August 1, 2022
Today, the A’s and the Yankees pulled off a trade, sending starting pitcher Frankie Montas to New York.
The Athletics will receive JP Sears, Ken Waldichuk, Luis Medina, and Cooper Bowman.
The Yankees with receive Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino.
The Yankees have now received two bullpen arms as well as Andrew Benintendi and Frankie Montas at this deadline, and the A’s continue their fire sale. Let’s look into this trade a little more deeply.
Montas should definitely be an upgrade over German, who is currently filling in for the injured Luis Severino in the rotation. He throws a 4-seamer, splitter, sinker, slider, and a cutter. He has a mid-90s fastball and high-80s breaking pitches. Montas has been consistent for the last four years other than in 2020. He has a career 3.73 ERA in 552.2 innings pitched and a 3.18 ERA with 104.2 innings pitched this year. His peripheral stats, such as xERA, show that he should be pitching closer to his career ERA than his actual ERA. His xERA for this season is 3.70. He does give the Yankees something they wanted, another good starting pitcher. He also has another year of control, so he can fill Jameson Taillon’s spot in the rotation next year (Taillon is a Free Agent). Trivino also has two more years of control, which is why the Yankees had to send so much talent. Trivino will help the Yankees very thin bullpen. While his ERA is at 6.32 this season, he has a career 4.04 ERA and a xERA of 4.28. Three out of his four full seasons he’s had a below 4 ERA. If he can revert back to form, he will be a major pickup for the Yankees.
The A’s meanwhile will pick up three pitching prospects and a second baseman prospect. Waldichuk is the prize for the A’s. He’s a top 100 prospect and major league ready. Waldichuk has 4 pitches and gets a ton of strikeouts. I expect to see him up with the A’s soon. JP Sears was already up with the Yankees at the time of this trade. He had a 1.67 ERA in AAA in 43 innings and a 2.05 ERA in 22 innings as a Yankee. He will probably take Montas’ spot in the rotation. Medina is the Yankees #10 prospect and is currently in AA. He’ll be called up soon more than likely, considering he has a 3.38 ERA in 72 innings this season. He also will pick up strikeouts, but walks a lot of batters. Bowman really fits perfectly with the A’s if I think about it. He doesn’t have a great hit tool, but he does have a TON of speed. He already has 35 stolen bases this season. He’s only in high A ball, but if he starts hitting, I’m sure he’ll be in Oakland in the future.
Another thing to consider here is that they didn’t give up Oswald Peraza or Austin Wells in this trade. That makes me think there may be another trade being lined up. We will see.
The A’s definitely have a chance of fleecing the Yankees in this deal, but Montas could help the Yankees considerably. I think the A’s will end up winning this trade though. I believe Waldichuk or Medina will develop into a good pitcher, and the Yankees will still fall short of a World Series.