Trade Review: Montezumas and Angry

Montezuma’s Revenge receives:
SP Chris Sale CHW
SS Ian Desmond WAS
17th rounder
19th rounder

The Angry Pirates receives:
13th rounder
16th rounder

Kyle and I went back and forth over pick swap and ultimately settled on seven rounds total upgrade. Earlier in the season, Sale would probably have been worth much more, but the White Sox decision to make him the closer due to injury concern, then back to the rotation, makes me question whether he’ll be there for me in the long run. But for now, he’s there and very productive, with a 2.91/1.13/4 qs/40 k in 43 innings. Meanwhile, Desmond has just been too productive to ignore anymore (24/8/21/5/.305) and could be a serious threat to go 20/20, which is excellent from the SS position. Still, I hesitated because the wire has suddenly had a flux of SS talent (Aybar, Alexei, Alcedes, Yunel) and Desmond doesn’t have a great track record. But its worth a shot since he’s put up far superior numbers to Yunel and the price only goes up if that continues.

Desmond was expendable with SCastro on board and a pretty good offense overall. As far as Sale goes, his value was highest about a month ago and could’ve got worse if Kyle waited, but it could get better as well. Either way, pick upgrades are helpful. With the 16th and 17th round swap pretty much a wash, the real value is the move up from the 19th to the 13th. In the most recent draft, the 13th round was a pretty good round with guys like CLewis, DGordon, DFister, Putz, Jensen, and Prado (and a lot of injured closers – Bailey, Storen, Madson) with a few underperformers like HBell, Kuroda, and Alexei (and Coco, whose been injured). The 19th was probably the worst round in the draft overall. VWorley and CZambrano are the only success stories (TBauer is a potential success); the rest have either been dropped at point or should have been (RWolf, BRever, JSanchez, JVazquez, Danks, ASoriano, BPeacock, NWalker, CQuentin, JBay, YEscobar). Looking at that on face value, it’s a pretty significant upgrade. However, rounds 14 and 15 were better, turning up finds like EBedard, JMorneau, CCapuano, HAlvarez, JPeavy, JKbel, ACraig, YMolina, and MBuehrle. Time will tell who made out better here.