Yankees Offseason Trade Target: Diamondbacks Starter Archie Bradley

The Arizona Diamondbacks have a number of controllable young starting pitchers that could interest the Yankees this winter, including former first-rounder Archie Bradley.

Arizona’s recent acquisition of 24-year-old righty Taijuan Walker has left them in the enviable position of having more promising young starters than available rotation spots. While they are under no obligation to move any of them, they are in a position to fill other holes or re-stock their weak farm system because of the weak free agent starting pitching market. Of particular interest to the Yankees may be former super-prospect Archie Bradley.

The seventh overall selection in the 2011 June amateur draft, Bradley has yet to live up to the vast potential that earned him a hefty $5 million signing bonus as a two-sport star out of high school.

Bradley was often brilliant during his climb up the minor league ladder, establishing himself as a fixture on the major top prospect lists. The hype surrounding him peaked before the 2014 season, when he was a consensus top 10 prospect in all of baseball according to Baseball America, MLB.com, and Baseball Prospectus.

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As is often the case with young pitchers, the culprit behind his disappointing performance since cracking the big leagues seems to be the injury bug. In the past three years, Bradley has hit the disabled list at various points with a flexor strain in his elbow, shoulder tendonitis, and a sinus fracture he suffered after being struck in the face with a batted ball.

In between DL stints, Bradley struggled mightily during his first taste of the majors in 2015, pitching to a 5.80 ERA and 4.96 FIP, walking almost as many batters (22) as he struck out (23) during his 35.2 innings of work. After the season, however, Arizona’s then-manager Chip Hale chalked his struggles up to not being fully healthy and told the media he fully expected Bradley to be a frontline starter in the major leagues.

Things didn’t quite work out as expected in 2016, although the 24-year-old did see his numbers take a step in the right direction. Bradley put up a 5.02 ERA and 4.10 FIP in 141.2 IP (26 GS) after joining the rotation full-time.

The most encouraging aspect of Bradley’s performance was the big jump in his strikeout rate, from 14.3% in his debut season to a respectable 22.4% in 2016. He still issued too many free passes but did cut his walk rate slightly, from 13.7% to 10.5%.

Bradley’s heater still hasn’t returned to the comfortable 95-96 mph he averaged at his peak before the elbow and shoulder injuries knocked it down into the low-90’s. Bradley averaged 92.2 mph with his fastball in 2015 and saw only the slightest increase to 92.3 mph this year. He does still feature a plus curveball, but without the elite fastball to pair it with, his ceiling is significantly lower.

The Yankees have proven very capable of adding velocity to a number of their most promising young pitchers in recent seasons. James Kaprielian, Chad Green, Chance Adams, and Dillon Tate are all excellent examples of this talent.

According to RosterResource, Arizona’s projected rotation for 2017 is Zack Greinke, Walker, Robbie Ray, Shelby Miller, and Patrick Corbin. With fellow top prospect Braden Shipley also expected to begin the season in Triple-A, Bradley may be as low as seventh on the depth chart next year.

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Acquiring Bradley would be more of a project than an immediate solution for the rotation, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. Next year’s rotation may be thin, but beyond 2017 is when things get really scary. Bringing Bradley in would give New York another potential building block to pair with guys like Kaprielian, Adams, and Luis Severino.