Arroyo and the roughly $10.1MM guaranteed to him. However, in Toussaint, they acquire yet another young, high ceiling arm for their farm system. From the Diamondbacks perspective, the club will save money now at the cost of their fifth best prospect.
wait, what? thats a top 5 prospect of the dbacks…..
Giving up a top 100 prospect just to clear Arroyo’s ’15 and ’16 buyout (basically $9M)? That makes reverse-sense.
Are the Diamondbacks cash strapped or something? That’s the only real explanation that I have.
Well, I mean, they just signed a $1B TV deal, so them being cash-strapped is kinda screwy, IMO.
They also paid Toissaint $2.7M signing bonus, and Gosselin signed for $150,000. So the actual money they “saved” is that amount ($2.55M) less than Arroyo’s contract, so about $7 or $8M? It’s basically nothing. The A’s paid Hiroyuki Nakajima $6M to play at AAA for two seasons, and everyone won’t shut up about how they’re “cash-strapped”.
Good with this as a Braves fan.
I am going to go bald scratching my head on this one.
Is Dave Stewart drunk?
Wait what…???? For a career minor leaguer??
Love this deal for the Braves. Toussaint is a quality arm, probably a #2 or #3 starter down the line.
Traded on your birthday. Yay??
Now, I know this FO follows it’s own standards, but seriously? Toussaint for a utility player without control beyond this year, on the DL, just to move Arroyo’s contract? I worry for this team’s fan base if these are the types of moves to expect going forward. On the other hand, good job by The Braves pulling this one off.
That utility player is under control through at least 2020.
Misread the info, so my mistake on that bit, should have read more carefully. That being said, the control really doesn’t change the fact that this trade is mind boggling as the player in question really isn’t something to write home about. Another strange decision by a strange FO.
Of course the trade is mind boggling, the DBacks just signed a 1B$ tv contract.
That is exactly what every team’s fans dream of for their Top 5 prospect, a utility player under control for another 5 seasons. Reminds me of the trade for Fran Healy the Giants made, trading away George Foster.
Did I say anything about it being a good return? Nope!
I’m confused… Does this mean the Braves paid $10 million for a 19 yr old prospect, or do they actually see value in arroyo coming back from tommy John?
10 mil is chump change
It’s probably the former. If a team has excess $$$ lying around and they’re not seriously planning on contending this year, then why not?
Make no mistake, Dback fans are not happy with giving away talent for a salary dump. Especially when there is very little money committed to 2016.
Braves may need to add another team to their A-ball.
John Hart has perfected the art of jedi mind tricks. Touki Toussaint just adds to the tremendous collection of young arms in Atlanta. From Tehran, Perez, Sims, Cabrera, Jenkins, it goes on and on. My hat is off to John Hart.
Don’t worry everyone, Arizona is so pitching-rich they don’t even need 1st rd top 100 pitching prospects—oh wait.
Dave Stewart might as well write “daddy” in his phone for Hart’s phone number.
Teams have gone to pretty big lengths for salary before, but is Toussaint really worth the salary relief for a rebuilding team like the D-Backs?
Not when you consider the fact that they paid him 2.7M$ 12 months ago to sign with them.
The Braves must have turned on auto accept or something… How else can you explain this deal?
You’re really upset about this from the Braves’ perspective? Worst case they basically bought themselves a Top 100 prospect, and if Arroyo turns into the reliable back-end rotation option he’s been all his career until his injury, they have him for a reasonable price too.
Auto-accept is when the game forces the other team to accept any trade offer made. So no he is not upset from Braves perspective
Silly Diamondbacks, Phil Gosselin is Ryan Gosling’s unrelated cousin
Im pretty sure the dodgers would have loved to get in on a trade like this, but i doubt the dbacks would be open to trading to a rival.
At least the dbacks can use that 9 million to sign a player next offseason, i guess. I prefer the braves end of the trade though.
What on earth? Braves picked their pockets.
i just feel bad for the Diamondbacks fans right now. I seriously did not believe it when i first heard it, i thought somebody had hacked the site, this is so bad…
The whole “freeing up money” thing isn’t even right – it’s whatever’s left of Arroyo’s deal MINUS the $2.7M signing bonus they gave Toussaint.
