Rays Score Big in Trade for Jose De Leon

Even after trading away Drew Smyly to the Seattle Mariners a few weeks ago, the Tampa Bay Rays are in a good position and are poised to have a deep rotation once again heading into the 2017 season.

In exchange of second baseman, Logan Forsythe otherwise known as LoFo by the fans in Tampa Bay, the Rays received 24-year old, right-handed pitching prospect, Jose De Leon. While the trade creates a hole at second base for the Rays, it is one that is too hard to pass up given the high level of potential that De Leon has and how well regarded he is in the game.

Prior to the start of last season, De Leon ranked as the 23rd best prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America. In addition, MLB.com ranked him as the 24th best prospect in baseball prior to the start of the regular season last year, while BaseballProspectus.com ranked him 28th.

De Leon was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 24th round of the 2013 Amateur Draft and had a tremendous track record of success during his 4 minor league seasons with the organization. In those four seasons, De Leon pitched to the tune of a 3.35 ERA in 330.2 IP, recorded 446 strikeouts, and surrendered 30 home runs and 99 walks. His cumulative minor league career WHIP is 1.13 and he has a strikeout-per-9 ratio of 12.1 in those four seasons.

At the end of last season, De Leon got called up by the Dodgers and made his official MLB debut on September 4th. After being called up, he struggled finishing the year with a 6.35 ERA in 17.0 IP at the big league level. He recorded 15 strikeouts in that span, but did allow 19 hits, 12 earned runs, and 5 home runs.

While De Leon has a small track record at the major league level, he does come with a huge amount of upside and is only starting to enter his peak. Last season alone, De Leon showed some stability after he returned in June following an ankle injury and shoulder soreness at Triple-A Oklahoma City. Once he returned, De Leon put up a 7-1 record in 16 starts, had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 111/20 , and posted a 2.61 while allowing only 61 hits.

Furthermore, scouts note that De Leon has a great deal of command when he is pitching and note that he comes with three pitches including a terrific change-up, a fastball that sits in the low-to-mid 90s as well as a breaking ball that he continues to work on. While he certainly possesses everything to be a successful MLB starting pitcher, scouts are a bit concerned since he has never pitched more than 100 innings in a season and are worried if he is able to stay healthy when he needs to pitch that many innings in a single season, but feel as though he will overcome that hurdle eventually.

Although De Leon comes with a slight injury history and some uncertainty at the big league level, Tampa Bay still scored big by acquiring him in exchange for their well known second baseman. Add De Leon to a rotation that already has Chris Archer headling it along with plenty of other talented arms in Blake Snell, Jake Odorizzi, Alex Cobb along with Matt Andriese, and you can see why pitching will continue to possess a deep starting rotation in 2017.

As for now, Rays fans might be disappointed that they lost a fan favorite in Forsythe, but should remain optimistic as to what's to come in the future and the amount of success that De Leon is poised to have sooner than later.