Trade Review - Montezuma and Billy Chapel

Billy Chapel receive:

Hunter Pence, Jair Jurrjens, Clay Buchholz, and Brett Lawrie

Montezuma’s Revenge receive:

Ian Kinsler, Francisco Cordero, and Brandon Beachy

A trade that could ultimately prove very beneficial to Troy, while helping my team fill a void. While Billy Chapel loses recently acquired keeper Kinsler, Pence is at about the same value point in most keeper rankings and is more durable, a year younger, and playing in an offense the likes of which have never been seen in Houston. Meanwhile, he acquired Jurrjens who, despite a recent hiccup, hasn’t seen his era go above 3 all year, has a whip under 1 for most of the year, and is a QS machine. He doesn’t K a lot, which keeps him from be a top-level keeper, but he’s certainly had a season worthy of keeper status. Acquired in the second to last round, he was one of my all-time greatest fantasy picks. Buchholz is less clear as a keeper, but he’s certainly played near that level since stumbling out of the blocks in April and should be fine by spring training. Lawrie, who was called up mere hours after the trade went down, could be the real catch here if he has a solid end to the season. All in all, Troy made out pretty well.

I, on the other hand, also did pretty well filling a second base slot that has been essentially useless thus far with the underwhelming BRoberts, JWeeks, EY Jr., AHill creating a statistical void outside of BRob’s first two weeks. Kinsler appears healthy, for now anyway, and is a former member of the 30/30 club who has had up and down OBP outputs. A bit of a risk while giving up one of the most reliable players in the game, but I have JUpton, CBeltran, CRasmus, and JBourgeois in the OF, so he was expendable. The trade also gets me to the roster structure I want with one bench hitter and lots of pitchers. And suddenly I have three closers for the first time this season (drafting FRodney/RFrankling/JMcGee didn’t quite work out). I actually think Beachy will outperform Jurrjens for the rest of the season as well, as he has the K upside and isn’t facing an innings limit.

So I like my lineup a bit more today and Troy got a bunch of good players for one keeper. Everyone’s happy.