The D-backs and Nationals agreed to a last-minute trade sending right-handed reliever Dylan Floro to Arizona, reports John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 FM. Arizona is sending corner infielder Andres Chaparro back to the Nats, per Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic.
Floro, 33, is on a one-year, $2.25MM contract and will be a free agent at season’s end. He’s pitched to a pristine 2.06 earned run average this season, albeit with a rather pedestrian 19.6% strikeout rate and tepid 90.3 mph average fastball. That said, Floro has walked only 6.4% of his opponents and kept the ball on the ground at a strong 47.6% clip. He’s not going to continue to see this level of fortune on his fly-balls — only 2.2% of them have become homers, compared to the 7% mark he carried into the season — but it’s been a nice rebound effort for a veteran reliever who struggled to keep his ERA under 5.00 last year between the Marlins and Twins.
Since cementing himself as a viable big league reliever in 2018, Floro touts a 3.11 ERA in 361 1/3 innings. He’s had a below-average strikeout rate nearly every season along the way, but never egregiously so, and has offset that with strong command. Floro also regularly avoids loud contact, evidenced by a career 87.4 mph average exit velocity, 3.7% barrel rate and 38.4% hard-hit rate.
Floro adds an affordable middle-relief arm to a D-backs bullpen that already picked up one of the most impactful relievers moved at this year’s deadline: lefty A.J. Puk. That pair of newcomers will join late-inning arms Ryan Thompson and Kevin Ginkel to help bridge the gap between an injury-marred rotation — currently missing both Merrill Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez — and closer Paul Sewald.
Chaparro, 25, is a longtime Yankees farmhand who became a minor league free agent this past offseason and signed a minors contract with the D-backs. He’s had a big first year in an overwhelmingly hitter-friendly Triple-A Reno setting, batting .332/.403/.563 with 19 homers — good for a 137 wRC+. Listed at 5’11” and 200 pounds, Chaparro has well below-average speed and grades out poorly as a defender, but he’s posted above-average offensive numbers throughout his minor league tenure. He could eventually emerge as a right-handed corner bench bat/DH option for a rebuilding Nationals club.