The Diamondbacks swung the first major deal in the final week leading up to Major League Baseball’s July 30 trade deadline. Acquiring left-handed reliever A.J. Puk from the Miami Marlins, they gave up slugging prospect Deyvison De Los Santos as the main centerpiece of the deal.
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At face value, this looks like an overpay for the Diamondbacks, trading a player hitting .325/.376/.635 with a minor league-leading 28 home runs in his Age 21 season. For the Marlins, it’s a chance to land a potential 30-home run bat who could arrive in the big leagues in the next calendar year. However, given De Los Santos’ history, you could also argue that Arizona sold high on a prospect with a very risky profile.
What makes it a risky profile is outside of the home runs, he doesn’t stand out in any other way. The hit tool is questionable already due to the approach, despite the improvements in his ability to barrel up pitches in the strike zone. He has one of the highest chase rates in Triple-A, with his 43.0% chase rate placing him among the top five for Triple-A hitters that have seen 400 pitches out of the strike zone. It’s unclear how that will translate to the major league level, as there’s no correlation between chase rate and offensive success, but it could be an issue that causes him to bust.
Defensively, he’s limited to a first base/designated hitter role in the lineup, presuming the bat plays. He has the necessary mobility to stick at first base, but it will take a lot of work to make him playable at the position. If he’s unable to hold a position or is a butcher defensively, that puts more stress on his bat. As an organization, the Diamondbacks preach playing quality defense. It’s one of the reasons they’ve been in postseason contention the past two seasons.
His carrying tool is 70-grade raw power, or 80 if you believe general manager Mike Hazen, has finally manifested in games more consistently this season. He hit 42 two home runs in the past two seasons but was left off the 40-man roster in his first year of Rule 5 eligibility. Hazen commented at the Winter Meetings on the difficulty of evaluating players like De Los Santos in Amarillo and Reno.
“The challenge for us with position players is in those environments in Amarillo and Reno it’s really hard for us to pin down the true offensive profile. And if it’s not built on plate discipline, on base, it’s complicated.”
Looking at just strictly his Triple-A numbers, he’s been good but not great. He’s putting up a .289/.338/.588 slash line with 14 home runs. When accounting for the crazy hitting environments in the Pacific Coast League, that only translates to a 119 wRC+. Essentially he is only 19% better than the average player at the level. He has a 23% strikeout rate vs. a 5% walk rate. With those concerns in mind, he did not rank in the updated Top 10 prospects list following the 2024 MLB Draft.
On the flip side for the Diamondbacks, Puk gives them a shutdown lefty with previous closing experience. He has 15 saves from the 2023 season and carrying the type of nasty stuff you see in the back end of a bullpen. He’ll slot in as a late-inning arm, asked to face Freddie Freeman, Jake Cronenworth, and some of the other top lefties in high-leverage situations. Cronenworth in particular could be a key matchup that decides the fate of the 2024 season, with San Diego being the last series of the season.
Puk is controllable through the 2026 season, giving Arizona some long-term flexibility with the bullpen. With Paul Sewald hitting free agency after the season, he is on the team’s short list of candidates to close in 2025, along with Kevin Ginkel and Justin Martinez. Arizona’s window of contention is the 2024-2025 seasons, with Puk more likely to move the needle forward in the next two years than De Los Santos.
The only way this deal works out for the Marlins is if De Los Santos develops into a perennial 30-homer threat and sticks at first base. Short of that, the deal swings in Arizona’s favor.
