Graham Ashcraft is An Enticing High-Ceiling Trade Candidate
Since the end of the 2021 season, the Twins have traded for two Cincinnati Reds starting pitchers. One trade worked out incredibly well, and the other, well, didn’t. Could the Twins partner with the Reds on yet another trade for a starter?
The Major League Baseball trade market is like a well. Parched front offices visit that well, hoping to find a player to quench their thirst and strengthen their team for a reasonable cost. Recently, the Cincinnati Reds have been a one-team well the Twins front office has often visited for starting pitching help. The first time Derek Falvey and company visited in need of a starting pitcher, they traded first-round pick Chase Petty for two years of Sonny Gray. The Petty-for-Gray trade went swimmingly for both sides, as the Twins got two above-average years from Gray, and the Reds got a borderline top-100 prospect who could join the Reds rotation as early as 2025.
Then, on August 2, 2022, the well made the Twins sick. They traded three top prospects (Spencer Steer, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and Steve Hajjar) for starting pitcher Tyler Mahle. Over the next season and change, Mahle made just nine starts for the Twins, before undergoing Tommy John surgery and signing a two-year, $22-million deal with the Texas Rangers last week. The Twins got essentially nothing, while the Reds got two starting-level position players in Steer and Encarnacion-Strand, and traded Hajjar to the Cleveland Guardians for starting outfielder Will Benson. Though the lousiness of this trade is often hyperbolized, as the process behind executing the trade was sound, the end result was undeniably a loss for the organization’s decision-makers.
If the last time a team was thirsty and went to a well, the water made them sick, should they return to that specific well, expecting it to be safe? What if the well was safe the first time, then, unbeknownst to them, became contaminated between visits? Interestingly, there is an enticing Reds starting pitcher who could force the Twins to reflect on these philosophical questions if he were to become available through trade.
Graham Ashcraft – Cincinnati Reds – 145 2/3 IP, 4.76 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 1.5 fWAR
Deemed a young pitcher who has yet to perform to their potential, Ashcraft is an exciting trade candidate who possesses the exact pitching repertoire the Twins’ front office values: a potentially elite slider mixed with a cutter that the team’s coaching staff could help Ashcraft change into a more
