If Tarik Skubal and Joe Ryan go nowhere… and if the Red Sox buy and thus keep Sonny Gray… does that make Reid Detmers the best pitching prize to be had in the next couple weeks?
You can easily make that case, even if his 4.16 ERA would seem to be a point of evidence to the contrary. Sort of like Freddy Peralta, Detmers has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 14 of his 20 starts. He’s also tied for 12th among starters with a 27.4 K%, with easily the lowest walk rate of his career at 7.4 percent.
If the Angels are going to trade Detmers, they should aim for nothing less than a king’s ransom. And with only MLB’s No. 26 farm system at their disposal, the Atlanta Braves might not have the goods to pay a ransom like that.
For his part, though, it doesn’t sound like Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos is messing around. He alluded in a recent MLB Network Radio interview about wanting a “playoff-caliber starter.”
Call it a hunch, but maybe this is related to how Atlanta’s rotation has gone from a 3.26 ERA through May to a 5.19 ERA ever since. It’s the biggest fault on an otherwise World Series-caliber roster, and thus worth an aggressive play. Offering, say, Eric Hartman and Cam Caminiti for Detmers would do the trick.
Maybe the Angels can do better in the abstract, but how about reality? Arguably the only other first-place contender that needs starting pitching is the Los Angeles Dodgers, yet they don’t seem motivated to do anything. Per Katie Woo of The Athletic, the Dodgers are fine “patching” their rotation in the coming weeks.