Marlins trade Bryan De La Cruz to Pirates

Ely Sussman · July 30, 2024

Since arriving in Miami via a deadline deal three years ago, De La Cruz has been the offensive equivalent of an innings-eater. But the Marlins weren't interested in retaining him for his upcoming arbitration years.

I'd consider this to be the weirdest of the six trades orchestrated by the Miami Marlins on Tuesday. Bryan De La Cruz has been dealt to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for prospects RHP Jun-Seok Shim and INF Garret Forrester.

De La Cruz was an overlooked Triple-A player in the Houston Astros organization when the Marlins acquired him prior to the 2021 deadline in exchange for a rental Yimi García. He made his MLB debut on July 31 of that year. Since then, DLC leads all Marlins players in the following categories:

Games played (429)
Plate appearances (1,646)
Hits (394)
Home runs (55)
Walks (101)
Runs batted in (190)

Although De La Cruz has exceeded initial expectations at the plate, he's become a liability in the field. In 2023, his only full-length season as an everyday player, he accrued minus-9 defensive runs saved and minus-10 runs of fielding value, per Baseball Savant. This season, his playing time has been split between the corner outfield spots and designated hitter. He continues to rate as a below-average defender in those limited reps.

In separate pre-trade deadline deals, the Marlins acquired upper-minors sluggers Agustín Ramírez, Deyvison De Los Santos and Kyle Stowers. Perhaps acquiring them made the affable veteran more expendable long term, but it's not like there was any urgency to do this now. DLC is under club control through 2027.

It's unclear who the Pittsburgh Pirates were even bidding against. They were the only team linked to De La Cruz through The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal and other pre-deadline reports.

If the name Jun-Seok Shim looks vaguely familiar, he was believed to be part of preseason negotiations between these teams that revolved around Edward Cabrera. The South Korean right-hander is missing the entire 2024 minor league season with a shoulder injury.

From Eric Longenhagen's midseason report where he ranked Shim 30th among top Pirates prospects:

When healthy, Shim’s fastball sits 95 with above-average life. His slow, mid-70s curveball is easy to identify out of his hand, but it has lovely shape and depth of break, so perhaps it can be sculpted into a more traditional big league breaking ball because of his proclivity for spin. Opinions on Shim vary because he offers less physical projection than is typical for a 20-year-old pitcher, but there’s big arm speed here and big riding life to Shim’s fastball. The effects of a pro strength and conditioning program might kick-start him down the path toward finding a more consistent release and sustaining the big velocity as a pro starter, which he might even be able to focus on during this injury rehab period.

Pittsburgh's third-round pick from the 2023 MLB Draft, Forrester has split defensive reps between catcher and the corner infield spots. The right-handed hitter has homered only once through 47 MiLB games, albeit in pitcher-friendly environments (131 wRC+).