BREAKING Trade Deadline Deal: Ke’Bryan Hayes Traded from Pirates to Reds

BREAKING Trade Deadline Deal: Ke’Bryan Hayes Traded from Pirates to Reds

It’s FT breaking news. This one is a shocker. Key Brian Hayes moving from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Cincinnati Reds. I’ll read this breaking news tweet from Jeff Passen who talks about how he’s among the best defensive players in baseball and has five years of control beyond this season. I’m going to verbally mention first of all the return which is shortstop prospect Sammy Stapora who looks like he’s like a top 10ish prospect right around that range uh and Taylor Rodgers from the Reds. I think some of that has to do with money going back on the Pittsburgh side. Yeah. So there’s your return. And Mike Petriel said, “The Pittsburgh Cincinnati trade is so fascinating and sort of hard to wrap your head around. He Hayes, elite top end defender, so good, but Cincinnati third base um has a 68 weighted runs created plus third weakest and he’s hit worse in each of the last two years. It’s not a ballpark profile thing that I love a fun unexpected trade.” So that’s been a problem spot for them. Although let me point out Marte has been on a heater lately. Do they just not like his defense? I mean he’s raking. I mean you know I know he missed some time so he’s got 146 played appearances this year. 829 OPS. This is confusing to me. I’m lost. Like do you want people are mentioning it. This is confusing today. Do you want Hayes starting over Marte at third? I wouldn’t. Okay. Maybe move Hayes somewhere else. Can they move him somewhere else though? But is he I mean you have Elliott is short. Can you move Marte somewhere else? Yeah. So like let’s go through what their lineup looks like right now on fan graphs against right-handed pitching. Gavin Lux left fielder leading off. Matt Mlan too is their second baseman, right? Well, Lux they have in left field here. Then Mlan at second. Elliott Short hitting third. Austin Hayes they have in here as DH which can rotate around. Uh right field, Jake Freilley first base, Spencer Steer, Tyler Stevenson at catcher. They’ve got Benson here at center field. And then Marte over at third. Mlan second base batting second. But Marte at third base raking right now. And I mean I’m going to go off eye test. He’s looked okay there. And defensive metrics minus two outs above average. Benjamin said they’ve been playing him in the outfield recently. Marte. Marte. So they so they move Marte to the outfield and they improve the third base defense. Hey, I love a great glove at third, but is he going to hit enough? Will the Reds fix him? And I don’t know. And did they just tell us, okay, we tried for Gino Suarez, couldn’t get him, so we’re going with the run prevention over the power bat. Maybe they didn’t have enough to get Suarez. They have enough. They probably just didn’t offer enough or they lost out the bid to someone else. Here’s a cabriant. Clearly the Pirates. Where’s the Reds value at? Where’s the Red’s value at on their team? Pitching. Pitching. Yeah. You’ve seen people You’ve seen teams say and historically Cincinnati is a joke. Maybe the fact that the ball’s not traveling as much, but the park like that was historically offensive park. Now you look down, they’re pitching their starters. Emilio Pagan closing. You have uh Cintilo Centa like just throwing just fuel out of their pen. Maybe they’re doubling down and saying, “You know what? We’re going to pick it.” Jose Trevinho, I think, is actually catching more than Tyler Stevenson. They extended him. Okay, they’re No, they’re sorry. They’re pretty much split skis, but you have like maybe they’re just doubling down on that defense. It’s an interesting move. Maybe the Phillies offered more for Gino Suarez. Cinton, by the way, is that who you were talking about for pitching? Yeah, that’s what I was trying to think of. I was mixing the closer for the Cubs and the guy for the Reds, too. So, one Pirates fan chiming in in the chat, Matt C said, “Pittsburgh Pirate fan here. If Cincinnati gets Hayes to elevate, he’ll be the best third baseman in baseball.” Not hyperbole. He just refused to change his swing here. Remember, there’s a deep history of contention with Key Brian Hayes and his swing. see if I can pull up this story quick enough to be able to comment on it accurately, but okay. In 2023, he was secretly working late in the season at a private hitting facility in Pittsburgh with John Nunnelly, former big leager, and he was the double A hitting coach at the time. Hayes was frustrated and