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    Sammy Stafura (Photo: Aldrin Capulong/Daytona Tortugas)
    Photo: Aldrin Capulong/Daytona Tortugas

    Reds trade Sammy Stafura to Pittsburgh for Ke’Bryan Hayes

    Doug Gray 33

    The Cincinnati Reds made a trade this afternoon with the Pittsburgh Pirates, acquiring one of the worst hitters in baseball over the last two years in Ke’Bryan Hayes. In order to acquire Hayes, the Reds have sent shortstop and #10 prospect Sammy Stafura to the Pirates, as well as big league left-handed reliever Taylor Rogers.

    In my opinion, that I wrote about at Redleg Nation, Hayes solves very little of the Reds issues and his acquisition makes just about no sense at all. He has been atrocious at the plate with a sub .300 on-base percentage and a sub .300 slugging percentage in each of the last two seasons. He’s at best a bench player who the Reds just committed at least $36,000,000 to over the next five years.

    Cincinnati is losing 2023 2nd round pick Sammy Stafura in the move. In the 2025 season, Stafura has played in 88 games with Single-A Daytona. He’s hitting .262/.393/.411 with 28 steals in 33 tries (you can see his career stats here). Stafura has a little bit of pop in his bat and he understands the strikezone well. He can handle the shortstop position and he has some speed. There’s a starting shortstop profile there if he continues to develop.

    Trading Stafura on it’s own isn’t a huge deal. Stafura is a quality prospect. There’s no doubt about that. But he is also a shortstop who has to fight for long-term playing time with Edwin Arroyo, Leo Balcazar, and Tyson Lewis at shortstop, but also a guy (along with the other three mentioned) who aren’t going to have a spot at shortstop for the Reds until Elly De La Cruz is no longer with the team. And he’s under contract through 2029.

    The issue is that the team traded a quality prospect for someone who hasn’t hit in two years and only has one season in his 5-year career in which he’s even been close to a league average hitter. And in the two years that are most recent he’s been as bad as it would seem possible while still remaining in the big leagues. Even if Hayes were making the league minimum you would expect to get more for a prospect the caliber of Sammy Stafura. But Hayes is making a whole lot more than that.

    Doug Gray
    Doug Gray is the owner and operator of this website and has been running it since 2006 in one variation or another.

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    33 Responses

    2. There was chatter that the Reds were not high on Stafura for whatever reason and this move really shows that chatter to be true. I watched him play several times and always saw a very solid player. Very disappointed in this result.

    3. I may be done watching the Reds this year. Our below average offense just got worse. I know the Reds brass weren’t high on Stafura, but he had more value than this.

    4. Boooooo !!! T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E . I would like to hit Krall with a big red juicy tomato .

      2. Better get two tomatoes because Tito likes it too and says team got bette Getting rid of Roger’s was addition by subtraction.

    5. I’m just happy they did not mortgage the farm for Suarez, though I am a fan of Sammy Stafura. I’ll miss following his career. Hopefully, they can resurrect Hayes hitting skills. If they can get Hayes to be a MLB average hitter, then this trade will feel like a steal down the road.

    7. Stafura (20) was in between Arroyo (21) and Lewis (19) in age and maybe slightly behind both in the Reds’ eyes. Expendable but still very curious use of a young, performing, middle infielder trade chip.

      1. Does it matter that he’s blocked at SS? Stafura and SS’s can play SS, 2B, 3B, 1B, DH, CF, LF, and RF. Reds still need upgrades at 3B, 1B, DH, LF, and RF

    8. “The Cincinnati Reds made a trade this afternoon with the Pittsburgh Pirates, acquiring one of the worst hitters in baseball over the last two years in Ke’Bryan Hayes”

      hahaha There are only two choices correct? Laugh or go bananas. I choose to laugh….inbetween trips to the toilet to throw up. lol

    9. Stafura gets the bat blown out of his hands. He was a lowly thought of prospect.

    10. One thought here was the Reds promoted Sanchez to Dayton rather than Stafura when they needed someone to go up. Both had similar Lo-A experience, but Sanchez was promoted.

      I won’t say Sanchez was promoted specifically as a short stop, even though he is playing there. But, with Balcazar on the way to AA, it said something that Stafura was kept down.

      I also wonder about the reactions of Stewart, CES and Collier, who have at least some ambitions of playing 3B with the Reds. CES and Collier both don’t have much chance of a ML 3B job at all, but the Reds pathway with Stewart seemed to think he had some chance. There has to be some possibility they are ruling that out. If so, 1B opportunities are going to be very crowded in, say, 8-12 months.

