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The only thing that hurts me is that the remnants of our past dealings, pre-Z, are a burr under my saddle for the new ones.
For an entire season's worth of ABs Shin-Soo Choo is now posting a .300/.400/.520/.920 style line, and is under club control until he's about 30.  We gave him away for nothing.  I wouldn't have needed another OFer, I would have had Choo.
 
Asdrubal Cabrera is posting a .800 OPS as a 23 year old who's already serving his 3rd decent chunk of time in the majors.  He only has doubles power, but a .300/.360/.420 line is something Lazy-Yuni can only dream of, and Cabrera is a decently thick guy with more power to go get.  He's not Eckstein-sized.  But even if he never does, a solid .780 OPS SS/2B for mimimum salary is better than what we've currently got.
 
Valbuena at 23 is outhitting Carp at 23 (terribly small sample size) - both at AAA, with Valbuena as a middle infielder.  In the deal, at least we did get back a reasonable bat, but both are lefties.  I wouldn't need to trade for a MIF in the next year or so, I would have a 23 year-old with the great batting eye who - again - could post a higher OBP than either of my current MIFs (which looks like MILFs, but I swear isn't) even if he doesn't hit for average his first full year.
 
I'm just tired of hanging on to the Yunis and the Reeds and trading the Cabreras and the Choos, I guess.  So now Reed's gone, and we added back in a bat I like (Carp) when we traded a bat I had hopes for (Valbuena).  And I've been on the Carp bandwagon since before he got here, actually (he was on my list of "1B other teams don't have room or time for" along with guys like Chris Carter, who is now with the Bo Sox). 
 
When you look at the deal (starting CFer, starting closer, bunch of guys who could turn into minor pieces of our next contender and 1 or 2 who might be major pieces if everything breaks right) it's awfully hard to argue with it.  I wouldn't try.  Jack does seem to know what he's doing, and I'm really glad we can stop getting fleeced at the bazaar for what winds up being a sterile goat and some rotten fruit.
 
I look forward to the day that we can sign, draft and keep our own middle infielder, though.  And have him actually be good.  Too many years of Juicy Boone and A-Rod are skewing my perceptions of the positions, most likely. ;) But seriously, we're about to add 3B to our infield issues, and we haven't been able to get what we want out of 2nd or short since "the good old days."
At least with Jack seeming to have a good grasp on players, I can feel like the pieces we do have that might be up for trade this year could bring a decent return. Not having to wonder which other future stars we can give up this year would be a bonus.
~G