We’ve got another December trade on our hands, and even though this doesn’t exactly involve a big superstar name, it is a bit of a bummer if you’ve come to follow one of the players in particular. The guy we’re talking about here is Tyrell Jenkins, who the Braves have traded to the Rangers (along with Brady Feigl) for pitching prospect Luke Jackson.
Atlanta gets RHP Luke Jackson from Texas. https://t.co/uAplc7pTfR
— keithlaw (@keithlaw) December 9, 2016
As far as the Braves’ return in this deal goes, Jackson’s spent the past two seasons as a reliever, and that’s the role that he figures to take on at the major league level. He’s got a fastball that regularly sits in the upper 90s so he’s definitely got some good stuff, but he’s also had a couple of rough stints in Triple A and he also had a few rocky outings for the Rangers over 11 big league innings last season. So he’ll need to work on his control, but he can get it under control (for lack of a better term) then the Braves could have a decent weapon coming out of the bullpen.
This trade adds another #Braves hard throwing arm to bullpen, something John Hart said just yesterday was a priority.
— Grant McAuley (@grantmcauley) December 9, 2016
Meanwhile, Tyrell Jenkins is on his way back to his home state of Texas, and Brady Feigl will be joining him. Feigl was last seen recovering from Tommy John Surgery, and he suffered the elbow injury in his Triple-A debut back in 2015. It should be interesting to see what happens with him going forward with the Rangers.
As far as Jenkins goes, he pitched well at the Double-A and Triple-A level, but things changed once he got to the bigs and he ended up putting up an ERA of 5.88 and FIP of 6.86 during his time with the Braves. It’s still early in Jenkins’ career so a change of scenery could help, but with the bevy of pitching prospects that the Braves have, it was clear that Jenkins was probably going to end up being surplus to them, and the time for that scenario has come.
So it’s a bit sad to see a guy who quickly became a fan favorite get traded, and we wish him all the best in Texas. On the other hand, the Braves now have another hard thrower in their organization who can hopefully develop into a legit talent. We’ll see what happens.