Miami Marlins Trade For Dan Straily: Three Key Questions

Thursday morning, Miami Marlins fans awoke to curious news as the team acquired righty starter Dan Straily from the Cincinnati Reds for a trio of Top 10 prospects that included promising young fireballer Luis Castillo. Fellow pitcher Austin Brice and outfielder Isaiah White were the other two prospects in the deal.

As linked above, Jon Heyman broke the news of the official swap, and Jim Bowden of ESPN broke down the full package of prospects.

But as I said, curious news, and there is a lot to unpack here when sizing up just how much sense (if any) this deal made for the Marlins. Because there is no doubt it was a great trade for the Reds, one they had to make given their clear rebuilding mode mentality. Straily could win the Cy Young, all three prospects could flame out spectacularly, and the Reds braintrust would still get credit for trying.  The Marlins on the other hand just dealt away three of their best prospects for a guy whose career WAR value ranks just 0.5 points higher than Tom Koehler.

And Koehler has been way, way, more consistent in getting there.

However, by traditional stats, Straily was pretty good last year, and even more so when stacked against previous fifth starter candidates Jeff Locke and Jose Urena. He recorded a 3.76 ERA and pitched in over 190 innings- marks that would have respectively ranked first and second on the Marlins in 2016. That was the best season of his career, but if he produces a similar effort again, it’s hard not to argue that the 2017 starting rotation is in much better shape than it was three days ago. If nothing else, he’ll last a lot longer than the Locke/Urena option every fifth day, putting less strain on a bullpen that was routinely put in a bad position by short starts by back end starters last year.

Of course, I could have said the same of Jason Hammel. Or Doug Fister. Or made my case for signing Greg Holland and even further deepening an already deepened pen. Really anything that involved money instead of prospects, while simultaneously adding a player that had enjoyed more than two seasons in the majors that weren’t catastrophically bad or marred by significant injury.

So it comes down to three major questions you have to ask yourself when casting your vote on whether this move is more “same old Marlins” or one of those shrewdly successful deals that will look at least momentarily successful? First up, what’s most likely to happen? Second, how much do you trust the front office? And third, how much do you believe in the 2017 Marlins?

We’ll take these in turn.