I just wanted to supplement with FA before he did. When a 27 year old monster hitter is available then I think we should be in on that, with our desperate need for monster hitting.
But 9/220 is steeeeep. I'm glad Jack had - and executed - a plan B to increase our hitting talent.
I'm not normally for 5-for-1 trades of minor leaguers unless we have a clear surplus. You want one of my six 3B options and a couple of arms? We can do business. You want Nick Franklin? Good luck. So if it's Prince + all our guys vs. Upton minus 4 of our guys, I'd rather have Prince and keep the pipeline strong.
Jack got around that by making a 1 for 1 trade (2 for 2 if you like) so nothing was depleted, we just shifted resources.
Jack said he'd have taken 4 bats for Pineda. IIRC that rumored list was Montero, Stanton, Morrison and Heyward. I can't argue with that. Those are 4 bats I'd have considered seriously as a return on Pineda too.
The fact that Stanton was the HS bat I wanted instead of Almonte has nothing to do with it. ;)
But Jack had his plans and when Fielder said no we went in another direction that still added needed talent to this team. I would have had a problem if we'd just shrugged and said "oh well" and added some schlub. I like Montero, and I have no problem with the option we chose. If you gave me the opportunity of a top-5 arm prospect or a top-5 bat prospect I would take the bat.
Swapping the arm for the bat is fine with me. Now we'll see where we're at and if we can get back to .500 this year while all the kids learn how to play in the bigs. If the key players we have achieve upside and we don't black-hole the rest, it'll be a VERY fun year.
~G
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