said, “It’s my career. I got to do what’s best for me.” And then he actually did hit well to finish the season. That was the only time you really saw some pop from him. They fired Nunny. Obviously, he was they were secretly doing this and now I think he still works with him privately. Now, in fairness, I mean, he hasn’t hit since then. The last two years have been a disaster. So, I don’t think any of us know if he’s going to be able to turn his bat around, but is that the move that helps the Reds reach the postseason this year? Maybe. I don’t know if it’s the bad, but maybe he makes some plays defensively. He’s making money, too. It’s not like you’re not spending any money on him. I know Rogers gets flipped, so that probably helps to offset some things, but Hayes signed an 8-year, $70 million extension in 2022 that goes through 2029. He’s getting paid. Mhm. I mean contract and we’ll find out more about the money breakdown here but the contract for Hayes you know he’s getting 7 mil this year 7 mil next year 7 mil in 27 8 mil in 28 8 mil in 29 and there’s a club option for 12 mil in 2030. Yeah, he’s getting paid a lot to not hit. He’s got a great agent. I did not see that one coming. Uh I would say I would say that’s the value. What’s What’s one war What’s one war worth in free agency? $7 million. He’s Yeah, he’s putting up He’s putting that up in He’s putting that up in defense alone. So, good for them. Yeah, but Okay. Right. So, but you’re just banking on him being, you know, close to a league average bat, right? Which he’s done once in his career. That was in 2023 when he finished strong. He was a 103 OPS plus. The other seasons around that full seasons or fullish se Well, there hasn’t really been he hasn’t really played anything close to a full season. The fullest was 2022 136 games played and he was at a 88 86 OPS plus the year before that. And then the last two seasons 61 and 59. And that’s not a major league hitter. Like if you got one more year of that, you have a hard time finding a spot. I don’t care how good your glove is, you definitely have a hard time finding a spot at They must see something change. That’s the only thing I can say. The Rays have the Reds see something that they can change. And everyone keeps saying, “Oh, in the chat, oh well, it’s because he wouldn’t elevate the ball.” Well, maybe the Reds have a way to get him to do it. I don’t know. Maybe he’s a change of scenery guy. I don’t know. Hopefully, it works out for both teams. It’s an expensive lottery ticket, though, because let’s say this is the real Key Brian Hayes bat. That’s not a big league bat. You’re on the hook for a lot of money unless there’s a ton of money being eaten up on the Pittsburgh Pirates side of this trade for the Reds are a small market team. $7 million is not nothing. That’s not a backup player for them. They don’t pay backup players $7 million. So Kratz, one win, one win war, that’s what you get. Yeah, but you need the guy to hit a little bit. I mean, he’s around one this year. He was close to one last year and more and the two seasons before that obviously was much higher because he was closer to league average with his bat. So that’s where you’re more of a four- win player. So that’s what they’re banking on. If you’re a four- win player and you cost 7 million bucks, great. And maybe he’s he’s more valuable to a team that pitches, a team that has to put the ball on the ground, a team that can’t rely on the ball in the air and third base is a valuable position. This is the same organization that we were like, “Wow, this Reds team, they’re primed to go. What’s this free agent? They’re going to get Jar Candelario. They’re still paying him right now. It didn’t seem like it was a good fit. Maybe this is a Reds being like, “Nah, we see this is a good fit. We’re going to definitely get it.” Jim Candelario’s being paid by the Reds in Scranton playing in Triple A for the Yankees. There’s a show that absolutely torched that deal. You’re watching it right now. Yeah, we all collectively torched that deal. We we disagree a lot, but we all torched that deal, right? That was a massive fail. It did not make sense. It did not make sense at the time. 3 years 45 million and I don’t think any other team was offering close to that. And good for the player. He got his cash, but he’s not worth that. And for the Reds to take on that risk, it did not make a lot of sense. This is a small market team. You can’t miss on risks like that. So that’s my point here. This is a significant risk for them. It is. I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens. I’m