Rays Trade Candidate Isaac Paredes is a Perfect Fit for the Brewers

Throughout 2023, the persistent narrative around the Brewers offense was that they didn't hit for enough power. Nor was that some paranoid or pessimistic complaint. The team finished 28th in isolated power, 27th in the percentage of their plate appearances ending in home runs, and they had the third-highest ground-ball rate of any team in baseball. Right now, the Rays are shopping third baseman Isaac Paredes, who would solve all those problems at once--or at least, move them in the right direction on each score.

Paredes, who will turn just 25 in February, is still under team control through 2027. However, he'll be arbitration-eligible for all four of those seasons, and Tampa needs to trim their payroll this winter. Thus, Paredes is available in trade conversations, coming off a season in which he hit .250/.352/.488 and slugged those 31 dingers. Presumably, there would be a substantial cost involved, but he's precisely the kind of player the Brewers badly need.

As I wrote earlier today, Tyler Black has an exit-velocity problem--especially if you want to think of him as an everyday third baseman. Paredes shares that shortcoming, but only in a small, limited way. He doesn't have unusually good high-end exit velocities. Nor does he hit the ball hard with special frequency. However, he does what Black has not done, at least throughout his ascent through the minor leagues: get the ball in the air. As I discussed in a post at North Side Baseball on why he would be a good fit for the Cubs, Paredes modified his approach in 2023 to better suit his skill set, and he arrived at a style that should yield more consistent, high-level production than his raw batted-ball data implies.

MLB Trade Rumors estimates that Paredes will make $3.2 million in 2024, which makes him affordable even for a Brewers team operating under some financial uncertainty as the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy wreaks havoc for TV rights deals on the Bally Sports networks. Again, the price tag figures to be significant, but with the Rays also having been reported to be interested in moving Randy Arozarena or Manuel Margot, maybe the fit is more obvious than it seems. A swap of Garrett Mitchell or Joey Wiemer (plus some far-off pitching prospect, in all likelihood) for Paredes could make a lot of sense.

Last month at Baseball Prospectus, Robert Orr rolled out a revolutionary approach to evaluating plate discipline and approach for hitters. He dubbed it SEAGER, because it's a measurement of selective aggression and because its utmost exemplar is Rangers superstar Corey Seager. Orr delivered a leaderboard for SEAGER for both individuals and teams, and each included a comparison between the player or team's ranking in terms of simple swing percentage differential (in-zone minus out-of-zone swings, a simple methodology) and their ranking in SEAGER. Paredes is one player who goes from far below-average to far above it when switching to the SEAGER lens to assess his approach, and the Brewers (who jump from 19th in MLB in swing differential to 12th in SEAGER) are one of the teams who jump most. There's a synergy between the way Paredes and his would-be new team attack at-bats, and he also brings strengths in an area of Brewers team weakness. It's hard to argue with the desirability of that pairing.

Solving the team's power outage and filling their apparently vacant third-base spot are distinct but overlapping items on Matt Arnold's winter checklist. Do you think dealing for Paredes is a solid way to attack both? Let's discuss.