Cleveland Sports Forum

MLB trade grades: Rays swing deal with Guardians to add arm in Aaron Civale


By The Athletic MLB Staff
16m ago
3

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By Andy McCullough, Rustin Dodd and Stephen J. Nesbitt

The trade
Guardians get: Kyle Manzardo, 1B
Rays get: Aaron Civale, RHP


Andy McCullough: There is a reflexive instinct among baseball pundits to automatically praise the roster maneuvers of the Tampa Bay Rays. The front office has earned that credibility. The Guardians, though, have developed a similar reputation for savviness. Thus this deal presents something of a challenge, as both clubs took a risk in making it. The Rays are betting that Civale’s career-best 2.34 ERA is not the product of smoke, mirrors and batted-ball luck. And the Guardians are betting that Manzardo, one of the best hitting prospects in Tampa Bay’s system, hasn’t stalled out as a hitter. Both could be right!

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Civale, a 28-year-old righty, provides stability for a Rays rotation that has been sideswiped by injuries all season. He is under team control through 2025, which provides Tampa Bay with some depth for the coming seasons. But Civale is far from a sure thing. He has never made more than 21 starts in a season. There is a 1.21-run gap between his ERA and his fielding-independent ERA. His strikeout numbers are down and his walk rate has risen. The Rays tend to excel at finding underperforming players, fiddling with the knobs and striking gold. In Civale’s case, it will be more about keeping him on the tightrope he has walked all season.

Manzardo, a second-round pick in 2021, rocketed through the Rays system last year, slugging .617 between High-A Bowling Green and Double-A Montgomery. He was batting a more pedestrian .238 with a .442 slugging percentage for Triple-A Durham this season before being sidelined by a shoulder injury. He became expendable given Tampa Bay’s surplus of position-player talent and lack of openings on the big-league roster, where Yandy Díaz is under contract through 2026. Manzardo, The Athletic’s Keith Law wrote before this season, “is plenty valuable as he is — someone who might hit .300-.320 with walks and doubles while playing above-average defense at first.”

Rays: B-
Guardians: B+

Rustin Dodd: Everything Andy wrote above is true, so let’s put it in simpler terms: The Guardians need a guy who can rake. The Guardians know how to re-stock their pitching supply. So they sent Civale to Tampa Bay for a guy who many people think can rake.

This has all the hallmarks of the Cleveland front office: The Guardians are dealing from an area of surplus (pitching) and moving on from Civale when he’s still under club control for two more seasons — when he can still net a prospect as ballyhooed as Manzardo.

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A second-round pick in 2021 out of Washington State, Manzardo was a consensus top 100 prospect before the season. He was coming off a terrific full-season debut for the Rays, slugging .617 between High A and Double A, and the performance was one reason Law ranked him No. 81 in his top 100. Manzardo draws high marks for discipline — he walked nearly as much as he struck out last year — and he continued the profile this season while his batting average sagged a bit at Triple-A Durham.

The Rays, meanwhile, had one of the stronger rotations in baseball but were a little thin at the back end. Civale should improve their chances to win the AL East, which would greatly improve their odds to win the pennant and advance to the World Series.

Manzardo might seem like a slight overpay for Civale — though at least one formula would beg to differ — but the Rays have a pitching apparatus that rivals the one in Cleveland, so you can expect Civale to put up an ERA in the high 2.00s and low 3.00s for as long as he’s in a Rays uniform.

Rays: A
Guardians: A

Stephen J. Nesbitt: The Guardians made no secret of their willingness to move Civale despite flirting with first place because, for one thing, dealing a starter is their quickest path to bettering their lineup, and, for another, Civale is much more of a question mark than his 2.34 ERA might suggest.

