It has been less than 24 hours since the Brewers announced that they traded away Hunter Renfroe. The trade was made with the Los Angles Angels. In return they received three young controllable pitchers. Matt Arnold has made his comments on the trade already. Some fans have expressed their reactions. Ultimately, the main question is did the Brewers get enough value in return?
In order to answer this question, there is one specific trade that we will use in comparison. That trade occurred a few weeks prior to the Hunter Renfroe trade. It was the Mariners acquiring Teoscar Hernandez and sending Erik Swanson and Adam Macko to the Blue Jays.
This trade works as a comparison for both Hernandez and Renfroe are outfielders with one year of control remaining. Both were traded within a few weeks of one another for young controllable pitchers. Here we will further use the two trades to determine if the Brewers got enough value in their trade package. The Brewers received Janson Junk, Elvis Peguero, and Adam Seminaris from the Angels.
Did the Brewers get enough value in return for trading away Hunter Renfroe?
Let’s start with the Mariners and Blue Jays trade. The Mariners acquired Hernandez, who is a more productive player than Renfroe. Hernandez received MVP votes in 2020 and 2021 while also putting together a solid 2022. Given his history, it would make sense for a Hernandez return package to have a higher ceiling.
I believe this is exactly what happened. Swanson is a reliever who has had big league success and Macko is a highly regarded left-handed prospect. In the Brewers case, they received two pitchers in Junk and Peguero who have not found big league success yet and also received a left-handed prospect in Seminaris.
This is not to say that the Brewers did not get enough value in return for Renfroe. Both Junk and Peduero are high velocity pitchers and the Brewers have a knack for making pitchers succeed. Seminaris projects to be a middle-inning reliever and is a very efficient strike thrower.
Really what the Brewers did here was they elected for a higher quantity of pitchers in their return package. While the ceiling is not as high when compared to the Hernandez trade, the Crew will rely on development to make the return package value increase over time.
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