Cartaya, the former top prospect, was designated for assignment by LA on Friday. Lux was traded to Cincinnati on Monday.
I hope everyone in and around Los Angeles is staying as safe as possible amid the fires throughout the county. Just a short version of the morning Dodgers links on this Thursday, about Diego Cartaya, who was designated for assignment Friday, and Gavin Lux, who was traded to Cincinnati on Monday.
Jarrett Seidler at Baseball Prospectus wrote about the declining performance of Cartaya over the years, and how he and many others missed when ranking him so high on prospect lists.
Ironically, the missing piece on Cartaya might have been eye scouting all along. He was physically mature at a young age. His swing is pretty as right-handed swings go, but his bat path is kind of grooved. Low-A pitching got a whole lot worse coming out of the pandemic because of the minor-league contraction, and Cartaya destroyed it. Once the pitching got better, his quality of contact and contact ability both imploded.
Joe Sheehan at his eponymous newsletter was skeptical of the reported Reds plan of using Gavin Lux at multiple positions:
Gavin Lux has been bad at shortstop, bad in left field, bad in limited time in center, and because throwing is his big problem, projects to be bad at third base and in right field. He can’t be a super utility player, hell, he probably can’t be just an ordinary utility player. He’s been a below-average hitter for his career and in his best years a little better than that, so he’s not helping you as a DH. Lux is a second baseman as much as any player in baseball is any one thing.