To be clear, the 28-year-old has been fantastic this season, just like he was when he broke into the league back in 2019. But his effectiveness has waxed and waned throughout his MLB career. He was hit hard in 2020, then dogged by injuries in 2021 and 2022. Civale has pitched more than 100 innings in only one MLB season, topping out at 124 1/3 in 2021. So, for as valuable as a starter with two more seasons of club control is, Civale is not without flaws. But the Rays surely have a plan to use him strategically down the stretch, first to fill their rotation and then to deepen their dangerous and versatile pitching staff in the playoffs. Unlike many of their top arms, he’s not a swing-and-miss magician. He mixes six pitches and misses barrels.

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Manzardo is an excellent add for a Guardians team searching for its first baseman of the future. He fits their mold: A good defender with supreme on-base skills and some pop from the left side. So, while it’ll cost their grade a bit to be dealing a starter amid what should be a playoff push, I think the Guardians have their eyes on 2024 and beyond, and odds are Civale wasn’t going to make or break their chances this season.

This one hurts both sides quite a bit, but should also help them in the coming years.

Rays: B
Guardians: B

Tom Withers
@twithersAP
·
2m
Antonetti indicates the Guardians could make more moves before deadline. Acknowledged this was a tough trade to make but they thought Mazardo was worth the cost.

Camryn Justice
@camijustice
·
8m
#Guardians president Chris Antonetti said that losing Aaron Civale does leave a void in the pitching rotation, but they believe they can address it with internal options and, potentially, moves to come.

oreForYouCleveland Retweeted
Bob Nightengale
@BNightengale
·
19m
Cleveland #Guardians president Chris Antonetti says that Kyle Manzardo will be their starting first baseman, hopefully in 2024, with Josh Bell under contract through only next season.
They are still trying to figure out who will replace Aaron Civale in the starting rotation.

In exchange for those two and a half seasons of affordable control, the Rays will part with one of the top bats in their system. Manzardo, 23, was Tampa Bay’s second-round pick in 2021 and quickly hit his way onto top-100 prospect rankings throughout the sport. He’s had a rough go in his first run at Triple-A as a 22-year-old, hitting just .238/.342/.442 with 11 homers in 313 plate appearances. Manzardo is walking at a huge 13.4% clip, however, and has a lower-than-average 20.8% strikeout rate despite facing older and more experienced competition. He’s also just one season removed from hitting a combined .327/.426/.617 with nearly as many walks (59) as strikeouts (65) between High-A and Double-A.

Manzardo entered the season as a consensus top-100 prospect, and even with a lackluster showing in Triple-A so far he’s still quite highly touted. He ranks as the game’s No. 31 prospect at FanGraphs, No. 37 prospect at MLB.com and No. 69 at Baseball America on each publications midseason, post-draft rankings. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen writes in his scouting report that “every aspect” of Manzardo’s profile at the plate is plus, with the exception of his raw power, which is closer to average. He’s lauded for keen strike zone knowledge, consistent hard contact, an all-fields approach, his bat control and a potentially plus-plus hit tool that should allow him to hit for a high average with high-end on-base percentages.

It’s not yet clear when Manzardo will get his first big league opportunity, but it won’t be immediately. He’s been on the minor league injured list since early this month with a shoulder issue, though Cleveland clearly doesn’t believe it to be a major concern. He’ll be a candidate for a call-up late in the season and certainly will have a chance to break the Opening Day roster for the Guardians in 2024.

Since Cleveland isn’t getting an immediate big leaguer in return, there’s little doubting that this move hurts their chances of squeaking out a postseason berth in 2023. The American League Central has been the game’s most feeble division all year, and Cleveland made this trade of one of its best starters despite the fact that Shane Bieber was recently placed on the 60-day injured list and despite the fact that the Guards are only a half-game behind the Twins in the standings. That speaks volumes about how the front office views the club’s chances of faring in a potential postseason series even if they’d managed to overtake a middling and de facto first-place Twins club.

RUSTY - spectacular job on this trade coverage. Much obliged.

Thanks ! Tried to find as much as I could.

