His two main talents were speed, getting hit… and ruthless efficiency.
The Diamondbacks made their first semi-significant trade of the season, sending outfielder Tim Locastro back where he came from, to the New York Yankees. In return, Arizona will get right-handed pitcher Keegan Curtis.
Locastro was traded to the Diamondbacks from the Yankees in January 2019 for cash and minor-leaguer Ronald Roman. He played a total of 179 games for Arizona, compiling a line of .236/.339/.326, an OPS of .665 (78 OPS). However, that doesn’t reflect Tim’s main talent: his blistering speed. He set a major-league record by being successful on every one of his first 29 stolen-base efforts. Locastro was recorded by Statcast as the fastest runner in baseball in both 2019 and 2020, and is second (to Jorge Mateo) in 2021 so far. He was 26-3 in stolen-base attempts with Arizona.
His other talent was the ability to draw baseballs to him, like the sport’s version of Magneto. Despite having only 465 PAs for the team – less than a full season’s worth – he is tied for third on the franchise’s HBP list, with 35. In 2019, he was hit a single-season record 22 times in just 250 PA. Nobody else in Diamondbacks history has even been hit twenty times in a year. All told, over his three seasons here, he was only worth a total of 0.3 bWAR. However, in entertainment value, he was considerably more productive.
Keegan Curtis is a 25-year-old reliever, currently with the Yankees’ AA affiliate in Somerset. This season, he has a 3.94 ERA over 16 innings of work, with a K:BB of 27:7. A 22nd-round pick by the Yankees in the 2018 draft, his overall MiLB ERA is 3.29, and his K:BB is 83:26 over 65.2 IP.