Nats Trade Kurt Suzuki Back To A’s For Dakota Bacus
Early this morning, the Nationals traded C Kurt Suzuki back to the Athletics for a pitching prospect. Multiple online sources are reporting that prospect is RHP Dakota Bacus.
Bacus was the 9th-round pick for Oakland in the 2012 draft out of Indiana State University where he had posted a 7-4 record in 17 appearances (16 starts) with pitcher’s line of 2.70/3.17/1.16 after transferring from Southeastern C.C. (Iowa). He set the ISU single-season record in 2012 for innings pitched, including three complete games.
The 22-year-old Illinoisan went 3-0 with 7 saves in 30 innings last summer in the Arizona League. This season he’s gone 9-5 with a 3.56/3.42/1.34 line for the Low-A Beloit Snappers.
Scouting reports, as you might imagine, are sparse. In his 2013 Prospect Book, John Sickels cited Bacus’s “exceptional command of a low-90s fastball, slider, and changeup” but was hesitant to give him more than a Grade C due to his age and level of competition. Sickels also noted Bacus has enough of an arsenal to start but (the usual caveat) could move up the ladder faster as a reliever.
No word yet, obviously, as to if, when and/or where he’ll appear for the Nationals farm, though the most likely destination would be Hagerstown.
Good idea to do this. I’ve always loved this kind of trade. It can take years, but getting a little success like Tanner Roark out of mere days of Cristian Guzman feels really great. We don’t need Kurt Suzuki in the least now, and he gets to go back home for the playoffs. Maybe Dakota Bacus wins a few games in 2016.
Darn. He changed his twitter handle to @Dbacus33.
This is good stuff though: http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130702&content_id=52469546&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb&sid=milb
The story behind the white ninja thing.