Red Sox deal Andrew Benintendi to Royals in 3-team deal

[reillymcshane]

Sox send Benintendi to Royal, plus $2.8M (his salary for 2021 is $6.6M).

 

Red Sox will get two players from the Royals - OF Franchy Cordero and a player to be named. They will will get RHP Josh Winckowski from the Mets.

 

The Mets will get OF prospect Khalil Lee.

 

More details to come...

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/02/red-sox-reportedly-nearing-trade-involving-andrew-benintendi.html

[JosephC]

So Winckowski gets traded from the Jays to the Mets in the Matz deal, and the Mets then trade him to the Red Sox a few months later. I pulled out the 2020 BA Prospect Handbook and Winckowski isn't listed in the Blue Jays top 30. There is a "depth chart" page for each team in there and Winckowski does appear on that list, the last of the RHSP (15 are listed).

 

Stearns must be pulling out his hair to see some of these toolsy prospects getting traded for next to nothing. The Mets get Kahlil Lee in this deal and only have to give up Winckowski who seems to fall in the fringe prospect category. Earlier we saw Jahmai Jones get traded for Alex Cobb. Now certainly Jones stock has fallen pretty dramatically, but it was still surprising to see him get traded in a deal where the Orioles probably would have settled for a case of beer in order to shed any amount of Cobb's contract. But Lee, he won't be a superstar but it wouldn't be all that surprising to see him become an outfield version of Dee Gordon who was a useful MLB player for a number of seasons (I know Gordon played some in the outfield, but I'll always see him as a 2B).

 

I've stated before that I see Benintendi as a big dropper and I don't like his future outlook. But throwing my personal opinion out, I had still calculated his surplus value at +11 million and the Royals getting him and some money and then giving up Lee, Cordero (who is pretty much a 0 surplus value type) and another fringe prospect (assuming the PTBNL is a fringe prospect) seems like a pretty fair swap to me. But the Mets seem to come out ahead in getting Lee and only trading away Winckowski to get him. ON PAPER, the Red Sox seem to be a loser in this one. They give up a 10+ million dollar surplus value and get a zero surplus player back (Cordero), a fringe-prospect pitcher in Winckowski and probably another fringe prospect player in the PTBNL. Maybe the PTBNL will be a higher graded guy, we'll see.

 

It's pretty obvious that the Red Sox just don't like Benintendi's future outlook, it will be interesting to see how he does in Kansas City. One odd aspect is that the Royals seem to really be focused on pitching and defense in their rebuild, and Benintendi's outfield skills and speed really seem to be on the decline.

 

But Winckowski becomes pretty interesting. Probably likely that the Mets acquired him with the idea that he'd be flipped later. But he was still controlled by the Mets for a short window. Is he the guy that is likely to be no good because two organizations gave up on him, or is he a really under-rated guy who is actually in demand?

[Simba2020]

So Winckowski gets traded from the Jays to the Mets in the Matz deal, and the Mets then trade him to the Red Sox a few months later. I pulled out the 2020 BA Prospect Handbook and Winckowski isn't listed in the Blue Jays top 30. There is a "depth chart" page for each team in there and Winckowski does appear on that list, the last of the RHSP (15 are listed).

 

Stearns must be pulling out his hair to see some of these toolsy prospects getting traded for next to nothing. The Mets get Kahlil Lee in this deal and only have to give up Winckowski who seems to fall in the fringe prospect category. Earlier we saw Jahmai Jones get traded for Alex Cobb. Now certainly Jones stock has fallen pretty dramatically, but it was still surprising to see him get traded in a deal where the Orioles probably would have settled for a case of beer in order to shed any amount of Cobb's contract. But Lee, he won't be a superstar but it wouldn't be all that surprising to see him become an outfield version of Dee Gordon who was a useful MLB player for a number of seasons (I know Gordon played some in the outfield, but I'll always see him as a 2B).

 

I've stated before that I see Benintendi as a big dropper and I don't like his future outlook. But throwing my personal opinion out, I had still calculated his surplus value at +11 million and the Royals getting him and some money and then giving up Lee, Cordero (who is pretty much a 0 surplus value type) and another fringe prospect (assuming the PTBNL is a fringe prospect) seems like a pretty fair swap to me. But the Mets seem to come out ahead in getting Lee and only trading away Winckowski to get him. ON PAPER, the Red Sox seem to be a loser in this one. They give up a 10+ million dollar surplus value and get a zero surplus player back (Cordero), a fringe-prospect pitcher in Winckowski and probably another fringe prospect player in the PTBNL. Maybe the PTBNL will be a higher graded guy, we'll see.

 

It's pretty obvious that the Red Sox just don't like Benintendi's future outlook, it will be interesting to see how he does in Kansas City. One odd aspect is that the Royals seem to really be focused on pitching and defense in their rebuild, and Benintendi's outfield skills and speed really seem to be on the decline.

 

But Winckowski becomes pretty interesting. Probably likely that the Mets acquired him with the idea that he'd be flipped later. But he was still controlled by the Mets for a short window. Is he the guy that is likely to be no good because two organizations gave up on him, or is he a really under-rated guy who is actually in demand?

Winckowski was rated as the 20th best prospect in the Mets farm system prior to the trade per Baseball America. Was throwing 96 last year so probably a decent prospect. Went unclaimed in the Rule 5 draft however.

[JosephC]

I had read the same thing that reillymcshane posted. But now it appears there are two additional PTBNL inclusions, both heading to the Red Sox (one more from the Royals, one from the Mets). It did seem like the Red Sox got a bit short changed in the first reported version of the trade, these inclusions will probably pretty much even everything up.

[ClosetBrewerFan]

Yeah, the link now says the Sox with get back three players to be named later. That would seem to be pretty good value for Benintendi who has shown some decline from his peak in 2018. I imagine those three will not be much of significance. Franchy has a lot of potential but has had injuries the past few years and is now 26. He's running out of time, but if he can stay healthy it would not surprise me if he outperforms Benintendi