Cardinals Get: Marcell Ozuna: 37 HR, .312/.376/.548, 1 SB, 142 wRC+, 4.8 fWAR
Marlins Get: Sandy Alcantara: 0-0, 4.32 ERA, 1.80 WHIP, 10/6 K/BB, 8.1 IP
Magneuris Sierra: 0 HR, .317/.359/.317, 2 SB, 86 wRC+, 0.0 fWAR
Zac Gallen: 10-8, 2.93 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 121/35 K/BB, 147.2 IP at High Class A, AA, and AAA
Daniel Castano: 9-3, 2.57 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 81/13 K/BB, 91 IP at Class A Short Season
After Stanton, the trade of Marcell Ozuna to the Cardinals is perhaps the biggest this offseason. St. Louis is a team with very real playoff aspirations, but an outfield of Dexter Fowler, Tommy Pham, and Stephen Piscotty/Randal Grichuk isn't quite enough for a World Series run. With Piscotty likely to be dealt to the A's, Ozuna can step in and seriously upgrade the team. He'll immediately be the best bat in the lineup, slotting right in the middle with Fowler, Pham, Matt Carpenter, Jedd Gyorko, Paul DeJong, and Yadier Molina around him. He has two years of arbitration left, meaning the Cardinals will have him cheap in both 2018 and 2019, and they'll be his age 27 and 28 seasons. You might not have heard about it because of his small market team, but Ozuna blossomed from an above-average hitter to one who straight up mashed in 2017. A year after slashing a respectable .266/.321/.452 with 23 home runs in 2016, good for a 106 wRC+ and 2.5 fWAR, Ozuna got onto another level this year, slashing .312/.376/.548 with 37 home runs, a 142 wRC+, and 4.8 fWAR in 2017, earning a spot in his second straight All Star Game. His 142 wRC+ was good for 15th in all of baseball, slotting him ahead of such names as Charlie Blackmon (141), Zack Cozart (141), George Springer (140), and Cody Bellinger (138). Even with defense that Fangraphs rated as overall negative in value, his 4.8 fWAR was enough to place him 21st among all MLB position players. His arm helped him "save" ten runs defensively, netting him a Gold Glove, and he has turned himself into a real asset. Are we due for some regression in 2018? Probably, when you consider his career-high .355 BABIP (versus .327 for his career), but you can also look at his career-high 39.1% hard-hit rate and career-high 9.4% walk rate and think their might have been something going on. For his career, the Dominican has 96 home runs and a .277/.329/.457 slash line, racking up 14.2 fWAR in 653 games, all with the Marlins.
For the Cardinals, this trade injects a huge amount of talent into a completely barren farm system, even after the Stanton and Gordon trades. Their top two prospects (according to MLB.com), Trevor Rogers and Braxton Garrett, combined to throw just 15.1 professional innings (all Garrett) in their entire careers. However, with the big haul coming in, their farm system immediately jumps from "awful" to "mediocre," and that's a big leap. Sandy Alcantara, a 22 year old Dominican fireballer, is one of two headliners in the package. He spent the minor league season with AA Springfield, putting up so-so numbers (4.31 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 106/54 K/BB in 125.1 innings), but was promoted to the majors in September and held his own (4.32 ERA, 1.80 WHIP, 10/6 K/BB in 8.1 innings). His best pitch is his fastball, which sits in the mid to upper 90's and reaches 100 at times, followed by a pretty good changeup. His curveball is average right now, but a live arm like Alcantara's could tighten it in time. He's a string bean at 6'4" and 170 pounds and has the ceiling of a #2 starter, but even if his command and curveball don't develop in the way the Marlins hope, he could fall back onto being an elite reliever. Co-headlining the deal is 21 year old outfielder Magneuris Sierra, a fellow Dominican who made a huge jump in 2017. Sierra began the year at High Class A Palm Beach, slashing .272/.337/.407 with three doubles, four triples, and three stolen bases in 20 games. He was promoted straight to the majors in May, and spent the rest of the season bouncing back and forth between the Cardinals and AA Springfield. With Springfield, he slashed .269/.313/.357 with one home run and 17 stolen bases in 81 games, and with St. Louis, he slashed .317/.359/.317 with no extra base hits and two stolen bases in 22 games. Sierra is young, which is a bonus, and he plays excellent defense in center field, but he also has no power to speak of and hasn't yet mastered the art of drawing walks. He already has the contact ability to stick in the majors, but if he can improve his walk rate, he could be a top of the order hitter. If not, he's an excellent fourth outfielder/defensive replacement or a good bottom of the order hitter. 22 year old right hander Zac Gallen was a personal favorite of mine during his time back at the University of North Carolina, and the Cardinals selected him in the third round of the 2016 draft. From there, he has shut down minor league hitting, starting 2017 with High Class A Palm Beach and dominating to the tune of a 1.62 ERA, a 0.97 WHIP, and a 56/10 strikeout to walk ratio in nine starts. Promoted to AA Springfield, he held his own despite being just a year removed from college ball, going 4-5 with a 3.79 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP over 13 starts, striking out 42 and walking 19 in 71.1 innings. He had a few starts for AAA Memphis interspersed in there, where he put up a 3.48 ERA, a 1.16 WHIP, and a 23/6 strikeout to walk ratio over 20.2 innings. Gallen right now projects as a mid to back-end starter, throwing a running fastball in the low 90's, a darting cutter that contrasts well with the fastball, and a good changeup. With his above average command, he's pretty low risk, meaning it's hard to imagine him as ending up as anything less than a #5 starter. Lastly, there's Daniel Castano, a 23 year old right hander drafted in the 19th round out of Baylor in 2016. He really got going in 2017 in the Class A Short Season New York-Penn League, going 9-3 with a 2.57 ERA, a 1.10 WHIP, and an 81/13 strikeout to walk ratio over 91 innings. He's a bit on the older side for a prospect that far away from the majors, but he'll try to jump a few levels in 2018 and could be a back-end starter with his good command.
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