Bucs Deals: Nady to Yankees

July 31 has come and gone and Neal Huntington has stamped your local baseball team with his own personal stamp, and it looks very different than what Dave Littlefield had in mind or was able to execute against.

Let's look at the deals separately, then the overall haul for the Bucs and then a comparison of where Huntington has differed from his predecessor.

In the end, I think you'll come away more optimistic than you may be right now. So out aside those lingering feelings of doom that has festered for 15 years and know that this is a new regime that had nothing to do with the past 15 seasons and decisions. These are different people thinking different ways, except for the owner, but there are no indications that salary or payroll had any say in any of these deals, unlike the Aramis Ramirez deal to the Cubs in 2003.

[Quick aside: I caught an independent minor league game recently in Bridgeport, CT and the visiting team was the Newark Bears. Upon perusing the Bears roster, I was surprised to see the sausage king of Milwaukee, Randall Simon, listed. But alas, Randall did not play this night. But one Bear who did was none other than Bobby Hill, the prize of that ARam deal. This was a day when ARam had hit a GW HR for the Cubbies that afternoon, which I alerted Bobby to during one on deck appearance and he ignored me until he saw my Bucs hat and realized I shared the pain and he gave a quick point.]]

Nady and Marte to Yankees for Jeff Karstens, Ross Ohlendorf, Daniel McCutchen and Jose Tabata.

Marte was gone no matter what - only teams like the Yankees, Mets and Red Sox pay a middle reliever over $6M per year. Maybe the Bucs could have kept either Nady or Bay. Bay in particular likely could have been signed. But let's forget the notion in this case that the Nuttings refuse to shell out the dough - what would signing one of these guys have done? They are a losing team now and without good players coming up to play alongside them, they would continue to lose. And here's the key and where Huntington differs drastically from Littlefield: both of these guys were at the peak of their trade value and have enough questions around them to doubt their continued performance levels (Nady has never hit above .280 before, Bay's age raises questions) and Huntington realized this and moved while the iron was hot. As opposed to Littlefield, who dealt players at their lowest point in value and got little in return.

Still, in this particular case, I am not a big fan of this deal from the Bucs perspective. For two main reasons:

1. Nady and Marte were two of the more valuable trade chips ANY team had and packaging them together likely diminished the overall return that could have been brought back. We've seen lefty specialists bring back big bounties in the past - Rincon for Giles and Gonzalez for LaRoche for example. Marte is better than those two and while the LaRoche deal looks bad for the Bucs right now, LaRoche was at least as good a prospect as any the Bucs got in this deal.
2. The way the deal negotiations have come out makes it seem like this came together very quickly and Huntington didn't shop around enough to see if he could get a better offer. As soon as he offered Nady and Marte together, he should have offered them to other teams besides the Yankees.

So on this side, I have no problem dealing wither and/or both Marte and Nady. They were going to go. My only issue with this deal is the return and even I am coming around a little on the return. Let's look at them:

• Ross Ohlendorf: On the Yankees pregame show before their home opener this year that eventually got rained out, the Yankee blowhards (announcers) stated flat out: "Ross Ohlendorf is the key to the Yankees this year." I spit out my drink and laughed. Truly, it was nonsense and if he was truly the key, then the Yankees should be in last place right now because he has not been good. Still, it's insightful because he was being counted on to become the bridge between the starters and the 8th inning, then manned by Joba Chamberlain (a key role, but one that should never be considered the key to an entire team). Point is, he has potential and throws hard and one half season of struggles aren't enough to make teams get rid of him. He can still be that middle reliever, late innig guy the Yankees were hoping for.
• Jeff Karstens: If the claims of quantity over quality come from anywhere, they probably come from seeing Jeff Karstens in this deal. No major upside here, he's a 25 year old who can be in a rotation but not at the top. Or he could be a valuable middle guy, certainly likely to be better than JVB or Osorio or...I could go on and on.
  
• Daniel McCutchen: Born two days after Karstens, he is a possible middle of the rotation starter who will begin in the minors. The fact that these two pitchers are both 25, soon to be 26, means they aren't likely to progress significantly and that they are what they are, which isn't necessarily all bad, but it's not like these guys are plus prospects either.
  
• Jose Tabata: the key to the deal and the reason why some people either really hate this deal or really like it. YankeeNation of course, is disparaging Tabata for walking out on his team earlier this year and claiming he would never blossom and that they don't allow his kind of player on the Yankees (another drink spitter!). And there are flags: he left his team earlier this year and has had a bad year numbers wise. But one article recently spoke of how he has rebounded from the early season suspension and getting his confidence back. And as a 19 year old, he won't be the first to have a bad year at AA and rebound (see Hanley Ramirez), but there are lots who don't bounce back as well. I think he is too risky a return for what the Pirates had to offer. Still, he is only 19 and until they sign Pedro Alvarez, he is the best prospect in the organization.

This is a deal that will only get better for the Bucs over time, until the time comes and a fair evaluation of Tabata can be made. The three pitchers can come a blow up a la JVB or Bullington and the deal could still be a good one if Tabata pans out. But to be fair, Tabata has to become a productive major leaguer, maybe not a star, and at least two of the three pitchers need to become contributors. I'm not sure they will.

But maybe this deal helped to get Huntington's feet wet, as his second trade was even more impressive...