Dragons send Talamantez to Monarchs for multiple prospects

Sources confirmed early Thursday morning that the London Dragons had agreed to trade Bruno Talamantez and cash to the Seattle Monarchs for four highly-touted prospects (SP Tian-Bai Chen, MR Felix Lopez, 3B Jesus Alvarez, and CF Pedro Munoz). The trade was expected to be confirmed by the commissioner's office later in the day.

The deal sends Talamantez and $9MN (just over 40% of his 2023 salary) to the Monarchs, who were likely looking to add some veteran depth at the front of their rotation behind Hernandez. The 26-year old Talamentez was at one time the #1 prospect in all of baseball, and he's proven to be durable (seven straight years of over 200 innings pitched) and has shown periods of brilliance (three Pitcher of the Month awards to his name). Critics, however, note that he's only had two years where he won more games than he lost, the last of which was in 2018, and his ERA and WHIP have been in the 3.90 / 1.35 range over the past three or four years. One scout noted that Talamantez has already pitched close to 2,000 innings in professional ball at the age of 26, which may help explain last year's 4.53 ERA and personal high in HRs allowed. "He had one good year, but essentially he's been a 4.00 pitcher that wins half his games", said the un-named scout. "He's solid, but not an ace, despite the ace-caliber salary'.

"We wish Talamentez all the best - he's been a cornerstone of our rotation for many years now, but the team is going in a different direction", said the new London GM. "We are very excited about the players we get in return; they were at the top of every prospects list we had, and we believe they will be ready to contribute faster than people think".

The prospects include two young 19yr old right-handers: Chen, from Taiwan, was rated one of the top ten prospects in SDMB last year, while Lopez, from Puerto Rico, was selected to the Single A All-Star game in 2022. Lopez had a short stint at Double-A near the end of the year. Dragons officials noted that Lopz would probably begin the year in Single A.

The Dragons also acquire two promising bats: 18yr old Jesus Alvarez has been injury prone in his short career, but scouts rave about his bat potential. In 380 at-bats across two years in single-A ball, Alvarez posted a slash line of .338/.427/.452, with 16 stolen bases. Pedro Munoz was the 11th overall pick in the 2023 draft; for his high school career he hit .417/.504/.668.

"This is a good deal for both clubs", said an un-named GM. "The Dragons are clearly in a rebuilding mode after losing almost 200 games the last two years, and they picked up four excellent prospects in return for an expensive pitcher that was going to eat up over $60Mn. The Monarchs, in return, solidify their starting rotation fairly cheaply, and they're set up extremely well for another run at the Cecil Cup".