MILWAUKEE -- The trade was completed with executives from one team boarding a Southwest Airlines flight and the top executive from another in a hospital bed.
So maybe we should have known it would produce an unusual result.
When the deal went down on Dec. 13, 2018, it revolved around the money attached to veterans Edwin Encarnación and Carlos Santana. But as the 2026 World Series dawns, it’s probably time we call it the Yandy Díaz-Jake Bauers swap.
Because all these years later, those two have had an outsized role in the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers facing each other in Game 1 on Friday night at American Family Field.
“It’s crazy looking back on it,” Díaz said through an interpreter.
Sure is. No one could have known at the time that the deal would include the future NLCS MVP in Bauers and a guy who had a pretty strong argument to be the ALCS MVP in Díaz.
To be clear, the trade was not made between the Rays and Brewers. It involved the Rays, Cleveland and the Mariners.
This is how it looked:
- Cleveland received: Carlos Santana, Jake Bauers, cash
- Mariners received: Edwin Encarnación, compensatory pick, cash
- Rays received: Yandy Díaz, Cole Sulser
OK, what the heck was going on here?
At its core, the exchange was engineered to solve high-profile financial obligations. Cleveland was on the hook to pay the 36-year-old Encarnación $24 million for the 2019 season. Meanwhile, the Mariners owed the 33-year-old Santana $35 million across the 2019 and 2020 seasons. By swapping the veterans, Cleveland took on a higher overall payroll obligation but secured immediate cash-flow relief for 2019. Seattle sent $6 million over two years to Cleveland while receiving $5 million from the Rays and a Draft pick (76th overall, which became Isaiah Campbell).
The Rays seized the opportunity to participate as a financial facilitator, leveraging their flexibility to swap the talented but unproven 23-year-old prospect Bauers for a 27-year-old Díaz, who offered a far better structural fit for their infield roster. They also got Sulser, who only pitched briefly for them in 2019 before bouncing around with other teams and then ending up back with Tampa Bay, for whom he is now in the World Series bullpen.
Whew. You got all that?
“It wasn’t so much a three-way trade; it was multiple trades happening simultaneously,” Guardians general manager Mike Chernoff recalled. “And I think Bauers was a young left-handed hitter who had some positional versatility as a possible first baseman, but he played some outfield, as well. The ability to get him as a potential first baseman of the future was an opportunity we wouldn’t otherwise get.”
Recalled Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander: “It was two teams that appreciate similar attributes and players and more a matter of, ‘How do you make two rosters more functional?’ We were transacting off of that premise.”
Oh, and as if it weren’t complicated enough on its face, all this was going on while Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto was in a Las Vegas hospital with blood clots in his lungs and the rest of the execs involved were departing Nevada. The deal was finalized just before the wheels went up on a Southwest flight from Vegas to Cleveland.
In the short term, the primary figures performed as expected. Santana returned to Cleveland -- the franchise where he made his name -- and delivered a 2019 season that earned him his first All-Star nod and a Silver Slugger award. Encarnación was also effective for Seattle, putting up an .888 OPS with 21 home runs in 2019.
Yet while the veterans were accustomed to shifting locations, the trade sent shockwaves through the younger players involved.
“It really wasn't on my radar at the time,” Bauers said. “Looking back, I think it was difficult to be 22, having just played my first season in the big leagues and to get traded when I wasn't necessarily in the best headspace after a tough year.”
Bauers, a 2013 Padres Draft pick who came straight out of high school, had previously been a prized prospect in the blockbuster deal that sent Wil Myers to San Diego and Trea Turner to Washington. Though his initial Major League trial (.201/.316/.384 in 96 games) was bumpy, he and Willy Adames had been viewed as Tampa Bay's future core.
Ironically, both Bauers and Adames wound up making meaningful contributions to the Brewers in their careers.
“We don’t know what we’re doing,” Neander joked.
They knew what they were doing with Díaz, who to that point had played 88 games with Cleveland. Díaz was a hulking figure whose offensive profile did not match the muscle. He had elite exit velocities but was prone to hitting the ball on the ground and not in the air, and he had lost support in some corners of the Cleveland staff.
“Ultimately, I wasn't able to get the playing time that I was looking for at that moment,” Díaz said.
Both unpolished players in the deal took vastly different routes toward fulfilling their potential. But both eventually found stardom.
The Rays refused to force Díaz to alter his natural offensive profile, betting instead that his elite strike-zone awareness would eventually yield results. Their patience paid off spectacularly. By 2022, Díaz was receiving down-ballot AL MVP votes. In 2023, he captured the AL batting title with a .330 average. Over the past five seasons, he has performed 34% better than league average offensively, earned two All-Star selections and added functional loft to his swing, cranking 121 homers in a Tampa Bay uniform.
Fittingly, during the 2026 ALCS, Díaz dismantled his former Cleveland club, going 9-for-27 with two home runs to seal the pennant.
Bauers' path was far more perilous. He struggled through two seasons in Cleveland, hitting just .218 before bouncing to (coincidentally) Seattle and then the Yankees. The pressure of being traded early in his career lingered. However, after undergoing a fundamental mental reset regarding his approach at the plate, Bauers engineered a remarkable mid-career turnaround with Milwaukee. He blasted 26 home runs with an .874 OPS in 2026, culminating in his dominant, NLCS MVP-winning performance.
Now, almost eight years after a chaotic financial swap set their careers on unexpected trajectories, Díaz and Bauers stand on opposite sides of the World Series stage. They are living proof that in baseball, the initial trade headlines rarely capture the whole story.
“I’m just happy for the both of us,” said Díaz, “and how it's worked out in our careers.”
Guardians beat writer Tim Stebbins contributed to this story