Yesterday, the Yankees acquired outfielder Greg Allen from San Diego for minor league pitcher James Reeves. Here’s what you need to know:
Over 221 big league games, Allen has 32 stolen bases in 38 attempts, which is outstanding. The problem is that with a .298 career OBP over 618 plate appearances, he’s almost never on base. If you’re hoping there’s some punch in the bat to overcome the lack of OBP, you can stop hoping – the .343 career SLG is about as scary as milk.
What did the Yankees give up?
On the surface, not much: A 27 year old relief pitcher who’s never been above AA ball.
That said, Reeves showed a very good ability to miss bats, striking out 83 in 67 innings in 2019, while only allowing 41 hits. What’s impressive is that he did that while posting a better than league average ground ball rate as well. We’ve chatted about this before in this space, so there’s no need to completely re-hash, but pitchers who can miss bats are very valuable, as are pitchers who can keep the ball on the ground. Pitchers who can do both are very useful.
Maybe Reeves has hit his apex and will never improve, but it still seems odd to get a player that’s essentially a late inning pinch runner in return.
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