When the Arizona Diamondbacks traded their ace Dan Haren to the Angels last season, the move was widely panned by most analysts, including me.
The best player in the deal for Arizona was young lefthander Tyler Skaggs, who projected as merely a mid-rotation starter. Getting Skaggs, slightly less-acclaimed lefty prospect Patrick Corbin, and veteran major leaguer Joe Saunders didn’t seem to be a good price for an elite arm like Haren.
Does it still look like a bad deal today? Yes, especially given how excellent Haren has been for Los Angeles. But Skaggs is sure trying to give Arizona its money’s worth.
Skaggs turns 20 in two days, but he’s already been promoted to Double-A, and the promotion is entirely deserved.
As a 19-year-old in the tough California League, Skaggs allowed just 81 hits, 36 earned runs, and six homers in 100 2/3 innings, proving that the ball can’t fly anywhere if nobody hits it. He struck out 125 batters–one of the top totals in the minors. He’s also walked just 34 batters.
Skaggs boasts a hard fastball with good action, a good hard breaking ball, and a solid changeup. His offspeed stuff actually helped him do better against righties than lefties, so he certainly should be able to stick in the rotation as he moves up.
While Skaggs doesn’t boast the sort of top-end stuff that pegs him as a future ace, he’s the sort of very-good-all-around pitcher who could wind up an ace due to being more than the sum of his parts. The best-case scenario is that he becomes a Jon Lester sort of pitcher, but even becoming Ricky Romero or John Danks would go a long way toward making the Haren trade more palatable. That would be particularly true if Corbin can turn into a mid-rotation starter himself. With an 89/21 K/BB in 101 1/3 innings in Double-A at age 21 (he turns 22 this week), Corbin looks like he may be able to fulfill that potential as well.
Slowly but surely, Arizona’s gamble on upside seems to look less and less far-fetched. That doesn’t mean the trade was smart, but hey, baseball’s career progressions are always funky, and they can often make bad ideas look good and vice versa.