Big Rizz Cashes In On Lane Thomas

During the Austin Hays trade last week, Chelsea Janes was The Washington Post reported that while Hays and Lane Thomas were both better suited to a corner platoon role for a contender, the Nationals were willing to trade Thomas only if the rookie was willing to pay him to return as a starter.

“Good luck,” I thought to myself. Thomas is a good player – a 3.1 WAR guy with 28 homers last year. This season, he nearly doubled his walk rate and has 28 stolen bases. That's the third most in baseball, more than Corbin Carroll and Byron Buxton combined. Thomas is in his second straight season with a wRC+ of 110 against – this is a good player. But he's also a guy who is hitting .224/.299/.364 against right-handed pitching, which is the bulk of hitters in the league.

However, we don't have it because we don't ask. Nats manager Mike Rizzo had a weekend to play with before the deadline, and it only takes one team to meet his price. And I'll be drunk, Big Rizz really pulled it off.

On Monday night, Washington sent Thomas to Cleveland for a bumper crop: left fielder Alex Clemmey and infielders José Tena and Rafael Ramirez Jr.

Frankly, it's a lot of stuff to look forward to. Washington is doing very well in this deal. But it's not a ridiculous overpay for the custodians – we're not completely out of the era of one team working in a trade (I don't know what the Astros were thinking to offer that much for Yusei Kikuchi, for example), but the development of the front office's expertise, and the convergence of ideas, made the Frank Robinson-for-Milt Pappas deal it's rarer than it used to be.

No, this is more in keeping with Guardian getting the player they need, but perhaps paying too little to do so. Because Thomas really helps Cleveland.

Going back almost a decade, even when Cleveland was fighting for the pennant every year, breaking tradition was not a strength of this franchise. And sure enough, that remains the case in 2024. Cleveland is 14th in the league in team wRC+ at 101, which is average. But among the six teams entering the deadline with 60 or more wins, they are sixth in offense. Three of those teams – the Yankees, Dodgers, and Orioles – are first, second, and third in wRC+ at 119, 118, and 117, respectively.

Cleveland has actually hit lefties better than righties this season, but this lineup, which includes Andrés Giménez, Steven Kwan, and the Naylor brothers, could get a little slow. Thomas counters that, and gives Stephen Vogt a big-hitting bat or an everyday middle starter in a position he hasn't been able to find in the past.

The Rangers are 12th this season in outfield wRC+, an artifact of Kwan having a deadly year in lefties. The Rangers have used nine different right fielders this season, and their right field wRC+ is just 86. That should be an area of ​​strength, and this first-place team is losing to Jose Siri. Something had to be done. And while Randy Arozarena — calling up another cornerback guy who recently got involved — would be a lot of fun, he and Thomas have been nearly equally valuable since the start of 2023:

The reason for making this trade for Cleveland comes down to this: The Rangers are in good shape for the top seed in the AL, and everyone in their bracket has some weakness that could kill them in October. That doesn't happen every year for anyone, especially not a team with a rookie manager and one of the five smallest Opening Day salaries in the league. The future is now. The time to act is now. The Orioles and Yankees both traded accordingly, and it's good that the Rangers are following suit. They can find the side of the prospect later.

Also, Thomas is not a rental property. He's under team control through 2025, which means Cleveland — unlike Dave Rygalski of Gilmore Girls — could stick with Lane for more than one season.

And they better hold on to him, because, as I said, they give up a lot.

Longtime readers of my work may remember the name Alex Clemmey – last year, he was one of the highlights of my piece on draft prospects from colder states. Back then, he was a big, lanky (6-foot-6, 205 pounds) 17-year-old out of Rhode Island, the Guardian who bought a commitment from Vanderbilt for a $2.3 million signing bonus in the round the second. Now, Clemmey is 19 (his birthday was two weeks ago, many happy returns), and just as big and left-handed and throwing as hard as ever: mid-90s fastball with a low-80s slider that he consistently throws. they were better than in high school.

Clemmey is in A-ball in his first full pro season, and in 19 starts, he has struck out 32.6% of batters and walked 15.8%. Those are both big numbers, but then again, this youngster with long levers Archimedes could rock the world with. He is not expected to throw strikes. In his comments about Clemmey, Eric Longenhagen name-dropped another great lefty, AJ Puk. When Puk was Clemmey's age, he couldn't afford a weekend shift at the University of Florida. By the time he was 21, he was (in my estimation at the time) the best college pitcher in the country.

I watched Puk, as a Gator, I saw the potential of being a ginger CC Sabathia. Obviously that didn't happen, but for all the injury and discipline issues, Puk is still a high-level reliever. It's kind of the same story for Clemmey. You have things you can teach: Lefty velo, athleticism, size. If he can refine his entire game over the next three or four seasons, he could be a special starter. But even if he doesn't get all the way there, he still looks like he'll be able to crack the big leagues.

Tena got it right for Washington because he's less useful to Cleveland than any other team in baseball. He is a 23-year-old spark plug who can play second and third base, two positions where the Guardians have had several years of need to fill the position. (I remember doing a radio hit in Cleveland before the draft, and the hosts asked where Cleveland might play Travis Bazzana if they went 1-1. That's how the Guardians are structured.)

Despite her youth, Tena is in her final year of selection, so the guards would have to take her no matter what. Even at 5-foot-9, Tena has a power-over-hit offensive profile. He has great bat speed and power for a left-handed hitter, with 17 home runs in 90 games at Triple-A this season. But even for a guy leaning down to hit .300 in the high minors, it's a lot of chasing and a lot of swings and misses. He has struck out 25.2% of the time in Triple-A, and in 38 major league plate appearances, he has only seven hits and 15 strikeouts. Still, there's potential for him to be a solid big league second baseman if he can cut down on the outfield rush a bit. As the second part in a trade like this, that's a coup.

Ramirez, a 19-year-old New Jerseyan (he also recently had a birthday), is the third and final player returning to the Nationals. He's another left-handed hitter who is hitting .187 in Low-A and has questions about his defense. it's short. This is an affordable guy, because Ramirez had a lot of patience and strength in the complex last year and got good reviews in spring training, but the 2024 regular season has been a struggle. The fact that something like this is possible deep in a trade speaks to how well Washington has done, but it's unlikely that a youngster with these kinds of communication issues will make it.

Trades like this make the world go round. The first team gets the upgrade it needs, and maybe the three prospects they traded to get him — two of them 19 years old — won't be much. Either way, none of these guys were helping Cleveland advance this year. But because the Guardians are in a winning position now, a rebuilding team, the Nationals, were able to come in and steal a great crop of young talent from a player who didn't fit their timeline. A useful trade for Cleveland, but a bonanza for Washington. I'm sorry, Mike Rizzo, I should never have doubted you.