Phillies: Grading the Asdrubal Cabrera trade with the Mets

How’d the Phillies do with their first trade acquisition of the rebuild?

After missing out on Manny Machado and Eduardo Escobar the Phillies acquired infielder Asdrubal Cabrera from the New York Mets in exchange for pitching prospect Franklyn Kilomé Friday evening.

Thus far the trade has drawn some mixed reactions, but the overall view has been positive for the first trade of the deadline.

Cabrera has primarily played shortstop in his career, but this year the Mets have started him at second base in 90 of 91 starts this year, the other as a designated hitter. Last season he played 44 games at short, 43 at third, and 32 at second for New York, flashing his versatility

Some question whether or not Cabrera has the range to play shortstop anymore at the age of 32.

Take that analysis however you want less than 24 hours after the ink hit paper. He’s starting at shortstop Saturday night and hitting fifth between Carlos Santana and Nick Williams.

Having Cabrera means Scott Kingery and J.P. Crawford, when healthy, will move to a bench that has struggled to find pieces this year. Whether or not those players can succeed coming off the bench is yet to be seen.

Kingey is two for eight with two strikeouts as a pinch hitter in his rookie season, and is hitting .333 as a sub entering the game.

After hitting .219 through the month of May Kingery has stepped up at the plate hitting .252 in June and July. He’ll move into the super utility player the organization saw him as coming out of spring training, meaning he’ll play across the diamond to give the starters a day off when needed.

Personally, I would have liked to see Kingery play more and continue to develop as a starter down the stretch. Yes the team needed an upgrade at the position, but I’m not sure this was the time to add an everyday guy.

Here’s what the fans thought of adding Cabrera to the mix as a rental player for the organization’s 10th-best prospect Kilomé.

Kilomé didn’t have a solid role in the organization with the emergence and acquisition of other starting pitchers throughout the franchise. Sixto Sanchez and Adonis Medina project to be better starters coming out of the lower levels and the trio of Cole Irvin, Enyel De Los Santos, and Ranger Suarez have solidified themselves as future big league starters.

It’s not a horrible piece to give up, but he was a top-10 prospect in the organization in the eyes of MLB Pipeline.

Here’s what the fans on Twitter thought of this move.

I lean towards a B- with this trade mostly because I wanted to see more of Kingery and hopefully Crawford in the near future. This is a team that can win the division and perhaps clinch home field advantage in the playoffs, but it’s still about winning in the long-term.

I’m not disappointed they organization gave up Kilomé for the reasons mentioned earlier. If they had given up a better arm such as JoJo Romero or a second piece in the back end of their top-30 ranking I’d be more upset over the move.