Have I ever said how much I love the Winter Meetings?
I was ready to Tweet and react to my heart’s content yesterday throughout the day but then nothing happened. I get home from work and I have to go back and all hell breaks loose and everybody decides to lose their minds.
Diamondbacks/Braves Blockbuster
Here’s my biggest takeaway from Day 2 of the Winter Meetings: No matter who’s in charge, no matter how much progress you think they are making, the Arizona Diamondbacks are going to continue do boneheaded things.
Everyone talks about how improved this rotation is and how the National League West is now on notice.
Friends, I buy it a little bit. But let’s not ignore the fact they just mortgaged the future to incrementally make themselves better. They paid paid for Park Avenue but are getting Prospect Heights.
Yes, Shelby Miller is coming off his best season as a pro and is only 25 but if we go back to his minor league days, Miller has always struggled with control.
He’s had a great pro career but his walk to strikeout ratio is a hair-above 2-to-1. His WHIP is OK, 1.24 for his career, and his 3.22 ERA is pretty good.
Is Miller a good add for Arizona, yes, he is. But what get’s me about the Dbacks is they gave up too much.
Too much.
Dansby Swanson was the number one overall pick last year for a reason. If he has a good, not great or stellar, but good year in the minor leagues, he could be in the big leagues this fall.
I’ve always liked Aaron Blair. I thought he was as close as any prospect to the big leagues and as promising a prospect as Arizona had other than maybe Archie Bradley.
I personally think Blair alone, is going to end up better than Miller. But the Diamondbacks totally went over the deep end and added their future shortstop to the mix.
Not to mention, giving up Ender Inciarte, who finished fifth in the Rookie of the Year voting in 2014, then followed that performance up with an even better one in 2015.
I just cannot fathom Arizona once again, proving how absolutely inept they are at running a franchise. It is just astounding. If I was a Dbacks fan, I would hate this trade.
Ownership has put their fanbase in a tough spot, because this team has promise. They could have stood pat this winter and been an arguable favorite in the west.
I actually would like to redact what I said that this deal actually makes the Diamondbacks WORSE. Worse in the long run.
They gave up a franchise shortstop with no reasonable options at the position for the long term. They gave up a guy with the ceiling of a one or two starter and a very solid outfielder that would have been a huge part of an already stellar offense.
I just do not understand this team, it’s management, or what they are trying to accomplish.
If they wanted a starting pitcher and they were hell bent on using that particular set of players to get one, personally, I think they could have done a helluva lot better than Shelby Miller.
But that’s my opinion.
That said, how much pitching do the Atlanta Braves need?
I’ve tweeted time and again, the Atlanta Braves are going to have a record ERA in a few years, however, they’re going to have an absolutely inept offense.
John Hart and his staff has completely revamped the Braves pitching rotation for the future. There is no question. This rotation is going to be beyond scaring, it’ll be frightening, especially if a handful of the dozens of talents they have pan out.
But where are they going to get runs from?
There is always the possibility they trade their arms for a bat or two, and that could likely happen, but the way this future lineup is constructed, there is next to no firepower, especially if they are still set on trading Freddie Freeman.
Dansby Swanson is now the obvious replacement for Andrelton Simmons. It scares me to have Swanson now in the NL East, but good for the Braves.
Other than him, where are the Braves going to find any offense? Of their top ten prospects, just two are hitters (Swanson) and the other is a low-level shortstop.
I don’t know where the Braves want to go with all this, and I don’t know that they know where they want to go with all this, but it is looking mighty good to be a Braves fan right now.
Eventually, they are going to have to put runs on the board to support these arms and get some victories.
We’ll see if Johnny Hart has some more tricks up his sleeve as we go forward. He’s basically robbed everybody out west of their young talent to this point.
Cubs
Here’s where I come out with this Cubs adding Zobrist and moving Castro.
I think the move is great.
First of all, thank you Theo and Jed for taking Zobrist away from the Mets. I had no interest in that guy coming to New York.
Not because I don’t like Zobrist, but let’s consider the Mets roster construction. Strong young pitching. But if you add Zobrist, you have three 35-plus year old players on your roster at some point next season that need playing time because of their salaries.
Additionally, you’re pretty much at the corner spots with Duda and Wright, and let’s not kid ourselves, David Wright is a shell of his former self.
