Rowdy Tellez traded to Brewers for Richards, Francis

Ken Rosenthal and Shi Davidi both say that Rowdy Tellez has been traded to the Brewers for RHP Trevor Richards and RHP Bowden Francis.

This would be the second trade of the season for Richards. He went from the Rays to the Brewers in May. This year he’s been a reliever, pitching in 21 games, with a 3.69 ERA with 24 hits, 12 walks, and 41 strikeouts in 31.2 innings. Before this season, he’d been a starter in his MLB career. In 4 seasons, he's made 85 appearances, 52 starts in the majors with a 4.34 ERA, averaging a strikeout an inning. He is 28.

Francis was #25 on Fangraphs list of top 42 Brewer prospects, updated just last week. This is what they had to say about him:

Francis has had statistical success through the upper minors by relying on plus command of three fringe pitches. He added a slider for this year and now has four distinct offerings, of which the slider has quickly become the best. It’s also hard, which is important because Francis’ curveball is a low-70s rainbow, averaging about 73 mph, while the slider has been up to 87 and sits a bit below that. He has a power pitcher’s style with soft stuff, but Francis feel to pitch is excellent and I think he can stick toward the back of a rotation.

He has a 3.62 ERA in 11 starts split between Double and Triple-A. In 59.2 innings, he has 17 walks and 65 strikeouts. He is 25.

We figured that Rowdy might not be long for the Jays when they picked up Cory Dickerson. The Brewers have made a little cottage industry of picking up former Blue Jays first basemen, with Smoak, Shaw, Thames, and Vogelbach getting a turn each with them.

I’ll miss Rowdy, but it seems like the team soured on him. He was a lot of fun to have around.