Trade Review - Billy Chapel and One Nut

Billy Chapel receive:

Kendrys Morales, Adrian Beltre, Mark Buehrle, and a 5th round pick

One Nut receive:

Jered Weaver, Alex Gordon, and a 1st round pick

Troy ultimately did not get the type of return many had expected for one of the top pitchers in the league, causing a mild uproar throughout the league. Ok, maybe a little more than mild. The issue at hand is the keeper worthiness of Morales and Beltre. If you look on the surface, based on this year’s stats, you could make a case for Beltre and Morales for Weaver, as Beltre is hitting in the middle of one of the top lineups in the league and hitting well, while Morales had a 86/34/108/.355 line in 2009 and just turned 28 years old. The thing keeping Beltre from being a high quality keeper is he only contributes in three categories (albeit doing so quite well over the last year and a half) as his .316 obp is atrocious and he simply does not run. And he’s 32 Dominican years old, meaning he’s not in his prime and thus, not a long-term keeper. For 2012, yes, but I would be surprised if this kind of production continues and makes him a keeper in 2013. Morales, meanwhile, will have not hit a baseball in a major league game in 23 months come next April, assuming that he’s fully recovered. He has the pedigree of a masher who the Angels signed in his teens hoping for years like 2009, but the bottom line is he’s just had one good year. For a guy like Weaver, Troy should’ve gotten more. One could actually make the case that Alex Gordon was a more valuable keeper than Morales with a solid 57/12/54/9/.369 line and a pedigree that far exceeds anyone involved in the trade. No sense continuing to stone Troy for this, but the fact that a first round pick needed to be added for Jason is simply ludicrous.

For Jason, well, it was a brilliant bit of negotiating in which he rid himself of a player eating a bench spot and didn’t lose very much at 3B with Gordon. Weaver has a 1.79 era and 0.95 whip, which is dazzling, and makes the uproar following the Justin Upton (for CHart and Weaver) deal over the winter seem a little silly by comparison. Weaver is a flat out stud and will provide some consistency to hedge against the volatile Morrow, Lewis, Lowe, and Wandys of the roster. He’s a surefire keeper for many years to come. Oh and Jason gets a first rounder next year. He’ll be having wet dreams about this for months.

The league has had some doozies over the years, but this might be the most lopsided of them all.