Examining Cubs transactions during the expansion era: 2024……..
I must admit that when this deal was done, I truly knew very nothing about these guys, save from a cursory understanding of Almonte.
Clearly, Busch has the key to the transaction. Out of North Carolina, he was the Dodgers’ first-round selection (31st overall) in 2019, and he has completely destroyed minor league pitching. In just 98 games at Triple-A Oklahoma City the previous year, he batted.323/.431/.618 with 27 home runs. After that, he had a difficult 27-game trial with the Dodgers. Stopped by Freddie Freeman at first base, he looked like a solid candidate for a trade, which is exactly what occurred.
If you haven’t read Josh’s far more in-depth post about Busch since the deal, you really should.
Busch is probably scheduled to
Almonte has seen years of prosperity and hardship. He has pitched well in years with an even number and poorly in years with an odd number. Yes, I am aware that is unimportant. After being quite effective for the Dodgers in 2022, he finished the season with a 5.06 ERA and 1.396 WHIP in 49 games. One possible explanation could have been an injury. He has a 2024 contract at $1.9 million, which, if he can pitch as well as he did in 2022, could be a tremendous addition to the bullpen at a cheap price.
Hope and Ferris are both really young. Ferris, a 2022 second-round selection by the Cubs, had 18 starts at Low-A Myrtle Beach last season, pitching 56 innings with 77 strikeouts and a 3.38 ERA. That is merely an average of
Hope is 19 and was the Cubs’ 11th round pick last year. He hit .286/.419/.543 in 11 games in the Arizona Complex League. There’s really no way to tell what he’ll do from that.
The Dodgers could get value from this three or four years from now. The Cubs could get value, and good value, in 2024.
So this deal, the only one so far in 2024, has to be given an incomplete. Hopefully a year from now I could give it an “A” grade. As always, we await developments.
Thanks for reading this series. It was fun to research and write, and we learned, I think, that many trades that seem one-sided in one direction turn out the other way, and some that were apparent minor deals at the time they were made worked out to be really important.
Several of you asked for a “scorecard” of sorts summing up all the grades given, so here it is. It’s long! There’s more article (and another poll) after the table.
Although some of those years have some overlap, those are essentially the years that those guys were in charge of the trades that are the subject of this series.
In the past sixty years, the Cubs have undoubtedly made some terrible trades (Brock for Broglio, many of the deals in the early 1970s), but they have also made some fantastic ones, acquiring players who helped the team win the World Series, including Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Hendricks, Dexter Fowler, and Jake Arrieta, as well as Hall of Famers Fergie Jenkins and Ryne Sandberg.
In the upcoming month and years, let’s hope for more deals similar to the last several.