Chris Clegg
@RotoClegg
·
Jun 28
We often forget that players are humans dealing with real things. I thought about this w/a question about Kyle Manzardo’s struggles. His mom is dealing with heart disease and waiting for a transplant. You never know what a player might be dealing with mentally or physically

Law: Rays’ trade with Guardians for Aaron Civale is the most interesting deal of deadline Jun 25, 2023; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Aaron Civale (43) throws a pitch during the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
By Keith Law
3h ago

35
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It may not be the most consequential trade of this year’s deadline, but the Rays’ acquisition of right-hander Aaron Civale for first base prospect Kyle Manzardo is the most interesting, as it includes a pitcher with several years of control remaining, a preseason top 100 prospect, and the “challenge trade” aspect of a one-for-one deal.

Aaron Civale would be leading the majors in ERA if he had enough innings to qualify, remarkable for a guy who looked like a probable fifth starter back when the Guardians took him in the third round in 2016. Since Cleveland took him, he’s added a cutter, shortened his arm action and turned into a credible mid-rotation guy by limiting hard contact. He’s had some good fortune this year, as every other measure of his performance, such as FIP and xERA, paint a somewhat worse picture, although he’s clearly been above-average this year, and it’s because that cutter is so hard for hitters to square up.

He’s in the top 15 percent of all MLB pitchers for Barrel rate, in the top 30 percent for hard-hit rate, and in the top 30 percent for expected slugging percentage, all of which point to how hitters haven’t made much hard contact off him this year. He’s also throwing a little harder this year, which might explain why he’s had much more success in keeping hitters from hitting him hard, and perhaps why the shapes of some of his pitches have changed slightly. Always a strike-thrower, he’s even ramped that up, with a first-strike percentage of 69.3 percent that would rank fifth in baseball if he qualified, and a strike percentage in all two-strike counts of 62 percent. I don’t think he’s a 2.34 ERA guy going forward, probably not even a sub-3 ERA guy, but I think he could be a 3-3.50 ERA guy in front of Tampa’s defense and absolutely helps a Rays team that has had two starters who’ve been healthy and effective all season. I can sort of imagine the Guardians seething with jealousy as they watched Manzardo the last year and a half in the minors, as they adore players who make a ton of contact, although in his case there’s at least the chance for some power here as well. The 80th-best prospect in baseball coming into the 2023 season, Manzardo was the Rays’ second-round pick in 2021 and mashed at two levels last year, finishing with a .323/.402/.576 line in a month in Double A. He went right to Triple-A Durham to start this year and he’s scuffled, especially against lefties, with a .148/.262/.273 line against southpaws this year and 27 percent strikeout rate. He had a sizable platoon split last year, but hit well enough against lefties (while destroying right-handers) that it didn’t seem like an issue. It could just be a matter of a small sample size, although he’s had enough trouble with breaking stuff from lefties that I think the platoon split itself is real.

He makes very hard contact with a swing that seems more likely to produce line drives rather than over-the-fence power, and he could end up a 40-doubles guy rather than someone who gets to 25-30 homers, although I speculated this past winter that someone might try to alter his swing to put more balls in the seats. He’s at least a solid-average defender at first as well. His floor is the strong side of a first-base platoon, while he still has the ceiling of a borderline star with those big doubles totals and OBPs in the .375+ range. He’s currently on the injured list for Durham with a sore left shoulder. The Guardians have gotten a breakout year from Josh Naylor at first base, with Josh Bell a disappointment as the primary DH; Manzardo should certainly be able to take over one of the spots by the middle of next year, sending Bell, who has a player option he’s certainly going to exercise, to the bench.

Civale is the first starter to change teams at this deadline with two years of control remaining, which makes it a little surprising that he netted just one prospect in return, someone I ranked lower coming into the season than both Edgar Quero (traded to the White Sox in the Lucas Giolito/Reynaldo Lopez deal, with both pitchers impending free agents) and Luisangel Acuña (traded to the Mets for Max Scherzer, who now won’t be a free agent until after 2024). I would have guessed that Civale would have netted more than just one very good prospect, but perhaps the Guardians do indeed value Manzardo’s high-contact approach the way I speculated they would, and decided he alone was enough.

