Trade Review - Montezuma and Colon

Colon No Like Salad receives:

Adam Dunn, Sergio Santos, Brandon Beachy, 1st rounder, 10th rounder, 13th rounder

Montezumas Revenge receives:

Cole Hamels, Craig Kimbrel, Gaby Sanchez, 16th, 17th, 18th picks

Every trade deadline needs a big blockbuster and this may be the first of several. Russ has officially called it a season following a bit of bad luck and some general draft disappointments, but he made quick work gobbling an additional first rounder and couple nice mid rounders while dealing off his late round picks. And he actually picked up a few nice players that could enhance the rosters of some teams in the league, namely Santos and Beachy, though Dunn would be a worthwhile speculative pick for a late rounder. And he’s still got Halladay waiting there to be scooped up for another first rounder, as well as some other nice rosterable pieces in Alexei, Weiters, Guerra, Ogando, Neimann and Zambrano. That said, its definitely a buyer’s market so it might be difficult to sell off all the pieces before the trade deadline on Sunday.

For me, well, I could’ve waited for the price to go down, but I didn’t want to chance it. Unlike past deals where I’ve enhanced my rosters through player-for-player trades, I felt a little dirty doing this one. I love the players, but I also feel like I just spent my son’s college fund on a Vegas vacation. Not having a first round pick next year will suck and you could argue that my roster was good enough as it was to win it all, but it was also a bit of a defensive move. Any numbers of playoff teams could grab one or both of these aces and suddenly my team strength of starting pitching is compromised. This gives me a rotation of Hamels, Beckett, Kennedy, Oswalt, Masterson (look at the numbers, he’s an ace), ESantana, Kuroda, Stauffer, Bedard, and Luebke – not an ERA over 3.5 or a whip over 1.23 amongst them (besides Oswalt) and they’ve all done pretty well at avoiding blowups this year. I wouldn’t have given up a first without gaining a keeper and I got a great one in Hamels, whose been just as good as Halladay and is 27. Santana, Hosmer, JUpton, Rasmus, Kinsler and Hamels is a pretty nice group of keepers I think. Meanwhile, I stay away from the whimsys of Ozzie Guillen (not to mention his crappy team) by dropping Santos, and, obviously, Gaby Sanchez is a huge upgrade over Adam Dunn, who I still don’t understand. It’s possible I make another move or two, but right now I think the roster can compete for a championship.

So, both teams got what they wanted. Whether they capitalize on it (a great draft pick for Russ, a championship for me), is another story entirely.