We live in a day and age where the avid Baseball fan can know a trade or a signing 24 hours or more before they happen thanks to the rumor mill. However, that system was shocked today thanks to two trades that no one was expecting to happen (one involving a surprise team and the other one just not expected at all).
The first involves Holiday being sent to the Athletics for Street, Gonzalez and Smith. This news comes only a day after the Cards deal to get Holiday was deemed dead and is really a surprise to me. I don't know why the Athletics went out to get Holiday, but they do have a lot of talent thanks to the trades they made last offseason. On the Rockies side, the question is now what to do with Street. On one hand, they need a closer because they will not be resigning Fuentes. On the other hand, if the Rockies decide to enter a full rebuilding mode, then they trade Street, flip him for more talent and hope for success down the road.
The next trade was completely off radar. The the Marlins sent Olsen and Willmingham to DC for Bonifaco, Dean and Smolinski. There is a lot going on in this trade in terms of what it means for the both of these NL East teams. For the Nationals, they have been buidling talent in their system for a while, and have a good amount of OF as well. They trade some of the young pitching talent like Smolinski for an “ace” for their staff in Olsen. Willmingham is a good player but with Dukes, Milledge and Kearns already out there, you have to wonder if they are going to move Kearns to another position of ship him off more players and to get more pitching. There have been murmors this week of the Nationals being in pursuit of Texaria, in that case they are going for a winning season. Whether they make the playoffs this year on those moves is doubtful, but it seems like if they bring in Texeria, then they are setting themselves up for another big offseason next year and try to do the “Mets Two Step” of 2005 and then 2006.
For the Marlins, this trade, with the inclusion of the Mike Jacobs trade, suggest that they are back in firesale mode. Uggla, Gregg and others might be the next to ship out.