just shocked. I’m shocked. Aren’t you shocked? I said that. I can’t believe that this happened. Now, yeah. I tr I truly believe that a team like the Yankees were going to be able to like be able to swallow his lack of offense because of the defense. I thought a team like the Blue Jays who it’s like, man, you know, they need to hit need to slug more. They were a team that’d be like, who cares? We knew Andrez wasn’t going to hit that great. We want that defense. We swallowed a lot of that contract. You know, some teams double, triple, quadruple down on defense. Maybe the Reds are doing that. Maybe Noelvie Martes, you know, recent recent surge is going to play him in left field. Maybe they don’t feel like left field in s in uh the small park, great American small park in Cincinnati really needs like a gold glove left fielder, but they think they need gold glove third baseman with Lollo running those heaters in on righties. We need guys to make those plays. Abbott, not Abbott. Um Abbott’s out. Uh, Singer, the crap dropping. You got to hit. You got to hit. Like, this team, this team’s not good enough to have a player like that. Like you mentioned, like, yeah, the Yankees aren’t picking this guy up. The Yankees aren’t taking this guy. I’m sorry. Well, no, they made a decision. They said they’re not taking the Yankees no chance. Well, no, he was saying before the McMahon, even before after next year, they’re not taking Kabrian Hayes. Yeah, McMahon’s a much better hitter than KBrian Hayes. The Yankees want kids that can hit, man. Pirates won this trade. I don’t know what the Reds are doing. Pirates won this trade. Also, Petraella, who’s a Stackcast guy, because there’s a lot of people like, “Oh, he’s going to change his swing, whatever.” And he’s like, “Back injuries make me wonder if changing his path like that is possible. It’s a flat swing.” We’ll see. I mean, sometimes guys can do it and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes guys don’t want to do it, right? Sometimes they don’t want to do it or sometimes it just doesn’t work for them. Here’s Noah Hiles, who’s super dialed on the Pirates. He’s an everyday guy covering them. He said, “Source confirms the deal. I’m told the Reds will take on all of the contract. The Taylor Rogers money this season makes the deal financially a wash this season. Jar Triola is going to take over at third base for now for the Pirates, but they just dumped the whole contract after this year. Pirates dump Reds. The Reds I don’t know what the Reds are doing. The Pirates won this trade. I think they gave him a lifeline. Big contract. I thought Tom Nutting is doing cartwheels down the hallway right now. Oh yeah, Ben Sherington’s probably just saved his job. He might have one trade. Seriously, you want a saved a lot of money is doing cartwheels down that thing and they have in the outfield out there, the circle thing the loop all the way down. All the way down. He told Ben Cherington, “You want a contract? You need to figure out how to find $7 million for the next five years and I’ll end up paying you out of that money.” And Ben Cherington’s like, “Ching.” I’mma text Ben right now. Here’s the deal. Ben Cherington, I think’s in his sixth season running the team. The five-year plan has failed so far. Failed. And they did give out some extensions. Some of them have not worked, like this one. So, while I’m going to be very critical of where the Pirates are at as an organization, I am going to give them credit on this one. This is not a team that can afford to have a player like that who also needed a change of scenery very badly. But I’m with AJ here. Huge win for them to dump a player like this. This was not helping them at all. Pirates need offense badly. They’ve got some special starting pitchers led by Skins. Jar Jones should be back next year. Bubba Chandler could be a top end starter. They also have the top prospect in all of baseball right now in Conor Griffin according to Baseball America. He’ll take some time, but still there are some promising parts of this team.

BREAKING: The Reds and Pirates just struck a surprising NL Central deal. Cincinnati acquires third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, while Pittsburgh gets shortstop prospect Sammy Stafura and reliever Taylor Rogers. The Foul Territory crew reacts in real time to the rare intra-division trade, what it means for both teams’ timelines, and whether this signals a bigger shift for Pittsburgh’s rebuild and the Reds’ playoff push.

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