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Reds trade pitcher Dan Straily to Marlins for three players

MILWAUKEE, WI - SEPTEMBER 24: Dan Straily #58 of the Cincinnati Reds pitches during the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park on September 24, 2016 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Mike McGinnis/Getty Images)
Dan Straily is no longer on the Reds, and now gets to spend his season in Miami. (Getty Images)

Just because the Hall of Fame announcement was Wednesday doesn’t mean that the rest of baseball stops. Teams are still trying to make themselves better as spring training rapidly approaches, and now there’s a trade to show for it.

The Cincinnati Reds have traded right-handed pitcher Dan Straily to the Miami Marlins for three players: right-handed pitchers Luis Castillo and Austin Brice, and outfielder Isaiah White.

Three players is a pretty big return for one guy. And an especially big return for a guy like Dan Straily, who the Reds picked up on waivers just last April. Straily proved to be a valuable contributor to the Reds during the 2016 season, pitching to an ERA of 3.76 over 34 games (31 of them starts). Home runs were a pretty big problem for him at Great American Ballpark: he gave up 31 of them over 191.1 innings, tied for seventh in all of baseball. But Marlins Park is an enormous, domed cavern, and pitching there should help his home run numbers take a trip in the right direction.

In exchange for Straily, the Reds are getting three players. Isaiah White is an outfielder who was the Marlins’ third round draft pick in 2015. White struggled a bit in Low-A ball in 2016, but he’s just 20 years old (so there’s plenty of time for improvement), and Baseball Prospectus had him ranked as the Marlins’ No. 10 prospect.

Austin Brice, one of two right-handed pitchers the Reds will get in this deal, was drafted back in 2010, and has spent a handful of innings in the majors — though he has a 7.07 ERA to show for it, so it didn’t go very well. He spent the early part of 2016 as a starter in Double-A, but transitioned to relief by the time he was called up to Triple-A. His minor league ERA in 2016 was 3.53. The second pitcher in the deal is Luis Castillo, a flame-throwing starter from the Dominican Republic. He had a 2.26 ERA over two different minor league systems in 2016, and his speed and strikeouts make him an intriguing piece for the future.

Intriguing or not, the Marlins have tried to trade Castillo before. They actually sent him and three players to the San Diego Padres on July 29 in exchange for pitcher Colin Rea and two other players. Rea made one start for the Marlins on July 30 which ended in the fourth inning due to injury, and was returned to the Padres two days later, while Castillo was sent back to the Marlins. That’s a rare move, but it became easier to understand once the news broke that the Padres had been intentionally holding back vital medical information on their players, and the Marlins were a victim of this. Castillo certainly has potential, but when a team tries to trade a player two separate times, you can be fairly sure they don’t see him as part of their future.

Reds fans might be despairing at losing a competent player on their 2017 squad, but that’s what comes with a rebuild. Since they’re not likely to compete in 2017, they need possible future value, and that’s what trading Straily got them. The Marlins are still trying to put together a decent rotation, and Straily definitely helps with that. This isn’t a flashy trade, but it’s a useful one for both teams. Hey, they can’t all be blockbusters.

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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher