The Nats new GM reached back out to his old team and made a trade you just don’t see that often; prospect for prospect, two minor leaguers (essentially) for each other, both of whom are at the cusp of MLB production.
Jake Bennett heads to Boston straight up for Luis Perales a 22yr old RHP starter who got a cup of coffee with Boston this year.
From a prospect ranking perspective, MLBpipeline had Bennett as our #11 and now has Perales as our new #5, so in theory our farm system improves marginally. In reality, whether it was Bennett or Perales in our AAA rotation to start 2026, both would be expected to matriculate up this year. Perales is only 22 as an international signee, and has more upside/more risk, while Bennett is considered more floor/more consistent.
Keith Law had some interesting analysis in the immediate wake of the trade, noting that Bennett (and the Nats pitching dev staff) had done little to improve upon his offerings in his time here (either in terms of velocity or adding breaking pitches), whereas Boston has had success in helping its arms improve. Something to think about; Boston must have seen something it thinks it can improve upon with Bennett, while Toboni rolls the dice on a higher upside arm that he’s familiar with.
Here’s what our rough SP depth chart looks like right now on the 40-man:
- Likely opening day rotation: Gore, Grey, Cavalli, Alvarez/Irvin/Parker competition
- Likely starters->bullpen: McGarry, Lord, Williams
- To the DL: Herz
- To AAA: Perales, Lao, Eder, Cornelio
That’s not a bad AAA rotation to start, adding to it Luckham, Shuman, and Ogasawara as 5th candidates
Anyway, odds are we’re not done seeing trades. Big question is whether he will move Gore now or try to leverage desperate teams at the 2026 trade deadline … and if he can convince other teams that Abrams is really a shortstop.
I have recently discovered the baseball trade value site and find a few things interesting.
Alvarez is rated higher than Bennett; Abrams is rated higher than Gore; the Nats came out ahead on both of their recent trades.
I’m not sure what to make of it but there seems to be validity to it.
FredMD
16 Dec 25 at 11:44 am
I think this trade is really good example of the relief valuation conundrum we were discussing last week.
Everyone seems to agree that Bennett is more likely to stick as a starter but less likely to develop into an elite pitcher regardless of role. Based on what I’ve seen/read, I prefer Bennett. Not by a ton, but if both of these arms were in the system, I’d definitely have Bennett ranked higher.
Now I’m wondering if that may be based on an outdated sense of the WAR equivalence where even a mediocre innings eating SP4/5 is basically as valuable as an elite reliever. And yet with the Ferrer trade and others we’ve clearly seen teams value solid or better relievers more than their expected WAR would imply.
Here’s some hypothetical probabilities. Let’s even cap both upsides and say each has a 20% chance of being an SP3 or better. Let’s say that Bennett has a 30% chance of being backend starter, a 30% chance of being an up-and-down SP6 and a 20% chance of busting. Perales has a 20% of being a very good reliever, a 20% chance of being a usable bullpen piece and a 40% chance of busting.
By WAR, this works out for Bennett to generate 20%*3+30%*1.5+30%*.7 = 1.26 expected WAR per season. Perales, meanwhile, gets only 20%*3+20%*1+20%*0.5 = 0.9. (Feel free to suggest another set of probabilities or outcomes – this is just meant as an example, though approximately 1 WAR / year is probably about what I’d expect from most FV45s.) That valuation slightly but clearly prefers Bennett, and those numbers line up pretty close my intuitive sense of the trade.
But I’d contend that teams clearly value their 0.5 – 1 WAR relievers more than they value 1 WAR starters or position players. I’m not entirely sure why, and I’d be very interested in a mathematical model that makes sense of this. Maybe it’s as simple as the public systems using the wrong replacement values. Perhaps we need to look to leverage and usage flexibility as value-adds. But in the meantime, even if we don’t understand why, I think we have to reckon with the fact that this is how the actual marketplace values these players.
SMS
16 Dec 25 at 1:05 pm