Per our friends at MLB.com, Craig Kimbrel has been traded from the Padres to the Red Sox for four prospects.
Since I don’t really follow many AL teams, I can’t speak to the quality of these prospects, except that apparently it’s quite the haul. What I can speak to, however, is that the Padres got a lot more out of their Kimbrel trade than Atlanta did out of theirs. I mean, yeah, I know, they got Cameron Maybin and got rid of BJ Upton’s albatross contract, but all things being equal, Maybin was just a band-aid.
The other thing that’s very interesting is this little tidbit: Frank Wren is the Red Sox’s vice president of baseball operations. He loved Kimbrel when Craig was in Atlanta. And now he gets his favorite flamethrower back.
Slappy, you’re going to love watching Craig do his Silver Surfer thing in Boston.
Fan Interference 
Koji Uehara to a set-up role perhaps?
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I’m having a feeling that he’ll be traded or released at the middle of the season next year.
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That’s a possibility.
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Uehara just accepted the set-up role via HBT.
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Crap. I lose two ways. I wanted to see Kimbrel as an Astro. And Uehara is on my fantasy team. This may be a good move for Boston from the Uehara standpoint. He is struggling more and more injuries at age 40. Kimbrel gives them a first class present and future closer to replace him. Sounds like the price was high though.
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Uehara is on mine too, and I don’t want Kimbrel in Boston. Crap.
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A few quick notes on a couple of the prospects heading to San Diego :
Manuel Margot – Excellent glove in CF. Should hit for a solid average with moderate power that will get mostly negated by Petco. Probably in the #30-#50 range among all prospects.
Javier Guerra – Great glove at SS. Had a good year with the bat, but he doesn’t have a real track record of being a good hitter, so it’s hard to know if it’s a fluke or the start of a trend.
Margot and Guerra are likely both among the top 5 prospects in the Red Sox system….or rather, they were.
It’s really not a bad haul for Kimbrel. And as you say, certainly better than the Braves got for him.
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Margot is ranked #25 prospect in all baseball , Guerra is ranked #76.
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Sounds fair.
The more I’ve started paying attention to prospects in a league-wide sense…as compared to just focusing on my team…I’ve learned that rankings tend to get kinda clumpy.
Without even looking anything up, I’d bet you could take everyone from #40 to #60, shuffle them up, re-rank them randomly in those same 20 slots, and you wouldn’t really change all that much…there’s just not a world of difference between guys ranked in that range.
And the farther down the list you go, the bigger the clumps get. You could probably do the same thing with the #80 through #120.
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Probably with any of them from #20 down.
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Nah, it’s not that random.
It’s like putting a pot of water on the stove and putting your hand in it. You’ll notice when it’s cold. You’ll notice when it gets hot. And you’ll damn sure notice when it starts boiling. But it all happens gradually, so drawing a sharp line from one of those stages to the next is kinda tricky.
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Dylan Bundy was once ranked number 1. 😦
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When in doubt, remember TINSTAAPP. (my 2nd favorite baseball acronym after TOOTBLAN)
I feel like Corey Patterson was once ranked #1 as well. I definitely remember thinking he was going to be a 30/30 guy for like 15 consecutive years.
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Thanks. I had heard that they were pretty quality prospects but I lacked motivation to look them up. And I also had to drive to town to pick up the pizza I ordered for dinner.
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Random thought —
Boston is Beantown. I would like to be able to call players on the Red Sox “beaners”, because they play in Beantown.
But I can’t because racism. Racism ruins everything.
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Hey, when I think of Beantown, I always thought about it as Mr.Bean’s town!! XD
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Boston is in Mass. You can just call them Massholes.
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Crap day to be an O’s fan. First Matt eats up a quarter of our spending monies, then Boston steps up their bullpen.
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And the Jays keep Estrada.
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Nooooo!!!!!!
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I had the same reaction. For different reasons, I’m sure, but the sentiment was the same.
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…and so it begins, selling the farm for marginal upgrades on your way to an old and expensive roster and an empty farm.
This was a REALLY high price to pay for closer making $24M the next 2 years. Really really high.
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Are you saying it’s DD’s MO in action?
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Pretty much.
I an mot against trading prospects to improve the MLB team…that is what they are for, either by playing for the MLB team or by being traded for needs…..but holy hell this is a massive overpay.
Every team only has so much talent currency, when you sign FAs that have you lose you 1st round picks and overpay when you trade assets with future value for present day value…eventually, the bill is going to come due….so you better hope you win in the relatively short window you create, which will be a harder task in the AL East than in the AL Central.
Boston is starting with more young talent than Detroit had, and maybe he’ll do a better job of balancing trading off and keeping assets than he did in Detroit. But this first trade is kinda horrible from an asset management perspective.
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Maybe it’s a plant or a long con revenge scheme to retaliate for 2013. I would love that.
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A Boston writer surveyed some MLB executives and scouts for their thoughts on the Kimbrel trade. I thought this one was pretty funny (and accurate):
MAJOR LEAGUE EXECUTIVE: “I certainly thought [they gave up too much] but it’s a different paradigm. Either you’re looking long term [rebuild], balancing short- and long-term, or you are locked in on the short term. [Dombrowski] is all about the short term and this trade made sense from that perspective. But if you do too many of the deals, you wake up in a few years like the Phillies…or the Tigers.”
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Ouch
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Well, when you put it that way, it sounds much better.
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