Anthony DeSclafani for Mat Latos Trade Turning into Big-Time Steal

General consensuses can certainly be wrong. 

When the Cincinnati Reds traded right-hander Mat Latos to the Miami Marlins for pitching prospect Anthony DeSclafani, on the same day they dealt Alfredo Simon to the Detroit Tigers, the easy analysis was that the Reds were punting the 2015 season. After all, these were the team’s two best starting pitchers outside of ace Johnny Cueto last year.

Latos had also just turned 27 days before the December trade, and he showed flashes of being a top-flight starter throughout his career. Dumping him was the equivalent to the Reds dumping their hopes in 2015. Or so it appeared.

Meanwhile, the Latos acquisition was viewed as a win-now move for the Marlins. They were a club eager to upgrade in order to surround Giancarlo Stanton with a playoff-contending roster as they awaited Jose Fernandez’s return to the top of the rotation.

However, through the first month of this season, DeSclafani has been among the National League’s best starters, while Latos has been among the worst, making the offseason trade look like a stroke of brilliance on the Reds’ part.

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With Mat Latos on the mound tonight, here is your daily reminder that Anthony DeSclafani is currently leading the NL in ERA. #Marlins

— Andrew O'Herron (@JizzySlade) April 29, 2015"

DeSclafani, who had a scoreless innings streak of 16.1 last month, no longer leads the league in ERA—he is currently eighth with a 2.03 mark—but the picture is being painted clearly nevertheless.

The 25-year-old right-hander has a 0.94 WHIP, good for eighth in the NL, and opponents are hitting .164 against him, the second-lowest average in the league. He also is keeping opposing lineups to a .183 BABIP, the fourth-lowest average.

Those numbers directly reflect DeSclafani’s low ERA because he is walking 3.19 batters per nine innings, which is among the league’s highest rates. And while his 7.55 strikeouts per nine are respectable, they are far from elite. The same can be said for his 3.87 FIP and 73.6 left-on-base rate, according to FanGraphs.

Looking at these numbers, one can’t help but to think a correction is coming. Typically you can’t walk that many, strikeout that few and still keep your ERA floating around 2.00. Likewise, a .183 BABIP is unsustainable.

Regardless, when you look at the plain and simple results, DeSclafani’s production compared to Latos’ is making their trade look one-sided.

“For a young guy trying to get established in the league, he's given us some really good quality,” Reds manager Bryan Price told reporters a couple of weeks ago. “No one can expect a guy to come out and throw the ball as well as he has … but he's been a huge boost for us, for sure.”

Latos has yet to match that kind of praise in Miami, and things got ugly right from the start.

Latos made his Marlins debut at home against what is expected to be an offensively challenged Atlanta Braves lineup, but Latos failed to make it out of the first inning. He allowed seven runs in two-thirds of an inning and was booed off the mound.

Since then it has been a string of “blah” for Latos. He’s compiled a 6.87 ERA over 21 innings. And while it is reasonable to think he is not quite that bad, it is also safe to assume his 3.25 ERA last season was not as good as it appeared.

According to FanGraphs, Latos lost two mph from his fastball from 2013 to 2014, his strikeouts per nine fell from 8.0 to 6.5 and his FIP went from 3.10 to 3.65. Knee and elbow issues also limited him to 16 starts.

Joe Skipper/Associated Press

Going into his walk year, the Reds were wise to move him. That they were able to get DeSclafani in return was nice but not seen as a steal at the time since his minor league numbers never moved him into top-prospect status.

This season has been a completely different tale. One of the biggest differences between DeSclafani in a small sample last season with the Marlins and this season in about the same amount of innings is his ability to get swings and misses.

DeSclafani is throwing more pitches in the zone this season—48.2 percent last season and 51.3 this year, according to FanGraphs. And even though hitters are swinging at his pitches in the zone at virtually the same rate, they are making contact with those swings at a much lower one—88.4 percent in 2014, 78.6 percent now.

“I was up-and-down between the Marlins and the minors last year and it was a bit of a struggle for me,” DeSclafani told Hal McCoy of Fox Sports Ohio last week. “I'm taking a very serious approach to what I am doing this year.”

Even if some of DeSclafani’s numbers correct themselves to be more in tune with league averages, he has shown enough ability through his first five starts for the Reds that they can be called clear-cut early-season winners of the trade that brought him to Cincinnati. And if he continues to be this effective, the Reds just might have surprisingly traded for a front-of-the-rotation kind of starter.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.