Pittsburgh right-hander Mitch Keller also has two full years left before he hits free agency, and he hasn’t been as effective as Civale this year; given where Pittsburgh is in its cycle, with so many of their top prospects reaching the majors in 2023, if all Keller would return is a prospect toward the back of my top 100, I’d be way more inclined to keep him and hope to contend next year with him atop my rotation.

i HAVE TO assume that Civale returned less than Law expected due to what all the other articles noted, and we are well aware, that he his sturdiness has never been established, so the Rays are unlikely to get 2.25 years of starts from Aaron. We wish him and them good luck
And hope that our new guy's AAA offensive slump -- especially notably against LH pitching -- will be something he can rectify.

Baseball America has slotted Manzardo No. 3 on Cleveland's prospect list below Williams [who will be disqualified after another start or two] and Valera who has had a far worse first full season in AAA than Manzardo but is a more versatile defensive player.

Unsung heroes from MLB.com

TAMPA Unsung hero: Harold Ramírez

In a lineup of above-average hitters, Ramírez can be overshadowed. But he absolutely feasts on left-handed pitching. He’s now played around 200 games for the Rays in the last two seasons and posted an OPS+ of 116. Not bad for a guy who was a part of five different organizations — the Pirates, Blue Jays, Marlins, Guardians and Cubs — before finding a home in Tampa Bay. Score another victory for the Rays’ front office. — RD

CLEVELAND Unsung hero: Xzavion Curry

Curry, 25, has been a Swiss Army knife for the Guardians’ pitching staff after only making the Opening Day roster because of injury. He’s also been a lifeline for a team that’s survived a rash of injuries. He’s started, pitched in middle and long relief, and generally been effective at every role, logging a 2.98 ERA after his latest spot start on Friday. Originally a seventh-round pick in 2019, Curry debuted last season and made two appearances. But he’s managed to carve out a role this season as a jack-of-all-trades, relying heavily on a fastball and slider. — RD

Civale was projected as a 5th starter or middle relief guy at best when drafted. He has been a 5th starter for Cleveland since he made the team. A #5 starting pitcher who has been on the DL 5 times in the last 2 seasons does not get traded for a top 50 minor league position player.

Cleveland's front office is known to be a difficult group to work trades with. We do not know what else was offered for Civale but I am confident that the FO made the best trade they could.

Top 50 ranked minor leaguer for Civale suggestion in spring training would have been laughed at. This is a good trade for both teams. Yandy is in Tampa at first base for a few more years.

Lloyd: Pining for Aaron Civale? No need to get worked up over Guardians making ‘sell’ move

Jul 25, 2023; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Aaron Civale (43) delivers a pitch in the first inning against the Kansas City Royals at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
By Jason Lloyd
6h ago
37

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The Guardians couldn’t have made this trade in April. Or May. Or June. They probably couldn’t even have made it two weeks ago.

An organization that thrives on maximizing value is doing it again. Aaron Civale’s current share price on the MLB ticker is like buying a two-by-four during the pandemic. You’re paying premium cedar prices for crooked builder’s grade pine.

So Civale is headed to Tampa Bay and Guardians team president Chris Antonetti is left to delicately explain why he just traded his team’s best remaining healthy starting pitcher when the Guardians began the night a half-game out of first place.

You can understand why Antonetti may not be the most popular figure in the clubhouse these days after shipping off one of their leaders in Amed Rosario and now Civale for a pitcher with an ERA over 7 and an injured minor-league hitter who likely won’t even arrive in Cleveland until next year.

