The D-backs are bringing one of their first-round picks back to the organization, signing right-hander Aaron Blair to a minor league contract, per MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo (Twitter link). He’s repped by PSI Sports Managament.
Blair, 27, was a supplemental first-rounder out of Marshall University in 2013. He ranked among baseball’s 100 best prospects per Baseball America, MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus in both the 2014-15 and 2015-16 offseasons. But while Blair was a fast riser who thrived during his first extended looks at Double-A and Triple-A, his career stalled out upon reaching the Majors.
Arizona included Blair in the franchise-altering trade that also sent Dansby Swanson and Ender Inciarte to Atlanta in exchange for Shelby Miller. He made his MLB debut with the Braves in April 2016, but from 2016-17 he combined to allow 64 earned runs with a lackluster 49-to-39 K/BB ratio over the life of 73 innings.
Blair eventually underwent surgery to repair a torn capsule in his pitching shoulder in April 2018 — a procedure that wound up sidelining him for not only the 2018 season but all of the 2019 campaign as well. After pitching just 2 2/3 innings between the Majors and Triple-A over the past two seasons, Blair will face an uphill battle in pitching his way back to the big leagues, but he’ll do so in his original organization — one where he had more success than he did at any point during his Braves tenure.
The DBacks won the Shelby Miller trade!
Lol :/ Not sure anyone exactly won that trade. But Braves definitely got more use, so guess we did
You’re joking right??
For a second I thought you engaged in a argument with yourself…carry on
Yea…..what? Inciarte won two gold gloves, and Miller thoroughly bombed AND cost money.
Blast from the recent past…hope he can get back on track✊
Interestingly, Shelby Miller and Aaron Blair were both signed this off-season to minor league deals.
interesting…would be cool to see him figure things out
Linda Blair
No one won that trade. Everyone lost. Its like all the players colluded to be as mediocre as possible.
At least the Braves got a few solid seasons out of Ender Inciarte inlcuding 2 Gold Gloves and an all-star game. Swanson still has a chance to turn it around, although the door is starting to close on him. Shelby Miller gave up almost 100 earned runs in less than 150 innings in Arizona.
If a first round pick develops into a MLB regular, that’s a success. Not every player on a winning team is a superstar. Atlanta got 2 of their 8 starters in that trade. I’d call it a success.
If a #1 pick overall develops into a mediocre everyday player, that’s a major failing. You think the Rays are happy they drafted Tim Beckham?
You do realize that Swanson has steadily progressed, making strides, and improved every year, correct?? He is now a borderline All-Star, that plays very solid defense, and had improved his offense to above average for his position.
In 2019, Swanson ranked above average in all of the following analytics: exit velo, OAA, xwOBA, xSLG, Hard Hit%, Sprint Speed, and xBA…
He has greatly improved his approach and his batting profile at the plate, popping up less, making harder contact, swinging at less bad pitches, hitting more line drives. This has lead to Swanson hitting for more power, taking more walks, striking out less, and with the adjustments he made going into the 2019 season, we should only continue to see Swanson make further progress towards becoming a perennial All-Star SS.
My only concern moving forward is the fact that Swanson always seems to have some random injury that he attempts to play through, yielding not so good results. His wrist injury immediately sapped his power in 2018, and severely dampened the progress he had shown earlier in the season. Last year, it was more of the same, Swanson was having a very solid season, he gets hit with an injury, tries to continue to play through it before he is fully healed, and his on the field results take a step backwards because of it.
We witnessed the same thing happen to Freddie Freeman at the end of the last season. It is great to want to fight and play through an injury, but there comes a point where you’re not only hurting yourself, but your team as well..
I don’t know whats funnier saying Swanson has steadily progressed or that he is progressing towards a perennial all star. He is 26 years old and has yet to have a season of an OPS+ of 100 other than his cup of coffe callup. With how young the game is getting thats not even close to enough production for his age. The Dodgers alone might have 4 better shortstops than Swanson so he is nowhere near an all star. At this point he is nothing but the hype of a regrettable #1 overall pick.
Did you see him in the NLDS? If the Braves has somehow won that series, it was on his back.
Incase you missed it….977 OPS. Just saying.
Nathan Eovaldi pitched like a god in the 2018 playoffs. These small sample sizes mean nothing.
Slugging is not Swanson’s game, while he can hit for some pop and hit with power, he will never be a Trevor Story type.
Swanson is good at everything, and great great at a few things. Regardless though, what is funny is the fact you’re clearly showing how little you actually follow and know about Swanson. I stopped primarily measuring how good a player was by the back of their baseball card when I was about 10 years old, you should probably consider the same thing sooner or later..
If not for playing through injuries, then even you would be able to tell he has improved, because it has negatively impacted his statistics. However, when healthy the past two seasons, Swanson has been a steady contributor both offensively and defensively for the Braves, and has shown he’s a clubhouse leader, performing his best when the lights are the brightest..
Continue to think what you want, but anyone with even the most minuscule knowledge of the game, that has paid attention to Swanson knows he had steadily made huge strides. If you think otherwise, you should probably consider following a different sport, because clearly you’re missing the obvious..
You should follow a different sport if you want to take a blind eye to stats lmao. Dude has large 3 season sample sizes of mediocre offense. No one cares about your funny excuses to dance around it. You called him close to an all star…. He is no where near that except from delusional Brave fans like you.
He is not a borderline all star. Sorry, man. I’m a Braves fan and know this.