And it’s even worse when you break it down as “Buying Toussaint for $10M or so” because then almost every team in MLB could probably get them a better quality player than Gosselin if it means getting the #71 prospect according to BBA.
aww this is exactly what I’d been crying for the Cubs to do during the rebuild. good work John Hart.
Maybe it was Kevin Towers on the phone disguising his voice, pretending to be Dave Stewart?
20 years ago that would be easy. All you’d need is a helium balloon.
Looking at this Trade from both teams’ views first I will start with The
Diamondbacks are getting a decent hitter in Phil Gosselin a good defender and a great guy in the clubhouse. As far as power goes Gosselin he is never going to hit more than 20 home runs in a season.
As far as the Braves go with Jace Peterson, who hitting close to 300 and playing great defense and with top prospect Jose Peraza who is hitting well over 300 the Braves had no need and no room for Phil Gosselin. Taking on Arroyo 10.1 reaming contract will hurt the Braves for the remaining of the season.
As in the off-season chances are the Braves will use the 4.5MM buyout.
The biggest part of this trade is that the Braves received Touki Toussaint, who was ranked as the Diamondbacks 4th overall prospect.
When it’s come to this trade the Braves won this trade and it’s not even close.
As a Braves fan, this trade shows two things number one the Braves are not the cheep Braves of couple of years ago. But I think it’s also safe to say that the Braves today have of the best if not the best farm system in baseball. John Hart should win GM of the year for not only making the Braves a good team, but having the chances to make this Braves team one of the best in baseball for years to come and in large part it’s because of moves like this.
They have a good farm system but it still isn’t top 5.
Agreed, I think saying close to top 10 is generous. A lot of the rankings I’ve found don’t include the recent trades, etc – like the one that brought Wisler over to Atlanta.
I’d say they’re somewhere around 11-13. I’m excited to see what the future holds w/ Hart & CO.
I’m not sure I’d say they’re not the cheap Braves, more like they had free’d up money with contracts being traded and Uggla coming off next season.
Hart loves pitching prospects, as every GM should. Arroyo could possibly come back and give them something, but you’re right, they may buy him out.
Braves continue to make trades while the phillies front office is asleep at the switch
Makes you wonder what Chase Utley would have brought back from AZ
I… but… just… is this… is this real? The DBacks are seriously okay with trading a guy like Toussaint, JUST to clear Arroyo’s (not even all that bad) salary? I mean, wow. This is sad. I’d almost feel bad for the DBacks, but as a good Tony La Russa loathing Brewers fan, I can’t quite make it happen.
Seriously? What the …? As a salary dump on Arroyo, they give up Touki? That’s crazy. Didn’t Arizona just this year get out from under most of $244M in deferred salaries from 2001 (under Colangelo), when they mortgaged *everything* for a World Series title? I think the only one remaining $ that they’re still paying is to Bernard Gilkey. They just finished paying Matt Williams deferred salary in 2014.
Big, new $1.5B tv deal. More MLB tv/media money than ever. Revenue sharing. Finally erased their massive deferred salaries. And *now* this? LOL ‘Zona.
One of the more lopsided trades in recent memory.
I’m really confused by LaRussa and Stewart at this point.
Wow, this is stunning. This had to come from ownership, right? Dave Stewart will be the fall guy.
~$10 million for a 19 year old pitching prospect is a high price. Safe to say not many teams outside of Braves could afford to make this trade, or even want to take the risk on something a risky as a pitching prospect in A league for this kind of money.
Whenever something seems completely one sided, it’s a good exercise to question the conventional wisdom. Seems like Braves won a slam dunk; that won’t be known until Toussaint proves himself an asset, either in a trade or major leaguer. Maybe in 5 years…
not even the case. they could flip him in a trade, too. at this point, they got a top pitching prospect without giving up anything of value.
Trade? My last paragraph.
$10 million is value by any metric.
Every team in MLB would trade $10M for a first round draft pick pick without blinking an eye.
Sorry, I left out *last years* first round draft pick.
First rounders from 5+ years ago who aren’t in the bigs are obviously nowhere near as valuable as recent ones.
Maybe if they could pay outright for a prospect, or draft pick, they would pay $10M? Trade like this could open the door to unlimited, and direct, amounts in trade. I think it’s a $1M limit before the MLB needs to approve.
They never have.
He’s worth more than a first round pick now that he’s proven himself in A. But, It’s debatable if he’s worth $10M.
