Dempster Finally Traded

My guess is that Dempster is going to be pretty sorry he didn't take the Braves deal and that the Cubs were unable to work out a deal with the Dodgers who were unwilling to offer anything of value in exchange.  The main reason, I think, is that he is likely to get lit up big time in that awful little stadium where the Rangers play baseball.  Lets face it, the wind howls out to left center there and the average temperature is like 100 and it is the American League.  So good luck, guy, you are going to need it.

I've got nothing personal against Dempster, but I do think he overplayed his hand.  He's had a good season thus far, but, on the whole, he is a middle of the order rotation pitcher on a good or even half-decent team.  Given the fan reaction, justified or not, the Cubs more or less had to trade him for what they could get and Dempster had to approve any reasonable deal.

The initial reaction to all the deadline trades the Cubs have made is somewhat underwhelming, but, lets face it, they didn't have much to sell, and that includes Garza who, should the Cubs be determined to deal in the off-season, is going to be worth much more then if he rescues an up and down year.

I've become more and more convinced there are three kinds of trades that are made.  One type is the exchange of players of similar perceived talent and experience.  You can think of these as trading seasons or years.  A good example from the last off-season was the Cashner/Rizzo trade.  In these trades, both sides are often better off.  At bottom, they are a good test of front office judgment of talent and assessment of need.

Then there are the uneven trades where years or seasons are traded for accomplished talents.  Teams nowadays, probably because of salaries and contracts at stake seem to overvalue their veteran assets as well as their prospects.  Most of the deadline trades involve dealing veterans for players who are likely to equal or approach the value of the veteran exchanged in one or more years.  Obviously, the fewer years you give up, the better off you are and the less risk you take.

So far Epstein and co., at least until the trade deadline, have concentrated on obtaining equivalent or short term risks in exchange for the players they have dealt.  I'm thinking here of the Marshall/Wood and Colvin/Stewart deals.  I'm rather convinced they deviated from this plan out of necessity at the deadline, simply because they couldn't do any better, especially with the rules and the personalities involved.  Here I have in mind the aborted Dempster/Delgado trade which would have been something of a coup.

Just to follow up on this line of thought, Maholm, the best player they traded, is still a soft-tossing lefty who is a back of the rotation starter.  Johnson is a useful but aging role player.  Soto has been a flop since his rookie season.  Dempster is a rental and getting a little long in the tooth.

In return, the Cubs got a potentially very good pitcher in Vizcaino who is admittedly a project because he is hurt.  They got two other pitchers who throw hard.  They have major league potential but do not project out as impact players.

Actually, the players they got from Texas look like more legitimate higher ceiling prospects.  Christian Villanueva is a third baseman with some pop and Kyle Hendricks is a pitcher who has pretty good numbers in A ball.  Unfortunately, all these guys are a little further off than one would like them to be and anything can happen.

The return for Dempster, though, is better than they would have got had they let him finish the season and they did not have to risk making a qualifying offer he might have taken.

One disappointment, however, was the failure to move Soriano.  Maybe they can do it as a waiver deal, though, as his contract is likely to scare any potential claims.