The Cardinals are trading outfielder Tyler O’Neill to the Red Sox, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Sean McAdam of MassLive reports that the Cards will receive two prospects. Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports that they are right-handers Nick Robertson and Victor Santos. It has been officially announced by both clubs.
O’Neill, 29 in June, has had a mercurial career but showed his tremendous ceiling as recently as 2021. He played 138 games that season, hitting 34 home runs. He struck out at a high 31.3% clip but hit .286/.352/.560 overall for a wRC+ of 143. He also received strong grades for his outfield defense and stole 15 bases. That all-around production led to a tally of 5.5 wins above replacement, per FanGraphs, whereas Baseball Reference had him at 6.1 WAR.
But the results since then have been less impressive, with injuries seeming to drag him down. In the past two seasons, O’Neill has hit the injured list due to a right shoulder impingement, a left hamstring strain, a lower-back strain and a right foot sprain. He’s been able to get into just 168 games over those two campaigns, hitting 23 home runs and producing a batting line of .229/.310/.397. That amounts to a wRC+ of 98, indicating he’s been just a bit below league average.
It appeared that he had fallen out of favor in St. Louis over that time. In early 2023, he and manager Oli Marmol got in a bit of a spat, where the skipper publicly admonished O’Neill for a perceived lack of hustle. Although the outfielder pushed back on the idea that he wasn’t giving full effort and also seemed displeased with Marmol making the disagreement public.
