RETROSPECTIVE: The Marlins Shouldn’t Have Ever Made This Trade

After the trade of Luis Arraez to the San Diego Padres, we can correctly assess just how poor the deal to acquire him was for the Miami Marlins

Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Pablo López has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since being traded along with two prospects by the Miami Marlins / Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports

The Miami Marlins orchestrated a really interesting trade entering the 2023 season. 

It turned out to be a bad idea. 

On January 20th, 2023, the Marlins acquired second baseman Luis Arraez from the Minnesota Twins, giving up starting pitcher Pablo López and two prospects to do it. 

In retrospect, not a good move. 

Arraez played well in Miami - he put up a .343 batting average and won both the NL batting title and a Silver Slugger at second base for his efforts. An 8th-place finish in the MVP race last year shows that his season, measuring out at 4.9 WAR, was valuable. 

Pablo López, frankly, was better. 

In his first season with the Twins, López went 11-8 with a 3.66 ERA. In his 32 starts, covering 194 innings, he struck out 234 (10.9 K/9) while walking only 48 (2.2 BB/9) and had a complete game shutout on July 5th against the Kansas City Royals. In that outing, which came at home in Target Field, López struck out twelve with no walks and only four hits, throwing exactly 100 pitches (76 strikes) to do it. 

López was named an All-Star and finished 7th in the American League Cy Young voting last season. He’s off to a similar start this season, where after an MLB-leading eight starts he’s struck out 55 (11.3 K/9) and walked only 8 (1.6 BB/9), both improvements on last year’s rates. He’s officially 4-2 and Minnesota has won five of those eight starts. 

López’s contributions alone outpace those of Arraez, traded last weekend to the San Diego Padres for a four-player package that seems more focused on quantity than quality. (One that also increased the team’s salary obligations for 2024.) 

Adding in that two Miami prospects that were moved in the deal, however, makes the trade even harder to stomach. While Byron Chourio (Single-A Ft. Myers) and Jose Salas (High-A Cedar Rapids) are years away from MLB, the fact that Miami not only gave up the best player in the deal but also two prospects makes this deal hard to stomach. 

Accounting for the trade that sent Arraez to San Diego, however, makes the trade downright inexcusable. Essentially, the Marlins traded Pablo López and two position players for three mid-level prospects and a reliever that’s struggling to acclimate to Major League Baseball after multiple seasons of playing in Korea. 

Looking at trade compensation for similar frontline starting pitchers that were moved in recent deals - Dylan Cease (also to the Padres) and Corbin Burnes (to the Baltimore Orioles) - shows us that the Miami return is even more suspect, in retrospect. Both organizations that sent out those pitchers got multiple MLB-caliber prospects in return, with Drew Thorpe (the Chicago White Sox’s #3 prospect, per MLB Pipeline) impressing in Double-A Birmingham with a 5-1 record and a 1.01 ERA and infielder Joey Ortiz batting .267 with a .871 OPS for the Milwaukee Brewers.    

Miami fans have to hope that Peter Bendix’s strategy of quantity over quality can raise the floor of MLB Pipeline’s #29 farm system to something more respectable and that the revamped player development department can get these hitters to the majors.