I had a dream where the Yankees traded their potential sort-of Curtis Granderson for the real thing, except that it really happened.
There’s a whole lot of analysis better than anything I could provide you with about this trade (click on those Yankees links on the side for some of them), but I like talking so here’s what I think:
The Yankees gave up Austin Jackson, Ian Kennedy and Phil Coke for Curtis Granderson as part of a three way deal where the Diamondbacks were involved solely to get ripped off as far as I can tell. Granderson is a great talent who is what the Yankees see the absolute-dream world-perfect scenario Austin Jackson as being. If you can trade the form for the ideal, you do that and so Brian Cashman did.
Ian Kennedy is, no matter what you may think from early 2008, a legit MLB pitcher. He’s not a front end starter like people envisioned but he should slot into an NL rotation at the back-end and do okay. Which is good because he wound up in Arizona.
Phil Coke is a LOOGY who gave up a lot of homeruns to Joe Mauer. If you’re a Tigers fan and you see Leyland warming him up to face Mauer, do whatever you can to prevent it. I’m serious about this.
Detroit did very well in this trade, though I know it’s hard for the fans to part with someone like Granderson. They were backed into this corner by a bunch of bad immovable contracts and need to dump some salary (commence laughing at the Dontrelle Willis extension here) . Besides picking up Jackson and Coke they sent their Jackson (that would be stomp on the mound king Edwin) and got Max Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth in return.
Max Scherzer is a year younger than Edwin Jackson and under team control for five more years. He survived his first full MLB season and did pretty well and honestly unless his arm falls off he’s going to be excellent. Schlereth is a former first round pick and should be an good lefty arm out of the pen (though I don’t know how he’ll fare against Joe Mauer, I’m sure it’ll be better than Phil Coke).
So no, I’m not really sure why the Diamondbacks traded Scherzer and Schlereth for Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy either.
But I thank them, because Granderson is a very nice pickup for the Yankees and he’ll benefit from the home park. My only concern is his totally insane splits (talk about not being able to hit lefties, yeesh) but we’ll see how that all goes. If his defense is as good as he’s shown before it might be worth playing him even on those days.
Phil Coke is a LOOGY?!?!?! lol..very entertaining blog thanks