The Milwaukee Brewers have gotten themselves into the Trade Deadline fever with just a few days left to go. Matt Arnold woke up early on Saturday morning and completed a trade with the Cleveland Guardians that is sending reliever Craig Yoho and outfielder Blake Perkins to Cleveland for catcher Bo Naylor and pitcher Codi Heuer.
This trade is a bit of a surprise considering catcher was not expected to be a position the Brewers would need to upgrade. Gary Sanchez has been the backup catcher all season
and has had a 118 OPS+. He primarily hits against lefties and is hitting .274 with a .878 OPS against them.
Meanwhile, Bo Naylor is hitting .143 this year with a .438 OPS and a 23 OPS+. The 26 year old was optioned to the minors earlier this season and only had 84 at bats at the big league level this year. Naylor has over 1,000 ABs in the majors and has 40 career home runs.
So far, it sounds like a downgrade offensively. Sanchez is still the backup catcher, but according to Curt Hogg of the Journal Sentinel, this could open up the possibility of the Brewers moving Sanchez elsewhere in another trade before the deadline is over.
The Brewers have also traded Blake Perkins in this deal. Perkins had clearly fallen out of favor with the organization, losing his big league job on a couple of occasions this year amidst his offensive struggles. The support of Pat Murphy has helped him, but with the lack of production at the plate, Perkins has almost zero path to playing time.
With Perkins’ inclusion, the Brewers were also able to acquire Codi Heuer, a journeyman reliever who is having a largely mediocre year with a 4.66 ERA in limited MLB appearances. He’s spent the bulk of the year at Triple-A as well where he’s done better, with a 3.46 ERA.
Both Naylor and Heuer are being sent to Triple-A Nashville upon joining the organization, which means the Brewers just traded two pieces of MLB depth for two pieces of Triple-A depth. This trade feels much more like a precursor to something else that will be coming, but for now, in a vacuum, it seems a slightly puzzling trade that won’t do much to upgrade the current roster.
There’s likely more still to come from the Brewers front office. Stay tuned.
