Post#10 » by TNBT » Tue Dec 23, 2014 9:44 am
I loved Prado here. A good, versatile player, and by all reports a true professional and genuinely good guy. However, we had to add SOMETHING to the rotation, and Prado was our best bargaining chip. So even though I loved having Prado here and will miss him, I'm happy with this trade for two reasons:
1 - Virtually the entire staff have big question marks about their health/durability, and Capuano isn't going to win you many games if he's your best starter after the rest get injured. Adding Eovaldi gives us a durable guy who can be a really good mid-rotation guy, or a decent fill-in higher in the rotation should we have injury problems again. He's also still very young, and as was mentioned by someone above, he, Tanaka and Pineda give us three young starters with bucket-loads of talent and potential.
2 - As was also mentioned, this demonstrates a full commitment to the youth movement, and I for one could not be happier. Will it cost us some games in the short-term as the kids go through their growing pains? Probably, but in the long run it gives us a chance to build a roster which will have time to grow and develop together. We've added a young replacement for Jeter in Gregorious and will likely have one of the youngsters (Pirela or Refsnyder) at 2nd, to go along with Eovaldi and the added prospect depth in German. Personally I want to see Refsynder get the spot as they are both average with the glove, but I really like Refsnyder's pure hitting ability. I think given an extended chance in the big league, and being allowed to make some mistakes along the way without getting sent down, his defense will improve and he will adjust to the step up in pitching quality. Now if we can wait out Texiera and A-Rod's albatross deals, then we can keep adding young guys in a few years when Gregorious, Refsnyder, Pirela, Murphy, and the pitchers all have a few years under their belt and can step up as leaders.