Trade the Marlins shouldn't have made at all

The Miami Marlins surprisingly traded starting pitcher Pablo Lopez, along with prospects Byron Chourio and Jose Salas to the Minnesota Twins for 2B Luis Arraez. That was a trade that Kim Ng made on January 20, 2023. Since that trade, Ng is no longer with the team and Peter Bendix traded Arraez to the San Diego Padres. The latter surprised many as Arraez had less value than expected.

Did the Miami Marlins make a mistake in that trade?

With the World Series coming up, I found myself thinking about past trades made by the Miami Marlins. I thought back about that old Pablo Lopez trade and found a very interesting assessment. Is it possible that The Fish actually made a mistake originally? Should The Fish have never traded Pbalo Lopez in the first place?

The Fish have a starting pitching surplus and Pablo was hitting free agency in two seasons at the time. Trading him made sense, but perhaps a better return could've been acquired? At the time, the belief was that Kim Ng actually overpaid for Luis Arraez. Pablo had a 3.94 ERA/3.77 FIP, with 8.6 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 from 2018-2022. He wasn't an ace, but he was a solid mid-rotation starter with potential for more.

It's clear to me that Pablo could've gotten more in a return than Arraez. To be fair here, Arraez was in fact the reigning American League batting champ, and then won the National League version of the award in his first season with the Marlins. He was an elite contact hitter, but was a liability defensively, had no power and no speed. He was excellent in one area and to be honest pretty useless in others.

The liabilities were apparently a bigger deal than all of us thought. No team in the Major Leagues was willing to give more for Luis Arraez than the San Diego Padres, AND the Miami Marlins had to pay his salary! I can only imagine what return Bendix could've received for Pablo instead. He certainly does better in trades than Ng did. I wish the Pablo trade worked out better with a long-term piece on the team now.