      1. Chances all of them become good are still just moderate to low. There is also DH and injuries. I’d say 1B, 3B (Hayes) and DH is enough for all of them. If they all appear to be really good and a crunch, then you can trade Hayes again (that meant he had rebounded) or one of the youngsters for a peak-level return.

        I am not optimistic about Hayes in general, but there is some upside (rebound) to what he showed early in his career offensively. As others have noted if he can rebound to solid average and OBP, with the defense, he’d sadly be the best 3B we’ve had since poor-fielding, high K, high HR Suarez. That is a moderate hurdle to clear for sure.

      1. Agreed. They had better be correct that Hayes just needed a change of scenery and his bat will return to early career form. IF not, this is going to look awful by this time next year.

        Now, if he does get fixed with change or good manager or just leaving the Pirates stink, then this will look like a genius move, so I’d caution going overboard on the vitriol (not aimed at you, generally aimed at this board).

        I am not a fan of the trade, but I can see some low-level, back-office wisdom of it.

    13. I spend more time on this site than relegation. So I guess you could call me a “prospect hugger”. But in this case, I’m not too upset.

      Stafura is a long way off. Here are some points to consider;
      1) the current players are gonna love this. They are getting a player that likely has a good reputation. Among players. Could give an extra jolt of energy into next 2 months.
      2) coaches and Tito are likely gonna love this. Shows them the front office got them a player that can help them now.
      3) clearly third base defense was a huge concern. This at least should solve that.
      4) Hayes is fairly young at 28. Countless players have improved at age 28.
      5) Reds fans care more about the $ than average fan or players do. Yankees fans would only care that the front office did something about their cruddy defense at third.
      6) it’s possible Stafura could have been used to acquire a better player. But the next 24 hours will reveal if that was true or not.
      7) I’m willing to bet Tito and his staff can get more out of this player than the last 3 Pirates coaching staffs have been able to.might not be this year, but over time.

      1. Mostly where I am at.

        My first reaction was, ick, but I do recall Hayes hitting well early in his career, looking like a high levle MLBer in the making.

        If getting away from Pirates, new team, new manager resets him offensively, this will look good in a year. If not, well, its just Reds F.O. being Reds F.O. Basically the Pirates F.O. with only slightly higher payroll and slightly less stingy owners.

    14. The Reds is the worst ran organization in baseball.
      Fire Krall then PLEASE sell BOB PLEASE. PLEASE SELL
      We need ball players not band aids
      I can’t believe what i am witnessing
      I can’t stand this organization
      The most boring team in baseball got even more boring.
      PLEASE sell Bob PLEASE
      Elly De La Cruz leads the national league in errors. Look for a band aid there too?
      What is this organization doing.
      There is not enough roster space for this style of stupid

    15. As far as who they gave up I’m inclined to trust the Reds brass. It’s hard to recall over the last five years any prospect traded away that has amounted to anything.

      With Marte in RF now, we need to subtract Benson and Joe from the roster.

    16. Ke’Bryan Hayes signed a 8 year, $70,000,000 contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates, including $70,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $8,750,000.

      2030 club option includes a $6M buyout

      Very bad trade

    17. Let me open with isn’t Hayes a lesser and much more expensive version of Espinal.

      Second. We now have Lux and Hayes and are out Sirota, a 1st round draft pick and Stafura.

      Third. Hayes cost a lot of money. Money that could be spent on a player who provides a positive impact.

      Now lets play devils advocate:

      Just two years ago Hayes had a 3.2 WAR. In 2022 he had a 3.1 WAR even though he had a .659 OPS. The man’s defense is so good he provides value even when he isn’t hitting.

      Second. Great defense allows SP to go further into games. It improves all pitchers ERA. This also builds the confidence of pitchers.

      Third. As mentioned above this is a boost to moral.

      Fourth. What if the Reds can figure out why Hays quit hitting? It is possible he could have a WAR of 4 next year.

      Fifth. Is this a sign Bob intends to open his wallet?

      24 Hours.

      1. I’m not worried about the negatives (Stafura, and Sirota before, and others of that type are hardly sure things – they’re the not-ready-for-MLB types you want to deal.).

        The positives are the wild card here – particularly #5 – is this it, or is ownership willing to go beyond a single multi-year/multi $10M deal? Doug’s negative is that this is far too much a contract for a great defensive bench piece – but if that’s the worst outcome, and they get another multi-year multi $10M piece maybe it works.

        All that, and even the slightest improvement at the plate makes this a very worthwhile deal. With the defense, it may already be ahead of the Candy/Moose deals, but TBD if better than the Casty deal.

    18. With the season Lewis has had and Hall coming soon, Stafura had become rather redundant in the system.

      1. Stafura was definitely the right guy to trade, I just wish the target was better.

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