MLB Trade Deadline Retrospective: Royals Land Ben Zobrist
A year ago today, the Kansas City Royals added a key piece to their championship run at the MLB trade deadline when they acquired Ben Zobrist from the Oakland Athletics.
Before the 2015 season, the A’s added Ben Zobrist and Yunel Escobar in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays. Four days later they would ship off Escobar to Washington for reliver Tyler Clippard, whom they would send off to the Mets a day before shipping Zobrist to Kansas City.
If that isn’t the most A’s intro ever, then I don’t know what is. They added three players, and within months (or days), they were gone.
The A’s were hit hard with injuries early in the 2015 season, losing their closer from the previous season in Sean Doolittle for what turned out to be nearly the entire season, and even Zobrist missed about a month. The A’s never got off the mat, and were forced to become sellers at the MLB trade deadline, and Zobrist was one of their most prized possessions that became readily available.
Oakland sent Zobrist to the Royals for a tall Samoan lefty named Sean Manaea.
Next: The Zobrist Slide
According to the picture above, this trade worked out alright for the Royals. In his time with the World Champions, Zobrist hit .284 during the regular season, which is about twenty points higher than his career average, and even got on base at a slightly higher clip at .364.
During the playoff run, Zobrist went 20-for-66 (.303), including batting .333 with a .381 OBP during the ALDS. Without that performance from Zobrist against Houston, the Royals may not have made it all the way to the top of the mountain. Zobrist was one of the toughest outs in the series along with Salvador Perez and Alex Rios, and that trio bought the club some time until the rest of the lineup got hot.
They all seemingly clicked at the same time–in the eighth inning of that ALDS–when it took until the eighth batter of the frame for an out to be recorded. The Royals would snatch the lead from the Astros with a five-run inning, and with it the momentum, and eventually the series.
Zobrist hit free agency last offseason and joined the world-beating Chicago Cubs on a four-year, $56 million deal. Through 91 games the 35-year-old utility-man has already matched last year’s home run total and has split his time between second base and both corner outfield spots. After the Cubs addition of Aroldis Chapman, Zobrist could be eyeing back-to-back World Series titles this October.
Next: The Manaea Slide
Last year a pair of trades went down that seem to be paying off for both teams, with the Detroit Tigers sending Yoenis Cespedes to the Mets for Michael Fulmer, and the Zobrist deal for Sean Manaea.
The 24-year-old southpaw was ranked as the A’s number two prospect before the season after lighting up Double-A Midland for a 1.90 ERA over 42.2 innings pitched after the trade was made. He went on to have success in the Arizona Fall League, started the Fall Stars game, and continued to impose his will on the opposition in Triple-A Nashville to start this season.
Manaea made his big league debut on April 29, and after a rough first six starts in the majors, has really seemed to figure things out. Over his last 35 innings, he has allowed eight earned runs for an ERA of 2.06. Six of those runs came against a Minnesota club that he dominated a month prior, and the other two came in an emergency relief appearance against the Blue Jays after scheduled starter Rich Hill was pulled with a blister and Andrew Triggs was hit with a liner, landing him on the disabled list.
He came in and tossed five innings, allowing just three hits, one of which was a two-run homer to Troy Tulowitzki, in what was supposed to be a bullpen day.
Selected in the supplemental round of the 2013 draft by the Royals, Manaea was thought to be a top talent in the draft, but he needed hip surgery coming out of college, so his stock dropped. Baseball America says that the biggest knock on him has been his injury history, and notes that he had just come back from an abdominal strain that kept him out of the first half of last year when the A’s acquired him.
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Since joining the A’s he’s been healthy and has shown flashes, even in his bad outings, that he can be dominant. His changeup is filthy. Manaea looks to have all the tools to be at, or near, the top of the A’s rotation for years to come. If Sonny Gray gets traded, Manaea would be the frontrunner to become Oakland’s new ace.