He’s a borderline all star? Talk about being a major homer.
The kid tore it up until he got called up… then it went down hill. I thought he was a sure lock long time mlb starter. Not front like by any means, but solid #3 as a floor. Boy I was wrong…
Well, it certainly didn’t help that the Braves treated him like a yo-yo calling him up and sending him down countless times between the ML and AAA rosters..
Blair was never really given a fair, extended look, but when he did have longer periods at the ML level, he actually did pretty well…Which shouldnt surprise anyone..
Some of the blame does fall on Blair, but the Braves certainly didn’t do him any favors by mismanaging him as a young pitcher..Due to injuries, and a lack of stability in his assignments, Blair was never given a fair shake..
I truly hope he is able to bounceback.
bravesfan88…????? Blair actually did pretty well in the majors, when? In 2016 when his ERA was 7.59? Or in 2017, when his ERA was 15.00!?!?!?
In some stints he did well, but he was toggled back and forth, with few and far between opportunities. Therefore, a yearly ERA will only tell you his overall performance, but he did have a few quality starts at times..
He doesn’t let facts get in the way of thinking everyone that has anything to do with the braves is great.
Yeah the dude is a super homer.
Yea Chesteraarthur is a class A troll. Please move along. Gonna use “facts” in his argument, however the troll admiringly didn’t know the numerical assignment to each position in the field. It was comical to say the least. His baseball iq simply can’t be respected.
Scottaz… not that I don’t ultimately agree with you, but era isn’t a relevant statistic to evaluate a pitchers performance. However, it may be a good indication if something is wrong when it’s extremely high like that stats you pulled. Because # of appearances can greatly impact that number, I think your argument would have been strong if you used different statistics. Especially since era is widely consider useless
bravesfan…I’m aware that using ERA dates me and isn’t a highly regarded stat in the analytics era, so let me use a better way of describing Blair’s MLB performance to date… he sucks. Blair has been a borderline AAA/AAAA pitcher in his career. I think that is a far superior evaluation of Blair than the “he actually did pretty well” evaluation posted by the other bravesfan88 poster here.
WAR 2016 -1.5. WAR 2017 -0.2. negative in his only 2 years in the majors
Yea I’m with you. He some glimpse of decency, like a game here or a game there. But he was overall not good.
Had some upside with the braves but control problems when pitching.
Yeah well Shelby didn’t do a darn thing in the Desert so I give this one to Atlanta. Not Miller’s fault really with all the setbacks ; he did have us excited for a minute after the trade, though. But obviously that doesn’t count.
Good luck to Blair. I hope he can overcome the injury and make it back to the bigs.
How in the darn did Arizona survive that horrible Miller trade…..
Ditched that entire FO
Blessed be the name of Hazen
Which just goes to show you.
Those “hot 100” prospects are just that. “Prospects…..”
Heart is willing, body wasn’t capable. Good luck fella!
Blair’s one and only claim to fame was that he was part of the trade that has erroneously been dubbed the “worst trade of the century”. That was the prevailing sentiment back in Dec., 2015, when casual fans thought a First Round Number One pick in the draft (Dansby Swanson) would automatically become a First Ballot Unanimous Hall of Famer. What all those casual fans didn’t understand was that that is not a guarantee, in fact it very seldom happens. But also, casual fans didn’t understand that the year Swanson was drafted had a very weak crop of prospects at the top, and that Swanson wasn’t considered a great ball player, he was considered a great clubhouse leader who was just OK on the field and in his tool kit.
Today, looking back at that trade and evaluating it based not on future projections, but on actual player performance or non-performance, the trade itself was a fairly minor trade for both teams. Blair and Speier were absolute wash out, nobodies. Shelby Miller suffered injuries and absolutely plummeted from All-Star pitcher to total bust. Inciarte became an OK CF for a few years, but a good, not great player. And Swanson is so far away from Hall of Fame caliber, it’s laughable to think he was once so highly regarded by casual fans. So, the so-called ”worst trade of the Century” was in reality a minor trade for both teams. Neither team actually gave up much when you subtract future projections from the equation.
People arguing that the braves didn’t win this trade are wild. Even if Swanson wasnt included the braves hosed arizona for ender.
R.D. Nobody is saying the Braves didn’t “win” this trade. If you must use that simplistic idea that someone has to “win”, then go right ahead. This discussion is about “when” should trades be evaluated? Immediately? After a few years? Or even a longer time frame? My point is Not that one team or the other “won” this trade, only that the initial assessment of the trade as “the trade of the Century” in terms of fleecing the Dbacks is far from reality after just a few years time.
BTW, that trade has never been examined from the Dback’s perspective. Dbacks could have traded either Blair or Braden Shipley, who was regarded more highly than Blair. You say “Who?” to Shipley, exactly.
Dbacks chose between Inciarte and another CF named A.J. Pollock and decided to trade Ender.
The Dbacks had just signed Zack Greinke and needed a #2 starter to complement Greinke at #1, so those of us Dbacks fans who knew that Swanson was no sure fire HoFer were thinking that the Dbacks had fleeced the Braves who foolishly thought as many of their fans did that Swanson was much greater than he actually was.
Obviously, the talking heads and media writers weren’t clueing in on these details, right along with casual baseball fans, so the initial perception and expectations of the trade were very different from today’s realities. Yet, those initial, false expectations still linger today among casual fans and even many in the media. I find it all rather amusing.
Literally no one thought the Dbacks fleeced the Braves at the time of the trade.