Before Boston acquired reliever Tyler Thornburg from Milwaukee on Tuesday, the Red Sox made a run at then-Kansas City closer Wade Davis, reports Rob Bradford of WEEI. Corner infielder Travis Shaw was the major league headliner the Red Sox surrendered for Thornburg, but he wasn’t enticing enough to the Royals in a Davis deal, a source told Bradford. The Royals instead preferred now-former Cubs outfielder Jorge Soler, whom they acquired for Davis in a one-for-one swap on Wednesday.
[RELATED: Thornburg, MLBTR contributor Burke Badenhop chat about the trade]
Landing Davis would have given the Red Sox two of the majors’ most proven closers in him and Craig Kimbrel, though the former has more setup experience and likely would have served in that role in Boston. Davis has been dominant since 2014, his first year as a full-time reliever, but picking up him instead of Thornburg would have put a greater dent in the payroll of a Red Sox franchise that’s trying to stay under the $195MM luxury-tax threshold. The 31-year-old Davis would have cost the team $10MM in 2017, the last season of his contract, while Thornburg is set to rake in a much more modest salary (an estimated $2.2MM, per MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz) in his age-28 campaign. Thornburg is controllable through 2019 via arbitration and could potentially give the Red Sox a top-caliber setup man over the next three seasons. While he doesn’t have Davis’ track record, Thornburg is nonetheless coming off a breakout year, having recorded a 2.15 ERA, 12.09 K/9 and 3.36 BB/9 across a career-high 67 innings.
As is often the cases with pitchers, both relievers carry health risks: Davis was on the disabled twice last season because of forearm and flexor strains, and the Brewers shut down Thornburg early in 2014 on account of a UCL injury that nearly led to Tommy John surgery.
Meanwhile, that the Royals went for the upside play in Soler over Shaw is understandable. The soon-to-be 25-year-old Soler’s also younger (2017 will be Shaw’s age-27 season), though he comes with less control. Shaw won’t be a free agent until after the 2021 season, and he has two pre-arbitration years remaining, whereas Soler can hit the open market at the end of the 2020 campaign. He can also opt into arbitration beginning next winter, which seems likely if he comes closer to realizing his vast potential. For now, though, the Cuba native is due a modest $15MM over the remainder of the nine-year, $30MM contract he signed with the Cubs in 2012.
DD is all over the place this winter
Exactly what a GM should be doing this time of year.
If im DD i will trye to trade Pomeranz for Victor Robles from the National!!
lol good luck bud
Well the Nats made a bad trade yesterday. I can’t picture them doing a 1000x worse trade the next day.
One can always hope.
How was the Eaton trade a bad one? Because you’ve never heard of him before?
Because they traded 2 elite prospects and their 1st round pick for adam eaton. Thats a major L. Dont get me wrong eaton is a great player but worth what they gave up? Absolutely not
Of course I have, but he’s not worth 2 of the best prospects in all of baseball.
Hmm yes, because Giolito and Lopez are going to help the Nationals win a world series this year. Not saying the Nationals will even win it all this year, but Eaton will give them a better chance and help them more than Giolito and Lopez will.
Nats would only give Robles for Sale. They have 5 starters better than Pomeranz, no chance in hell. You could however get that deal done on MLB the Show..
Except Robles won’t be on MLB The Show cuz he hasn’t made his Major League debut yet
Have you ever played Franchise mode? All rosters are there. Not just the 25 or 40 man.
Yeah but they usually don’t have prospects who haven’t made it to the MLB yet; I feel like the developers are too lazy to try and create prospects
False. It’s part of the CBA that is signed every four years or so. For gaming rights, a player has to have been called up to a MLB roster at some point, even for just a day, in order to be “promoted” as a player in a video game. In other words, all minor league prospects that have never been called up will not be in the game.
With that being said, there are people that spend hours painstakingly creating all players in an organization to make it match the best they can to RL. Those rosters are typically released a month and half after the games release.
DD doesn’t trade for prospects. He trades prospects.
Lmao so true, he did sell price to Toronto and Yo to the mets to not completely burry Detroit
Also Royals don’t need anymore 1B/3B because have some that are being blocked to like Dozier,O’Hean and so on to Trade if don’t keep Mousakas and Hosmer.
Love Dombrowski’s approach of trading prospects for established talent. With such a strong farm system, DD’s moves are well timed. Win now, win often – keep up the good work, Dombrowski.
I would love to see DD go after a power bat still,Maybe Abreu from the wSox,