If you're going to gut your farm system -- and I think the Milwaukee Brewers have likely secured the bottom spot in the organizational rankings I'll put out in January -- you do it for an impact player who dramatically increases your chances to reach or advance in the postseason in the upcoming season. The Brewers have done that in acquiring Zack Greinke. Whether or not they should have been able to do so is another matter entirely, one that should only concern Kansas City Royals fans.
With Greinke, the Brewers now have three pitchers who'd comfortably slot in as No. 1 or No. 2 starters in most rotations in baseball, pushing Randy Wolf back to the fourth starter role and leaving them with just a hole in the five spot, something you could say for a lot of contenders. They lose a little offensive potential in center by trading Lorenzo Cain, but can at least slot Carlos Gomez in for defense; they do need to find a shortstop, as Yuniesky Betancourt is about as useless an everyday player as you'll find in the majors today. Neither center nor short was a productive position for the Brewers' lineup in 2010, so they're not substantially worse off than they were last year for run-scoring, but just improved their run prevention by 30-40 runs depending on what they do at short. That makes them contenders, but not favorites, in the NL Central in the last year of Prince Fielder's contract.
What Kansas City got back is bulk, and fit, but not impact. There's no single anchor prospect in this deal, a player who'd be a top-15 pick in a draft or who'd be a top-5 prospect in the Royals' stacked system. And three of the four guys the Royals got back (assuming for now that Jeremy Jeffress is the fourth piece) have some major concerns that impact their projected long-term values. When you're trading a once-in-a-decade franchise player with two years left on a reasonable contract, you have a rare opportunity to add one top-shelf, impact prospect to your system, and the Royals employed a different philosophy entirely.
Both Jeffress and Escobar have serious makeup concerns that bleed over into the field. Jeffress has been suspended twice for marijuana usage and perhaps baseball isn't his first priority these days. He's lost a lot of development time that he really needed to develop some control and a consistent second weapon. Escobar wore out his welcome with coaches in Milwaukee's system and in winter ball and
had some family concerns that contributed to his falling out of favor.
It's interesting that the Royals would go after these two guys after making such a big deal about acquiring good-makeup players and ridding themselves of bad seeds. They traded Dan Cortes and Danny Gutierrez for character issues, only to see Cortes reach the majors for Seattle at 23 this year. How do you reconcile those moves and statements with the fact that half of the return for Greinke comes with serious baggage of its own?
Jake Odorizzi was the best prospect remaining in the Brewers' system, a super-athletic right-handed pitcher and former high school wide receiver with arm strength and an easy, repeatable delivery. He had an outstanding full-season debut, taking a sub-3.00 ERA into August before tiring (although his one strong August start was a stunner -- eight no-hit, one-walk innings with 10 strikeouts), showing above-average control and improved command while working 91-96 in his best outings. His breaking ball remains a work in progress and while he has good arm speed on a changeup, he did show a sizable platoon split in low Class A this year. He's a great arm to add to a system but probably three years away from any serious major league time.
Cain is a plus runner with an above-average arm and the potential to be an above-average fielder in center given more time out there. He has good bat speed and a simple contact-oriented swing, but his recognition of off-speed stuff (especially sliders) is weak and he's not likely to be a high OBP guy unless he hits for very high averages. Also, he's never played 135 games in a season and missed much of 2009 with a serious knee injury, although his speed returned intact this past year.
Alcides Escobar is a glove-first shortstop who doesn't walk much and has never shown any power, and while he has a very simple, short swing, if you swing at everything, pitchers won't offer you much to hit. He could hit an empty .280 to .290, but without a major change in approach, he's not likely to contribute with the bat. Jeffress, the fourth player in the deal, has an electric arm, 96-100 when I saw him work an inning in the Arizona Fall League last month, and he will flash a two-seamer just below that velocity. His arm is incredibly quick and the velocity is easy, but he's struggled for years to find a consistent breaking ball; he showed a curveball in Arizona that had good rotation, but he still lacks feel for it, and hasn't been able to get enough repetitions in pro ball to develop something to offset the grade-80 fastball.
What this trade reminds me of most is the botched deal the Royals made when they last had a franchise player on the block. With Carlos Beltran, the Royals decided they would prefer to fill holes on their roster rather than maximize the value of the return, insisting that they receive a catcher and a third baseman in any deal. They pulled off a trade, acquiring John Buck and Mark Teahen, both of whom played several years at controlled salaries for Kansas City, but neither of whom was ever a star or even above-average, and who are both gone now with only Chris Getz to show for it. The inclusion of Escobar and Cain in this trade is too reminiscent of the inclusions of Buck and Teahen, and while I do like Cain's raw ability, I don't see him turning into the impact guy the Royals should have gotten for one of the best pitchers they've ever developed.
As for Greinke's ability to handle a large market, if teams are using his mental illness as a way to gauge his "toughness" or makeup, they should be ashamed. Depression is not about being sad, anxiety disorder is not just a matter of being scared, and neither one makes a person "soft." This isn't a question of "he can pitch here, but not there." That's an infuriatingly superficial take on a legitimate medical issue. Since Greinke came back from seeking treatment, he's thrown 773 innings in the majors with a 3.32 ERA and great peripherals. You're never really cured of depression or anxiety disorder, but Greinke has had a long and successful recovery, meaning that concerns that he'd fold like a Japanese fan the moment he got to Capital City are embarrassingly ignorant.
The final piece I don't understand is Kansas City's urgency to trade Greinke now. He has two years left before free agency, giving them two trade deadlines and another offseason to trade him if they couldn't do something in the next two months. If Greinke did request or demand a trade already, the Royals could have told him they'd love to accommodate him as long as he cut down his no-trade list. This offer from Milwaukee may well have been the best the market was offering today, but that doesn't mean the Royals had to accept it today. Greinke couldn't have been burning a hole in their pocket -- perhaps they thought he'd fall through the one Jeff Francoeur is about to burn in it -- and there was a real possibility that Greinke would have started out strong in 2011 and boosted his value in trade. The Royals will see a lot of major league return in this trade, with Cain, Escobar and perhaps Jeffress all appearing in Kansas City in 2011, but this wasn't the best long-term move for a franchise with so much promise coming from within.