The Rosario move, however, was necessary and long overdue so they could finally start to get clarity on identifying their long-term shortstop. The Civale trade certainly wasn’t necessary, but it was absolutely leveraging the market to charge cedar prices for pine. And Civale is most certainly pine.

go-deeper
GO DEEPER

What the Guardians' trade of Aaron Civale means for Cleveland now and in the future

He’s on a tear right now. While Triston McKenzie, Shane Bieber and Cal Quantrill continue to nurse injuries, Civale kept the Guardians in “contention” or whatever you call this pitiful division by pitching to a 1.45 ERA in July when opponents managed just a .458 OPS against him. (Myles Straw, by comparison, began the week with a .599 OPS for the season).

None of Civale’s work this month seems sustainable. There are legitimate durability concerns. He just turned 28 and has yet to make more than 21 starts in any season. He couldn’t get out of the first inning in his lone career playoff game in last year’s deciding Game 5 at New York. He’s been a good but not great middle-of-the-rotation starter for much of his career.

There’s certainly value in that, particularly with 2 1/2 years of control remaining and an arbitration salary of likely no more than $6 million next season. In baseball’s pitching aisles, $6 million doesn’t go very far.

Martín Pérez has been a .500 pitcher with pedestrian numbers throughout his 12 years but enjoyed a career season last year and leveraged it into a one-year, $20 million contract in free agency over the winter.

You get the idea.

go-deeper
GO DEEPER

MLB trade grades: Rays swing deal with Guardians to add arm in Aaron Civale

That doesn’t mean this deal was easy or without risk. An organization already bulging with prospects just added one more in first baseman Kyle Manzardo, who projects to be the type of high-contact doubles machine the Guardians seem to covet.

We’ve been writing and talking for years about the glut of prospects the Guardians are carrying and how they need to bundle some of them together for an impact hitter eventually. The 40-man roster is stuffed. It has forced them to evaluate and move on from some hitters quicker than maybe they would have previously.

Now they’ve taken away one of their best pitchers this year and added yet another minor-league hitter to the pile — another lefty-swinging first baseman, no less. Manzardo isn’t even an outfielder, which remains the most pressing need on the roster.


There is always concern when dealing with the Rays. I made it more than 500 words without mentioning the last time the Guardians traded for a left-handed hitting first baseman out of Tampa’s farm system who was a top-50 prospect and a former second-round pick, no less. Jake Bauers was an absolute disaster in Cleveland while Yandy Diaz, whom Cleveland sent away in the deal, has flourished into an All-Star. Given the Rays’ sorcery with pitchers, it’s not unreasonable to believe they could unlock even another level with Civale the pitching-conscious Guardians couldn’t reach.



I’d be lying if I didn’t admit Bauers was one of my first thoughts when the deal was announced. But the Rays also dealt first baseman Nate Lowe to Texas and that has worked out well for the Rangers. Nevertheless, the Rays seem to rarely miss on these deals.



Josh Naylor is down to two years of control after this season. If the Guardians can’t reach an agreement with him on a long-term deal, now they have a backup plan at first base/DH. Manzardo is probably the better defender in the long term, anyway.

As for Josh Bell … (emoji shrug) … he’s been a massive disappointment. If he exercises the option for next year, maybe they can attach him in another deal to a big-market team and wipe away the expense.

I can’t get worked up over the Guardians making a “sell” move when they’re only a half-game out of the division. This isn’t a good baseball team. We have four months of proof. I’m more interested in acquiring high-end talent in a lost season than holding onto a mid-rotation starter just so Cleveland can lose in the first round again.

If you were counting on Aaron Civale to save your season, you’re building your hopes and dreams out of crooked pine two-by-fours.

Chris Clegg
@RotoClegg
·
Jun 28
We often forget that players are humans dealing with real things. I thought about this w/a question about Kyle Manzardo’s struggles. His mom is dealing with heart disease and waiting for a transplant. You never know what a player might be dealing with mentally or physically.

Messed this up yesterday. Had to correct.