Nats Acquire Pirates Closer Mark Melancon for Peanuts
It’s Rivero and Hearn ONLY for Melancon, source says. That’s pretty impressive from #Nats perspective. Kept all top prospects.
— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) July 30, 2016
The Papelbon problem in DC is over – or at least the closer part of it is. Who knows how Pap will react to his impending demotion but his recent struggles might be a blessing in disguise for Baker and the Nats because even Pap has to know that his past few outings aren’t gunna push any team into the playoffs.
When I first heard that Mark Melancon was available, I figured that the Pirates would be asking the moon for him. The Pirates, after all, are just 3 games out of the postseason and have a pretty strong roster that would lead many to believe they’d be buyers. All indications were that, if Melancon were traded, the Pirates would be getting a haul. Either Felipe Rivero and Taylor Hearn are a lot more valuable than I thought they were or the Pirates sold for a lot less than expected.
Mark Melancon is a free agent at the end of the season so he is purely a rental but we saw Aroldis Chapman, another rental, traded for a king’s ransom of a top 25 prospect plus more so it was very surprising to see the Pirates give Melancon up for so little. Felipe Rivero had been a favorite of mine and I really believed (and believe) that he will turn into a shutdown reliever but he is not there yet and Dusty has overused him to his detriment this season. I trade 4.5 years of a solid reliever for half a season of a true ace closer – one that has been an all-star each of the past two seasons and who led the league in saves in 2015 – any day. Taylor Hearn, a LHP prospect that is currently in single A apparently throws really hard and could turn into a good ‘pen piece in the future, but is also ranked outside the Nationals’ top 20 prospects and won’t turn into someone that we regret dealing in the future.
It hurts to see Rivero go but that pain is undone by the excellent acquisition of Melancon and this news has to feel even more sweeter for people who had come to terms with dealing Lucas Giolito for Andrew Miller. Instead of losing literally the best prospect in all of baseball, we give up a young reliever and a relatively unheralded relief prospect for a 3 time all-star who has a 1.51 ERA this season. There really isn’t much more to add – it appears to be the Nats’ year in the NL East and we just added a bullpen piece that can compete with the Cubs‘ Chapman add (for a tenth of the price). Don’t look now but Melancon’s ERA is .36 lower than Chapman’s this year.