Things just aren’t great right now, man. In addition to the Cubs-specific stuff I got into this morning that have really kicked us in the grapes the last two days, the Cubs also missed out on reliever Zach Britton last night, a guy they’d been targeting for a while.
Now, another guy they’d been looking closely at (admittedly, we don’t know for sure how much they liked him) is off the table:
BREAKING: #Rays are trading Eovaldi to RedSox
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) July 25, 2018
Return for #Rays from #RedSox is Jalen Beeks
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) July 25, 2018
Beeks is ranked 15th by MLB Pipeline in a decent, but not fantastic, Red Sox system. He had moved up to six in BA’s updated rankings, though, after he pitched extremely well at AAA this year. So I expect he was something of a riser. I’m not sure the Cubs really had a one-to-one apples-to-apples guy like that.
I was a fan for Eovaldi’s particular fit for the Cubs as a rental option, so I’m bummed about this. Clearly, the price tag on Eovaldi was higher than we might have expected, and, as I said, I’m not sure the Cubs could have matched this return (exactly) from their farm system, alone.
Jalen Beeks is a big-time pop-up guy who has killed the International League this year with 117 strikeouts in 87.1 IP. He's a short lefty, but his stuff plays up. An awfully good return for the $3M or so the Rays spent on Nate Eovaldi the last two seasons.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 25, 2018