In Lost Season, Now Is the Time for Todd Frazier Blockbuster Trade
With their season not going the way they had hoped, the best thing the Cincinnati Reds can do is trade the one player who can bring back the biggest return.
No, not the guy with the awesome dreadlocks who's also awesome at pitching baseballs. The guy we're talking about is slugging third baseman Todd Frazier.
As anyone who's been paying attention will know, Frazier has been a gigantic bright spot on a Reds team with relatively few of them. Through 58 games, he's hitting .288 with a .950 OPS and 17 home runs, putting him behind only Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton for the National League lead.
How good are those numbers? If you prefer bland statements, really and/or very good.
If you prefer something a bit more analytic, these numbers are good enough to place Frazier among the National League's leaders in adjusted offense (meaning wRC+):
| Bryce Harper | Nationals | 59 | 250 | 211 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | Diamondbacks | 59 | 260 | 197 |
| Anthony Rizzo | Cubs | 58 | 260 | 181 |
| Adrian Gonzalez | Dodgers | 59 | 245 | 166 |
| Joey Votto | Reds | 58 | 252 | 159 |
| Todd Frazier | Reds | 58 | 252 | 157 |
Frazier was a good hitter before 2015, racking up a .259 average, a .779 OPS and 67 home runs between 2012 and 2014. But this year, the 29-year-old has been one of the six best hitters in the Senior Circuit. For now, at least, he's made the jump from good to elite.
And that's the main reason why he has to go.
Of course, the "main reason" is not to be confused with "all the reasons." There are others, starting with the one the Reds need to be honest about:
As long as Frazier remains on the team, he's on a sinking ship.
The Reds were never projected to be an especially good team in 2015. Whether you asked a computer or a real-life human being with baseball knowledge in his noggin, the consensus was that they were ticketed to be an also-ran in the NL Central.
Sure enough, that's where the Reds are now.
At 27-32, the Reds are 11.5 games back of the first-place St. Louis Cardinals, five-and-a-half games back of the second-place Chicago Cubs and five games back of the Pittsburgh Pirates. That alone makes the Reds hopes out to be dim.
But for good measure, you can then get into how the Reds are just 23-32 since starting 4-0. Then there's the reality that they don't excel at scoring or preventing runs, ranking ninth in the NL in runs scored and 10th in ERA. The Reds also have injury problems, as Homer Bailey and Zack Cozart are done for the year and Devin Mesoraco seems to be permanently damaged goods.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Over a third of the season has passed, and the Reds don't look like a contender. If that keeps up, even they know that the trade winds that are murmuring now will be howling later.
"I think players are aware of that," first baseman Joey Votto told Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. "I think collectively that we have our focus on winning and getting back into the playoff picture. We're not particularly concerned about it, but come July, all of a sudden we're not in a good place, I think we'll be quite a bit more aware of that."
Assuming the Reds carry on as they've been carrying on, the choice of whether to sell or not to sell really won't be a choice at all. They'd be fools not to sell. Because if the Reds' present is a lost cause, then right now their future is an even bigger lost cause.
They're more than likely going to lose Johnny Cueto, he of the awesome dreadlocks and pitching skills, to free agency this winter, and Mike Leake could go with him. And the Reds certainly aren't buying their way out of their problems, as they're a small-market team that won't be free of Votto's, Bailey's and Brandon Phillips' contracts for a few more years.
The only way the Reds are going to get better is by developing talent. And while they could be worse off in that department—B/R's Joel Reuter ranks their post-draft farm system at No. 13—they'll need to be a lot better if they want to get back to being the NL Central bully they were between 2010 and 2013.
To this end, trading an ace like Cueto would indeed net the Reds some good talent. So would trading a quality starter like Leake. Ditto slugging left fielder Marlon Byrd and flame-throwing relief ace Aroldis Chapman.
But not one of them could bring the return Frazier could bring. If the Reds really want to restock their collection of young talent, he's the guy they need to move.
Over at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron has an article up that proposes that "the stars are aligning to create perhaps the most extreme seller’s market we’ve seen in a very long time."
The gist is that it's already clear the 2015 season is being defined by its outrageous parity, as right now there's only a small handful of teams that are truly out of it. Assuming things stay that way, any team that goes into sell mode should have a ton of buyers on the line looking for help.
As far as what's for sale, it's looking like there's one thing that's going to be particularly rare: Power.
Teams don't have much power in general, as this year's power output is so far tied for the second-lowest mark in the last two decades. And with the Colorado Rockies still apparently unwilling to put Troy Tulowitzki out there, the one power hitter everyone wants to be for sale might not be.
Which brings us back to Frazier.
Power is something Frazier has in spades, and not just because his results say so. According to Baseball Savant, he places among the 20 hardest hitters in MLB as measured by average exit velocity. That's power that can travel well outside of the hitter-friendly Great American Ballpark, which is certainly important for prospective buyers.
That it comes from the right side of the plate makes it all the more valuable. As ESPN.com's Buster Olney wrote recently, there's no asset more coveted in the game right now than right-handed power.
So if the Reds put Frazier on the market, there would probably be more interest in him than there would be even in Cueto and his ace-like arm. That would go double if he's put on a Tulo-less market, as only the Reds could offer a truly elite power hitter.
What would make Frazier even more attractive is the fact that, unlike Cueto and Leake, he's no rental. He's not due for free agency until after 2017, so dealing for him would mean getting the rest of his age-29 season, and then his age-30 and age-31 seasons as well.
Of course, that the Reds control Frazier's rights for two more seasons means there's no rush to move him. But knowing the direction they're heading in, holding on to him would be pointless.
In all likelihood, the Reds' inevitable rebuild isn't going to turn them back into contenders overnight. It'll take a couple years. Maybe they'll be ready by 2017. But more likely, 2018 is the better bet.
That's to say the Reds may not be ready to contend again until after Frazier's time with the Reds has run out. The only way he's still going to be around for the reboot of the good ol' times is if the Reds extend him.
And that's pretty much out of the question.
When the Seattle Mariners signed fellow star third baseman Kyle Seager to a seven-year, $100 million extension, Mark Sheldon caught up to Frazier to ask for his thoughts. He didn't offer much, but he did say he was "aware of it."
He should be. Frazier may be a couple years older than Seager, but the two have had similar careers. Seager is a career .264/.329/.434 hitter with 80 home runs. Frazier is a career .262/.329/.469 hitter with 90 home runs. He also has more career stolen bases than Seager, and the two are in the same level defensively at the hot corner.
Knowing all that, Frazier's market price could also be in the nine-figure range. It's hard to imagine the Reds can afford that while they have big long-term deals for Votto, Bailey and Phillips on their books. And even if they did, a long-term extension for Frazier would be another case of them paying big bucks for a hitter's post-30 years.
In all, what it comes down to is that Frazier doesn't have a future with the Reds. And if they ignore the massive trade value he'll have on this summer's market, they'll be squandering an opportunity to turn the major rebuilding phase that lies before them into a minor rebuilding phase.
If the Reds do it, it'll be a tough call. But in time, they'll know it was the right call.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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