Nationals get: LHP Connelly Early
Red Sox get: INF Curtis Mead
Chad Jennings
Nationals: B
Red Sox: A-
A little more than a week before the trade deadline, we have our first thread-the-needle swap between two third-place teams.
The Washington Nationals, desperate for pitching help, have acquired 24-year-old starter Connelly Early from the Boston Red Sox, who are addressing their long-standing need for a right-handed bat by acquiring 25-year-old third baseman Curtis Mead.
It’s not exactly prospect-for-prospect, but it’s close. Early has five more years of team control, Mead has four more years, and each team is betting on upside well beyond these next two months. Trade grades are rarely straightforward, and this one is a little more complicated because the players lack lengthy track records. The judgment depends on how much you believe in the arrival of Mead’s bat.
There’s an argument for giving the Nationals the better grade because even if Early doesn’t pan out, getting him at all assumes they’ve done a wonderful job selling high on Mead, who was previously designated for assignment, acquired in a much smaller trade in March, and has previously failed to hit for the Rays or White Sox. But he was excellent for four months with the Nats, and the team swapped him for five-plus years of Early, who gives the Nationals much-needed stability at the back of their rotation. He’s probably the safer bet, even if he’s no more than a No. 4 starter.
Giving the Red Sox an A- assumes Mead has legitimately unlocked his long-held potential. Considered a top-100 prospect during his time with the Rays, Mead’s Baseball Savant page now has a lot more red than Early’s, and that kind of right-handed bat — which the Red Sox desperately needed — could be in limited supply this trade deadline. He’s not a good defender, but he can passably play several positions, and his bat could be enough to DH, especially against lefties.
Early has shown flashes of No. 2-3 starter stuff, but his underlying metrics look more like a 4-5. That’s still a good get for the Nats, but Mead is a versatile, high-upside big swing for the Red Sox, who are betting his breakout season is more than a flash in the pan.
Tim Britton
Nationals: A
Red Sox: C-
Look, the Red Sox aren’t the first AL East team to trade a talented left-handed starter for Curtis Mead, and boy, they hope this one works out better than it did for the Rays. Obviously, Early is unlikely to blossom like Cristopher Sánchez, and Mead is in a different place in his career than when he was traded from Philadelphia. But this is an awful lot of trust to place in a few months of performance, especially when the roster fit is imperfect.
Here’s the positive for Boston: In the here and now, Mead fits what the Red Sox need offensively, and his swing looks customized for Fenway Park. It’s reasonable to think he’s made real changes here that can be sustained beyond the breakout this season. And if any team can afford to trade away a good young pitcher already in the majors, it’s this one.
Now the negatives: The glove isn’t good pretty much anywhere you put it, and it’s especially bad at third base, where the Red Sox could probably use it most. It’s nice to get four-plus years of team control in a deal; it’s less so when a lot of that time might be at DH. One reason you target guys who best fit your ballpark is you can usually get them at a discount. This isn’t that. And I’m left feeling that, if the Red Sox were dangling Early around the league, they could have gotten a better fit or more established piece for their overall starting nine.
For Washington, it’s both cashing in a lottery ticket from the offseason and a bet on their revitalized hitting infrastructure being able to produce another Mead soon. Any team east of Seattle would be helped by adding Early to the rotation; maybe no team is helped more than Washington. If he’s a cost-controlled back-half starter, well that’s something the Nats could really use. If he’s anything more than that, it’s a slam dunk for Washington.
Nationals writer Spencer Nusbaum also gave his thoughts on the deal.