So all in all, I’m OK with Chicago “stealing” Zobrist from the Mets.
I think he adds another great bat to their lineup. I think he gives them tremendous flexibility if or when, the Cubs need. And I think he’s just a downright, solid, hard working baseball player that is going to be a great mentor to some of the young players they’re developing.
As for Castro, I know the Cubs sold very low on him.
His trade value has never been tremendous and most Cubs fans and baseball people would probably admit he was always going to be the odd man out there.
I know the Cubs liked Adam Warren, and that’s fine. But I thought they could have done better. I think they caught themselves in the midst of the Zobrist negotiations and realized they had to do something with their middle infield, and found the first suitor that would take Castro.
From the Yankees end of things, I think it's a great move. Castro is likely to place second base from everything I saw, and I think he is going to thrive in that ballpark.
Reactionary move if you ask me.
A couple other things from Day 2:
As a Mets fan, I really think they need to bring Cespedes back. This is a middle of the pack lineup as constructed without him. If they go into 2015 without Daniel Murphy and Yoenis Cespedes with no upgrades anywhere else on the field, except to play Michael Conforto regularly, then I can’t live with that and as a fan, I’ll be livid. I know there’s already too many outfielders on this roster, but guess what? There were already too many outfielders on the roster when he was added back in July. Terry and company can figure it out or they can easily trade someone to make room (Maybe Granderson who will be 35 on Opening Day and I can’t say I count on him repeating his 2015 performance, which was way better than I ever thought he could do). I need firepower and someone in the lineup that makes it respectable, and Cespedes is the guy. I don’t want to hear about his defense and his unwillingness to play centerfield or right field or whatever. It can be done because it already has. The Mets clearly don’t care about defense because Wilmer Flores and Daniel Murphy was their Opening Day middle infield and Travis d’Arnaud is our catcher.
I sat and blasted the Diamondbacks for their ineptitude, it’s time I do the same to the Marlins for even considering moving the best arm they’ve maybe ever had to come through their system.
This is so typical Marlins. Rob Manfred and the powers that be aren’t going to tell Miami they can’t move Fernandez, but if this trade happens, baseball has to address Jeffry Loria and his ownership of that franchise and do a comprehensive top to bottom analysis of what’s best for them and the city. It’s beyond disgraceful the way things are handled year to year in Miami, not to mention they have a state of the art, brand new stadium that has yet to have a winner on the field and at the same time is being financed by the taxpayers. Miami not only deserves a winner, there is absolutely no reason under their perpetual sun they can’t have one. It’s a terrific market with a lot of money and diversity and city that actually wants a baseball team. Disgraceful.
Washington Nationals - From the reigning Cy Young award winner to one of the best young sluggers in the game and perhaps another exciting young shortstop to join a plethora of them across baseball, the Nationals have the look of one of the best teams in baseball. I look for a huge bounce back year from Bryce Harper. The Nationals don't have a very complete lineup but it's exceptional in a lot of places making it very tough.
New York Mets - Here's my theory: The 2017 New York Mets will win the world series. Lucas Duda is playing for likely the only payday of his career. Neil Walker is playing for probably his last payday of his career. Same for Jose Reyes and Jay Bruce. It's time for Matt Harvey to start putting together some consistency before he hits the free agent market in a few years. Jacob deGrom looks good in the spring. Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler have a lot to prove. I think there's all the makings of a big season from a lot of Mets and if there's one thing I know, you can bank on guys playing for more money (see what I did there?).
Atlanta Braves - I'm not going to lie, I still have no idea what the Braves are doing but good grief do they have an impressive collection of young arms and Bartolo Colon. It's not the flashiest lineup but it should be good enough to give the Nationals and Mets a run for their money atop the division.
Miami Marlins - If you don't feel for the Marlins and what happened to them with Jose Fernandez, you're just cold blooded. It'll be hard not to root for the Fish this year and while they have some great players, I just don't think the Fish have enough pitching to keep up in the pitching rich NL East. I think people finally saw how good Christian Yelich is during the WBC.
Philadelphia Phillies - The Phillies, like the Braves have a really good collection of young pitchers. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility the Braves, Marlins and Phillies each finish at .500 or close to it. Philadelphia has something special brewing and if their collection of young arms start to contribute, the bandwagon is going to start to fill up fast.
