Ranking the Athletics Trade Deadline returns

The Athletics got four prospects back in two deals, with two of those players standing out

It was a quiet deadline for the Oakland Athletics as they only swung a couple of deals, but with very few player in their arbitration years or entering them they didn’t have many so-called “expendable” pieces to work with. The A’s dumped off Lucas Erceg and Paul Blackburn, and in return got a nice trio of pitchers who could all end up as big league arm. It’s an interesting mix of players, and after getting more time to dig in on all of them and get a feel for them, I think the Athletics have a chance to end up with a solid crop of guys to boost an organization in need of quality pitching.

Kade Morris

Morris is the most difficult of these players to project, but in my opinion that comes with the potential to unlock quite a bit for him developmentally. Morris has an oddity where he is basically two pitchers — a sinker/slider pitcher with a ³⁄₄ release and a four seam/curveball pitcher with a traditional over-the-top release. The Athletics have three developmental options to work with. Either they stick with him as a weird pitcher with a whole host of release concerns, they drop the four seam and curve and mainly focus sinker/slider, or they do the opposite and have him work four-seam/curveball. If I were calling the shots I would develop him around the four-seam fastball. For one, Morris needs a lot of work with his mechanics to project to major league command, and it’s that much harder to work on mechanics if you have two separate deliveries to work with. As for the preference for specifically the four-seam focused delivery, I think it is the one that grants him a real mid-rotation ceiling at the big league level.

Morris’s four seam fastball is just a more effective pitch than his sinker. Firstly his mechanics work smoother at that higher release point, and second he has a genuinely solid fastball shape and velocity profile. It’s a 50-55 fastball, and while I like his sinker well enough I think the stiffness of his mechanics in that arm path will limit his command too much. The improvements I would like to see him make is in his lower body drive, getting him more downhill and extending more towards home plate where his fastball and other pitches should play up even more. He could still work with a sinker variation as well with an over the top delivery, and in my opinion there would be no reason not to try multiple fastball shapes. Still, with the four seam fastball if he gets more leg drive he has plus arm speed and I think there is significantly more velocity in there that he’s not getting to.

Looking at the breaking balls his curveball is an absolute force. Crazy high spin rates, a sharp shape, and the ability to locate it better than any of his slider forms. The only caveat here is that it is more vertical than your typically successful curveball from a right handed pitcher. A possible solution here would be to split the arm angle difference to get more tilt on his curveball — look at Charlie Morton for an idea of the type of curveball shape that typically works well for right handed pitchers — and it may enable him to still throw four seam, two seam, and work with a slider and/or cutter. Again, there is no reason he can’t also feature a slider from a higher arm angle and they should give his arsenal variation, but his curveball is by a wide margin the pitch he spins and handles best and could settle in as a 60-65 offering. His slider though is quite solid and could be a 55, and I don’t think a sinker/slider approach is by any means a terrible direction rather I don’t think his mechanics in that arm slot are as fluid and repeatable. The biggest question for me is where his changeup ends up, as the one he flashed occasionally from his lower release was just not an effective pitch. He didn’t have a great feel for it, but they could try a few options to teach him a new one with a either release especially given his athleticism. A splitter is a fairly easy to learn pitch that has come into some popularity lately — the Braves for example have chosen to teach most of their young pitchers a splitter in place of a traditional changeup and to good results — and would fit well with the either a four seam or sinker profile profile. That’s my biggest question mark for Morris, but I love the framework. Athleticism, arm speed, and a plus or better feel for spin is pretty hard to find in pitchers and getting one for the cost of a back end starter with limited control is a nice pickup. It’s going to take a lot of development attention, but I genuinely think the right changes in the right places could make Morris a #2/3 type starter.

Mason Barnett

As the primary return for Lucas Erceg you would expect quite a bit out of Mason Barnett’s profile, and I’m pleased to say that I like this pickup for the Athletics. The A’s system is critically weak on pitchers that could project to being the quality of starter that you feel confident running out there for starts in October, and I think Barnett along with Morris who we’ll talk about in a bit both have that sort of ceiling. Barnett is the type of player that could project into the third or fourth spot in a playoff team’s rotation, though I do think he’s more likely to end up as a #4/5 with his profile. His slider is a clear MLB-quality out pitch, one I could project to plus, with a sharp horizontal movement that he seems to be able to place on the outer half of the plate effectively. One pitch of that quality is already enough to project a player into a major league role in some way, and he fills in his arsenal well behind it.

There are some aspects with regards to Barnett’s fastball that I like and others I don’t, though I generally see it as an above average pitch. He can be a bit inconsistent on the amount of carry he gets on the pitch, with it sometimes coming out of his hand a bit more horizontal in a way that reduces its effectiveness at the top of the zone. He does make an effort to change levels and has decent command of the pitch, and the consistency of it is something that could come with time. His curveball is more of a change-of-pace, but he doesn’t often make mistakes and it could be a pitch he buries a bit on the inning half against left handed batters to help in those platoon matchups. It’s not a pitch I see as one of his primary offerings, but it gives him a different look and set of velocities to sit at. His changeup is where you’ll find the most variance, but I really think it’s a matter of improving location. The velocity difference and the movement profile is effective given his fastball shape, at least as I tend to favor vertical fastballs paired with horizontal changeups, but he doesn’t bury the pitch in the lower half as much as he needs to. However he has good arm speed matching on the pitch, and his arm path and athleticism all point to the pitch developing as it needs to in order to give him a third pitch. He’ll have to maximize his command profile and changeup to fit above a #5, but he’s got a bit more ceiling to reach in the right hands.

Will Klein

I am higher than consensus on Barnett and Morris, but I am much lower than that on Klein. I think Klein is a serviceable big league reliever — more of a middle relief type — and that his pitches don’t necessarily play up to their potential. Klein just doesn’t drive downhill much, giving his fastball a higher release point and limited extension that makes the pitch play down despite double plus velocity and average to above average carry. It’s still easily an above average offering, but the raw velocity is ahead of the actual utilized quality of the pitch especially given his lack of command. Klein gets solid swing-and-miss on the pitch above the belt, but even then it’s not as good as you would like to see from a guy who averages 97 mph on his fastball. His slider is velocity-dependent but it has enough shape and movement to get plenty of swing-and-miss and projects around a 55-60. All in all Klein is a guy who could be a 7th or 8th inning guy if the command takes a full grade jump forward, but for now I see as a middle relief arm.

Jared Dickey

My first scan of Jared Dickey was just, look here’s a throw-in prospect to bulk up this trade a bit and it’s nothing to worry about and largely that’s still true but he’s a lot more interesting than my first instinct told me. There is something there — enough bat speed, enough power, enough feel for barrel to feel like it was worth taking a flyer on a guy here. Dickey’s swing and approach is the big issue I have watching him play, as he is highly inconsistent jumping between a long, overly loopy swing and then this short, punchier swing to make contact. He has enough strength that I think if he finds the sweet spot in the middle and can get his core involved more he could run himself into enough power to be a big leaguer. It’s a lot of work for a 22 year old to need, but the A’s love these low-investment college outfielders and Dickey fits that mold.