White Sox trade Keynan Middleton to Yankees, acquire Luis Patiño from Rays

White Sox reliever Keynan Middleton
(Photo by Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire)

Although Dylan Cease rumors swirled as the 5 p.m. trade deadline approached, the White Sox’s last trade merely involved Keynan Middleton. The Sox sent the impending free-agent reliever to the Yankees for A-ball righty Juan Carela.

Middleton’s stock lost some team during an ugly July, as he gave up nine runs over 8⅓ innings. The league hit .324/.410/.735 against him, and while some of that could merely be regression to a medium-leverage life, it’s also possible that the league adjusted to his changeup-heavy approach. There was a reason the White Sox signed him as a non-roster spring training invitee before the season, so a 3.96 ERA over 39 appearances was a positive development no matter which order it happened.

In return, the White Sox received Carela, who ranked 29th in MLB Pipeline’s top 30 Yankees prospects list, but didn’t register on Baseball America’s.

As lottery tickets go, Carela’s not bad. The 21-year-old has a 3.67 ERA over 83⅓ innings for High-A Hudson Valley, with 109 strikeouts against 32 walks and seven homers, so the peripherals support the respectable run prevention.

Pipeline’s scouting report says he throws two kinds of fastballs and two kinds of sliders, which gives a new organization a chance to reorder his pitch mix. He might be able to be a sweeper-first reliever with a mid-90s fastball as a fallback, but there’s no pressure to get him out of the rotation just yet.

The most pressing issue involves the 40-man roster. The Yankees signed Carela for $335,000 in July 2018, so he would be eligible for the Rule 5 draft after the season. It’s hard to see him getting selected, but that’s one reason why the Yankees might’ve been inclined to let him go.

In other news, the White Sox acquired Luis Patiño from the Tampa Bay Rays for cash.

Patiño was a real-deal prospect, a consensus top-30 guy across the major rankings as recently as 2021. The Rays acquired him as the headliner when they sent Blake Snell to the Padres, but after an encouraging Rays debut in 2021, it’s been downhill since. He had major control problems around an oblique strain in 2022, and he’s issued 29 walks against just 38 strikeouts while allowing 10 homers over 45⅓ innings at Triple-A Durham.

The limited Statcast data shows that Patiño’s average fastball is down to 94 mph, and he’s tried to shift to throwing the slider as his primary pitch after the Rays converted him to full-time relief work. There’s probably nothing here, but after trading Middleton, Joe Kelly, Kendall Graveman and Reynaldo López over the last week, there are innings available for any pitcher who looks remotely interesting.

Author

  • Jim Margalus

    Writing about the White Sox for a 16th season, first here, then at South Side Sox, and now here again. Let’s talk curling.

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soxygen

Hooray, a rule 5 eligible 21 year old in hi-a.

Last edited 1 year ago by soxygen
StockroomSnail

Coop’ll fix him

FishSox

He always does. Get Contreras on the phone for a pep talk.

To Err is Herrmann

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, the Twins did exactly nothing, saying that players coming back from injuries would add more than a trade, and that no good trades materialized. Twins fans at Puckett’s Pond are sad numb and furious, depending. The whole of the AL Central is sunk in malaise. One Pond writer noted the front office wasn’t going to held accountable for this year’s results anyway. Does any of this sound familiar? 5 teams set off in a boat on a 3-hour tour, a 3-hour tour.

md03

Baseball needs to realign leagues to deal with this BS. It’s almost collusion when teams don’t actively do better because the 4 other teams aren’t either. Then in the East they’re actually deserving teams getting hosed out of the playoffs.

upnorthsox

Yep I would be livid today if I was a Guards fan.