Trade Deadline rating

Bucs Dugout has a nice round up of the trading deadline deals. But I want to add a few thoughts anyway.

First, I think Neal Huntington is a genius. He pulled off a few trades that I thought were impossible. He got some talent (not a lot), but opened up room for next year. He also addressed a real need that Pirates had now at catcher.

Now, let me list the trades in the order from worst to first in my opinion.

3. Octavio Dotel (“Doh”tel) was traded to the Diamondbacks for James McDonald, a starting pitcher, and Andrew Lambo, an outfield. McDonald was thought of highly at one point, but even the Pirates have him starting out in the bullpen. The Pirates have a poor starting rotation, and he can’t crack it? That make me worry. Lambo is a solid prospect. He looks like he could take Gorkys Hernadez’s place as a possible outfielder of the future. But, I am not such a big fan of Lambo on the principle of him getting caught using steroids. What is the clean Lambo going to look like? I don’t know. Add in the fact that Dotel is the best player we traded away, and you have the worst trade. It is a “C”, but nothing more.

2. Javier Lopez to the Giants for Joe Martinez, a starting pitcher and John Bowker, an outfielder. This is a solid deal. Lopez has been a great lefty for us this year. And now he brings in two prospects. Martinez is so-so. Right now it is a good thing to load up on AAA pitching and see what we need. Martinez fits that bill. But who I really like is Bowker. Bowker was the PCL player of the year last year. I will take that in a heart beat. He has not really been given a shot at the majors, and I think he ought to get a call up in September. I like this guy. Probably worth Lopez by himself. This deal is a B.

1. D.J. Carrasco, Bobby Crosby, and Ryan Church for Chris Snyder, a catcher, Pedro Ciriaco, a shortstop, and 3 million bucks. This deal shows how great Neal really is. He dumped Church. He just successfully traded away a guy hitting under .200 and a salary of a free agent. He added to that a veteran short stop who hits .230 and a reliever having a great year, especially against righties but will play the market this off season. How he traded Church and Crosby is beyond me. This is as amazing as trading away Bixler. A once crowded outfield now looks better. A spot is opened for Argentis Diaz and the Pirates get money. But even more than that the Pirates get a catcher who has major league experience and can throw out runners. Doumit is just horrible at defense, and Jarmillo cannot throw anyone out either. Kratz has shown the ability to do that, but Snyder will cement the defensive part of this. Snyder is a better hitter than he is showing this year, but he is not great. This is just filling in until Sanchez reaches the majors. Still, Snyder has a year of control after this year as well, so it is not a renting situation. This really frees the Pirates up to try and deal Doumit. Hopefully Jarmillo will head back to AAA. This was an amazing dump of players for the Pirates. And it showed that Neal is not going to let the a major league team suffer like he did last year when he traded away all the left handed pitching in the pen. A giant hole exists in the major league catcher slot. The hole is now at least patched over with something. Add in a AAA shortstop in Pedro Ciriaco, another position where the Pirates have a hole, and I think the trade is great. I give this an A-.