Add new comment

Luckily, I'm not the one that has to make the decision to trade the player or not. We can weigh the pluses and minuses of that sort of decision all we want on sites like this and it won't matter a bit one way or the other. But, it's interesting to discuss nonetheless.
I think, obviously, the biggest reason to seek out this sort of trade is the risk of injury with young pitchers. From a productivity standpoint and weighing 6 years of team control vs. three, I'm not at all certain that a straight-up deal of Walker for Stanton is the best thing to do, and it gets worse if you include another major piece along with him. But, if you factor in the risk of injury of the young pitcher vs. the near certainty of production from Stanton, it makes more sense.
My main objection to the Stanton fixation is that I don't believe we need a power hitter to win. ISO by itself is not the answer. What we need are better players up and down the lineup. We don't need a difference maker or a lineup legitimizer, we just need better players, and not just offensively but in all aspects of the game.
For what it's worth, I think Walker will be up with the big club in a few weeks. There are two reasons for this: 1) by showing what he can do at the ML level, it will increase his value, and 2) by showing what he can do at the ML level, it may save some people their jobs.
A deal I would be trying to make right now is for Nick Castellanos. The Tigers are looking for a closer and we have a guy in Oliver Perez that's been close to unhittable this year. Apparently, they are willing to move Castellanos in the right deal. While I'm in no hurry to see Perez go, Castellanos has serious upside and if I were Jack, I would be working the phones to try and find a way to put something together.