Of course they never have, I’m not entirely sure its allowed.
I’m saying if it was legal, if every single MLB team had the chance to buy a 1st round pick from 2015 or 2014 for $10M, they absolutely would. That’s 6 years of full control, if they simply make the bigs for a season then its worth it. Plus the draft has gotten a lot more streamlined by metrics and advanced scouting to where it seems like a lot more 1st rounders are panning out in some way, be it simply making the show, or turning into stars.
dbacks are getting a solider player. Gritty traditional 2 hole hitter that could hit 300 easily. Had taken over the Braves starting 3rd base gig before the wrist injury.
AZ has a far better 3B in Jake Lamb.
Not saying I’d be happy if I was a D-Backs fan, but this is a pretty fair deal for both teams. The latest research I’ve seen on prospect values gives pitchers in the top 51-100 range a value of about $9.5mm. Arroyo is owed about $10mm, which makes this a pretty equal trade and helps to back up their valuation research.
I’ve had this discussion already, but the reason this deal is so terrible is the monetary trade off does not over ride the talent trade off, the best teams take both things into consideration, and the only logical explanation for the thought process that went into the D’Backs making this deal is that they wanted to save some money, which is crazy for a team who hasn’t been a free spender of late and just signed a pretty massive TV deal, as $10million really isn’t a lot of money in the game right now.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by monetary trade off and talent trade off. Baseball player’s talent gets converted into money, either by salary or trade. The talent of Toussaint is worth $9.5mm. The negative value of Arroyo’s talent is worth $10.1mm. That is why both teams made this trade. Like I said, I understand why a D-Backs fan would be upset. No body likes to see what they perceive as a salary dump, or in this case giving up talent to clear salary. However, this is what baseball truly is. It’s a business and teams that are better at properly converting the talent of players into dollars usually win. They are better at amassing undervalued players, handling trades and signing free agents.
If anything, this should be seen as a good move for Arizona fans. At least you finally have a front office that looks as they may know how to judge talent and properly value it.
When evaluating a deal, of course you look at the monetary value of each player as a piece of the puzzle, but baseball is more than just a business. It’s a sport, a competitive sport with competitive players that hold value beyond dollar signs and with teams that should do more than strive to be a successful business, that should strive to be a successful franchise. I get it, we like to put dollar values on quantified talent(i.e saying Touki is worth $9.5m due to his prospect ranking), and the best organizations take that into account during the process, no doubt. But operating solely in that fashion loses the context of the upside of the players in question. The trade off I mentioned is the trade off of dollars gained/traded to on field production, including perceived upside. The value of the return for the D’Backs is only equal in dollars, not talent, which is why this does not add up to a good deal, and would only do so if Touki winds up a bust. Unless the D’Backs are hurting for money, which they aren’t, I don’t really see why they made this deal, and clearly neither do most people.
His upside is quantified and helps make up the value of said prospect. Sure, Toussant could end up being the next Kershaw, but the chances he is even the next Bud Norris are less than 1 in 5.
Most people on this site drastically overrate and over value prospects. I would expect most to see this as a terrible deal. The problem is, if Toussaint busts like he is most likely to do, no one will remember this deal. If he breaks the odds and succeeds, everyone will crucify Stewart for this trade. The truth of the matter is that the process was sound on both sides and that is all you can ask for from your GM.
“Research” is a generous term.
Fine, I’ll start calling it articles that use the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.
“The latest research I’ve seen on prospect values gives pitchers in the top 51-100 range a value of about $9.5mm.”
Lots of ways to value a prospect. That sounds interesting. Do you have a link, or analyst name, on this one?
I don’t want to get in trouble with the mods by linking a site here, but I’m sure if you google, baseball updated trade surplus values, you would find something very close to the top that would be an interesting read. The initial article was a few years ago and they updated it in Dec. Using their prospect values this offseason along with fWAR for existing players and now this trade and it was close on several big trades.
as a Mets fan, I am disappointed by the Dbacks’ incompetence here
I’d have to think RAJ is pretty happy to get a breather from his year-long beating in the press too.
He’s probably steaming about this distraction from his incompetence…. And he’ll likely counter now with a Cole Hamels for Joe Kelly deal
I like this move for the Braves. I’m very impressed with what Hart has done so far.