MVN - Most Valuable Network

Rhodes Shipped to Marlins- Everyone else Stays for Now

The Seattle Mariners were expected to make a couple of trades today, but in the end they made only one. Arthur Rhodes was shipped off to the Marlins for Gaby Hernandez. Hernandez (22) is a double A pitcher who has shown mixed results this season. Rhodes was one of the M’s names that most people expected to be traded and GM Lee got good value out of a non roster invitee.

Hernandez was baseball America’s number 5 Marlin prospect at the beginning of 2008 and many scouts and evaluators had him as a potential #2 or #3 starter in the future. John Sickes gave him a B grade at the start of the season and Matt Birnbach at Future Fish here at MVN had Hernandez as the Marlins #7 prospect. Here is a little scouting report by him:

Hernandez commands a two seam fastball in the low 90s, with excellent life. He also has a potentially very good changeup. He has an effortless delivery that helps out his command, and he is not afraid to challenge hitters. Gaby’s curveball is a work in progress, as it still lacks depth and he tends to reveal itself a bit early. Because his fastball isn’t hard enough, Gaby cannot get by without a plus breaking ball, as hitters would just sit on the fastball all day and punish it. He has the potential to be a #2-3 starter, depending on how much he can develop his secondary pitches. He will begin the year in the hitter’s paradise that is the Pacific Coast League. He’ll have plenty of competition on that team as he will vie for a rotation spot in 2009.

Baseball America’s scouting report prior to this year:

Hernandez, who came over from the Mets in the Paul Lo Duca deal prior to last season, has good overall stuff, but his curveball still hasn’t become consistent enough to grade it as an average pitch. While there was talk of scrapping Hernandez’s curveball and giving him a power slider to go along with a 94 mph four-seamer, the club added a cutter at the tail end of last season to give him another weapon and something thats allowed his breaking ball to progress.Hernandez grew into the pitch in the Puerto Rican Winter League, and impressed the Marlins’ brass during his short stint in big league camp this spring.

It’s not only helped in giving him another pitch, but its helped his breaking ball,” Marlins vice president of scouting and player development Jim Fleming said. Hes throwing his curveball with a little bit more velocity. Hes getting close.

His location and command of the cutter is still a work in progress, but hes always had solid command of all his other pitches. He pitches with his fastball a lot and hes a very aggressive kid, so we’re real pleased with where he is. His changeup his third pitch; his cutter is probably fourth right now, but with the way its coming I think it’ll become more important to him pretty soon.

Finally a little article about his time at Marlins spring training in 2007:

“Gaby is an extremely intense and talented guy,” Fleming said. “He’s very locked in to pitching, and he’s what we thought he was.”

The Marlins had two objectives sending him to Puerto Rico. First, it was to add some extra innings, and secondly, they wanted him to fine tune a cut-fastball in game situations.

Along with a 92-94 mph fastball, Hernandez throws a curveball, changeup, sinker and cutter.

“This early, I’m more concerned with gaining arm strength,” Marlins pitching coach Rick Kranitz said. “Sometimes that offspeed stuff, the slider/cutter comes later. I’d rather see the feel of the changeup and the fastball command, than I would with the slider and all that. To me, that’s the last thing to come.”

In terms of first impressions, Kranitz sees Hernandez as a pitcher with tremendous upside.

“He looks like he’s pretty polished for a young pitcher,” Kranitz said. ” When you’re a young pitcher, you say, ‘Who does he remind me of?’ I can tell you he looks like he’s a got a pretty good feel of what he’s doing. He’s pretty sound, and his stuff really looks very good.”

His stats throughout the minor leagues have been solid and it’s seems like the Mets and Marlins had high hopes for him because he was promoted quickly. His stats may not look outstanding, but he was way ahead of the curve and still is. His K rate has declined, but its not terrible and his BB rate has risen, but still within reason. It seems Alburqurque in the PCL is more to blame than Hernandez. It’s a great hitters park and kills a lot of good arms.

Overall it’s seems that this kid could be a #4 starter in the big leagues if he can develop and throw his secondary pitches more effectively. To me this is a homerun of a deal for the Mariners. They get rid of a 39 year old Rhodes for added depth at the higher minors and a potential back end of the rotation innings eater.

Here is what GM Lee had to say about the trade courtesy of MLB.Com:

“We felt the opportunity to acquire a young pitcher made sense as we look toward 2009 and beyond,” Mariners general manager Lee Pelekoudas said. “Pedro Grifol, our Minor League field coordinator, has known Gaby for several years and believes he has a chance to help us in the future.”

This is the first trade Pelekoudas has made since taking over for dismissed GM Bill Bavasi on June 16.

There was a potential deal in place for Ibanez to head to Toronto for two major leaguers, but apparently the M’s back out at the last minute. Geoff Baker had more to say:

“We had some really good talks with Seattle, they were pretty intense and pretty in-depth,” Ricciardi said in a conference call with Toronto media. “We thought at one point there was a possibility to get something done there, but it just didn’t come to fruition.

“We were ready to go forward,” he added. “I think at the end of the day they just didn’t feel as comfortable going forward to finish off the trade. It was just something that didn’t come to fruition. Both parties worked hard. At the end of the day they probably weren’t as comfortable with making the trade as we were. That happens.”

“We were ready to go forward,” Ricciardi said. “I think at the end of the day they just didn’t feel as comfortable going forward to finish off the trade.”

It would be pretty interesting to find out what two players the Blue Jays were willing to give up for Ibanez. Ibanez is going to be a Type A free agent, but there is always that possibility that he will accept arbitration. Blue Jays have a couple of good young arms and a couple of decent outfield prospects that could have helped the M’s in the future. I just hope that a couple of names get leaked.

Anyways, just because the trade deadline is gone doesn’t mean that trades can’t happen. They must first clear waivers, but in the M’s case that shouldn’t be too hard. Washburn is going to get through waivers and the Yankees and M’s could continue their negotiations. I still see the M’s moving Washburn to New York, but outside of that don’t read too much into Beltre or Ibanez rumors from here on out. Ibanez will not go through waivers without getting pick up and I think the M’s will keep Beltre and try to extend him. Here is what Lee has to say about it:

“You can still make moves after Aug. 1, with certain restrictions, but we also have the offseason,” Pelekoudas said. “There is a lot of time to make moves. We are not in any time crunch. There is no deadline to get this club turned around in the next two days, the next week or the next two or three weeks. We have time to do this, and we plan to do it systematically, step by step.”

So maybe this isn’t the last trade for the M’s. And please get rid of Vidro already.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.