Checking in on the A's Cristian Pache Trade

After a full regular season, we have a little more data on Cristian Pache and the player he was traded to Philadelphia for, Billy Sullivan

When the A's traded away Matt Olson to the Atlanta Braves, Shea Langeliers was the centerpiece of that deal, and he looks to be the A's catcher for the next few seasons at the very least. The other big piece coming back was Cristian Pache, who had struggled in his brief time in the big leagues to that point and only had one minor league option remaining when he headed to Oakland. 

Because he only had the one option (which was burned in 2022), the A's found themselves in a predicament at the end of spring training of 2023. Pache was on the cusp of the roster, and needed to perform to make the team. He went 13-for-43 (.302) with a .362 on-base percentage and four walks in Arizona, but was told that he wasn't going be on the Opening Day roster, and was subsequently traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for pitching prospect Billy Sullivan. 

Now, I was fairly vocal that Pache could be of use to the A's, a rebuilding club, as an excellent defender in center or either corner spot, while being used primarily against left-handed pitching. Despite hitting .168 with a .218 OBP in 91 games last season, he was a .220 batter with a .281 OBP and a 76 wRC+ against lefties. The hope being that he improves a little bit with the bat while facing primarily southpaws, and then potentially working his way in to more regular playing time. The plan was to give him just a little more time to see if he could turn things around before trading him away when his value wasn't terribly high. 

He suffered a couple of injuries with Philadelphia--one to his knee and one to his elbow--which kept him off the field a fair amount, but when he was on the roster he was facing left-handers for the Phils. He hit .314 against them with a .375 OBP and a 148 wRC+ (100 is league average) in 57 plate appearances. It's a small sample, but it shows that the plan to maximize his value is working. He still struck out a decent amount (28.4%), but he also nearly doubled his walk rate, going from 5.8% to 10.5%, which was something the A's wanted to see from him in the spring. 

Defensively he's just as good as he was last year, if not better, albeit in a smaller sample. He recorded seven Outs Above Average in total last season with Oakland while roaming center field, and this year split between center and left, he tallied three OAA. Extrapolated out to match his playing time from a year ago, he'd have finished with 8.75, so let's call it nine OAA. Not bad for a part-time outfielder. He'd rank as a top-10 defender in half a season. 

Has he put everything together? Not quite yet. Is he still valuable in the right situations? Absolutely. The A's decided to include Conner Capel, who had an option remaining, instead of giving Pache one last look in a limited role. Capel was optioned to Las Vegas at the beginning of May and got another cup of coffee in June when Ramón Laureano went on the IL before being sent down again on July 4. 

Capel's inclusion on the roster wasn't imperative in a 112 loss season, and he only got into 32 games with the A's overall. Somehow those 32 games (where he was productive, batting .260 with a .375 OBP) were more important than seeing if Pache could figure things out. At the very least they could have upped his trade value. 

Instead, the A's traded Pache away before Opening Day. 

In return they landed right-handed reliever Billy Sullivan, 24, a Double-A pitcher with some command issues, which is seemingly the type of player the A's tend to target in recent deals. 

Sullivan made the jump to Triple-A in 2023 and in 57 1/3 innings he struck out 54 and walked 52, ending the season with a 5.34 ERA and a 5.38 FIP. One remarkable stat from his season is that he only allowed one home run in Las Vegas, a notorious hitter's park. That one home run allowed is tied for the fewest in the league (minimum 50 innings pitched) along with teammate Garrett Williams, a left-hander with similar control issues. 

In his final outing of the season, Sullivan gave up two runs on zero hits and three walks across two innings of work. If you're wondering how that works, Sullivan had completed two innings and then walked the first two batters to begin his third inning of work before getting pulled. The following reliever gave up a ground out to advance the runners, and a single to plate the pair. 

The righty sits 92-96 with his sinker, which is his main pitch, and mixes in a curveball at 75-77 and a changeup from 84-87. 

With the ability to limit the long ball and a decent hits per nine (7.7), you can see the thought process for the A's front office: Get him to limit the free passes and he can be a big league piece. 

The trade still doesn't look great from an A's perspective, but you can see what needs to happen for this one to pan out for Oakland. Maybe with a full off-season to prepare Sullivan will come in filling up the strike zone in 2024.