Trade Review: Moose and Cowhide

Cowhide Joyride receive:
RP Grant Balfour OAK
17th rounder

Moose is Loose receive:
SP Edwin Jackson WAS
15th rounder

By far the most even of the trades thus far this season, both teams addressed needs while not significantly weakening their roster. For Dave, who lost ABailey to begin the season, it gives him a third closer, which is around the number most teams are carrying at this point. He’s not great, he doesn’t K a lot, but Balfour has been pretty consistently solid since breaking out with Tampa a few years ago and has 5 saves with a 0.82/0.55 so far. The downside is he is with the A’s, who will no doubt be among the five teams with the lowest number of wins by the end of the season, which limits his opportunities. There is also a very good chance he gets traded, and an even better change that he will not be a closer on whatever team he is traded to. Perhaps by then Bailey will be back, though who knows what shape the Sox will be in at that point. Hopefully for Dave, it’s later rather than sooner. Jackson isn’t a big loss here as Dave’s staff is dealing with enough volatility as it is.

For Brian, he had five closers to begin with and could spare one of his weakest options. Meanwhile, he’s got a staff full of veterans with historically strong ratios, albeit only middle of the road stuff wise, so Jackson slots in quite well as the 6th or 7th best guy. I always tend to avoid EJax because even though he’ll bust out with a string o 8IP/1ER/8K/1BB games on occasion, there is always a bunch of 3IP/6ER/0K/5BBs mixed in there along the way. One of the most frustrating things is when he’s off, he’s off – there’s no toughing his way through an outing.  The bad outings can come against any opponent; he can get lit up by the Pirates one week and no hit the Cardinals the next – so you can try to pick your matchups, but you’re really just rolling the dice every time.  But Brian’s staff is a pretty steady group in terms of volatility and there’s nine starters currently, so this will mitigate somewhat those token EJax blow-ups.

Overall, I’d rather have Balfour, but he’s also a risk to be traded into fantasy obscurity, so the two-round pick upgrade is warranted.