When it comes to deals made between Major League Baseball’s 30 franchises, one of the most remarkable is for clubs to trade players from positions of power. Consider, for example, The last three players to be sent swap Dalton Varshaw player from Arizona Diamondbacks to me Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for catcher Gabriel Moreno and outfielder Lourdes Guriel Jr. The Diamondbacks had too many talented outfielders, and the Blue Jays had too many talented catchers. What did they do? They solved each other’s problems.
The Varsho deal, in concert with an otherwise dormant offseason trade market, has us here at CBS Sports thinking about other teams that could be well equipped to make similar strength-for-strength trades. Below, you’ll find five such teams that have positional lineups that will lend themselves to working in a Blue Jays-like capacity, where they trade a talented, if somewhat blocked player for another player who happens to fill an area of need.
But first, we are legally bound to require you to think of this as just a thought experiment. With that out of the way, let’s get to the stuttering, stumbling, and growling. (Note that there is no actual reason or rhyme behind the teams’ order.)
No other MLB organization has more compelling left side prospects than the Reds. This past summer alone, they added Noelfi Marty, Edwin Arroyo, Spencer Steer, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Cam Collier, and Sal Stewart through trades and draft deals to a group that already includes such notables as Eli de la Cruz, Matt McClain, Tyler Callihan, Jose Torres, among others. Cruz (No. 11) and Mart (No. 13) Both made the list of top 20 prospects on CBS Sports, and Arroyo and Collier weren’t far away. The Reds, who are still in the talent accretion stage of rebuilding, would be wise to move some players they deem unnecessary to fill other holes in their depth chart.
We’ve mentioned the Brewers’ potential overseas predicament before. The short version is that they enter the season with a starting lineup that includes Christian Yelich, Garrett Mitchell, Tyrone Taylor or any other option. They’ll have the opportunity to replace the latter in time, as prospects like Sal Frelick and Joey Weimer are set to begin their Triple-A years. What’s more is that Jackson Chorio, one of the best prospects in the entire sport, will begin his 2023 campaign at Double-A. If Chourio plays the way he did last season, he could work his way up to the majors before celebrating his 20th birthday and leaving the Brewers with more talented outfielders than their rosters.
in the same vein, We’ve covered the Rangers’ newfound shooting depth elsewhere. Texas continued to sign, re-sign, and trade the veterans, giving them a starting five that should feature a combination of Jacob DeGrum, Nathan Ivaldi, Andrew Henie, Martin Perez, John Gray, and Jake Odorezi. Additionally, the Rangers have many youngsters who haven’t fully established themselves in the majors they can move into; I think Taylor Hearn, injured Dean Dunning, Glenn Otto, Spencer Howard and Cole Ragans. As if that weren’t enough, there is also an incoming group of recent high draft picks, including top five picks Jack Leiter and Kumar Rucker and the duo of Owen White and Cole Wayne of 2018. It should surprise no one if the Rangers move some of the aforementioned names through the coming weeks to improve their offensive production.
As with the Brewers, the Cardinals have found more talented outfielders than they have on the roster. St. Louis likely entered the year rocking a combination of Dylan Carlson, Tyler O’Neal, Lars Nutbarr, and Juan Yepez. They’ll have Alec Burleson on the bench and a pair of interesting hitters (albeit from wildly different backgrounds) a long call away: former minor league free agent Moises Gomez, and former first-round pick and best Jordan Walker. It looks like the Cardinals are almost guaranteed to trade their deep outside before August. O’Neal, by far the closest to free agency, seems the most likely to leave.
We started with a bunch of forwards from an Ohio-based team, let’s end up with another. The Guardians have a lot of medium options to offer other teams. They are likely to open the 2023 campaign with Amed Rosario and Andrés Giménez as a dual-play combination, but they will have Gabriel Arias and Tyler Freeman in case of emergency. The Guardians’ depth goes beyond those four as well, with interesting prospects Brian Rocchio and Jose Tena at Triple-A, and Angel Martinez at Double-A. You can understand if the guards want to stick in deeper than they usually do — Rosario is an imminent free agent, after all — but they could still break away from one or two of those players to promote elsewhere at some point between now and the trade deadline.