Preseason Double Stuffs sends: 2B Rougned Odor ($29)
Rocky Mtn Oysters send: LF/CF/RF Taylor Trammell
Andrew’s Thoughts: I’m still not a Rougned Odor fan. Too much variance. He seems to either make an out, usually by strike out, or hit a home run, which is a little more appealing in a 5×5 roto league than a H2H league. Worse, Odor has one of the most punchable faces in all of baseball. I’m firmly #TeamBautista. Still, this makes sense for Dusty, who gave up a prospect that’s like 2-3 years from scoring him points for a bench guy that he can just as easily cut in the offseason when he costs $31 (or more if someone slaps greed on him). I mean, yeah, Odor never walks so he has no real floor, but you could do way worse than a 30+ HR threat as a back-up.
For the Double Stuffs, this could be seen as flipping a $15 DJ LeMahieu for a toolsy outfield prospect that has just now started to sneak onto top-100 lists but, again, is a ways off. Looking at it that way is probably demoralizing though. Instead, just look at this transaction by itself and it’s fine. Because again, I’m cutting a $30+ Odor after the season. I imagine PDS was too. Odor has upside but that cost offsets pretty much all of it.
As for Trammell, well, I’m pretty sure I was baffled when Dusty paid budget money to move up and take him in our minor league draft. But I stand corrected. He is now a guy whose name appears on lists. And guess what? Getting your name on lists means you have trade value. I can’t find record of ever doubting Trammell here on the Dynasty Grinders dot com, but I remember doing so somewhere. And so this is me, taking responsibility for the things that I have said, and admitting that I was wrong some months back about the acquisition cost of this particular prospect.
Anyway, I’m pretty clearly okay in general with good teams acquiring bad salaries as bench or depth pieces and bad teams getting back reputable prospects for them instead of waiting around to cut.
Hustle’s Toxic $.02: Both these owners and teams should be commended for making this trade. They both wanted to make their teams better (I hope) and managed to find the courage to agree on terms despite a potential trade review looming.
PDS obviously sees Schoop as their 2b of the future and at $12 and almost averaging 7 ppg, Schoop is easily the better player and value going forward. Schoop has really cut down his Ks and while his BABIP is high, it’s not crazy high. It makes sense for PDS to get rid of Odor for a prospect they like. If Trammel is their guy, so be it, I’m not sure what their other options were. It was not that long ago when PDS traded DJ Lemeihu for Odor, so Odor’s stench on PDS has been quickly removed. That being said, with their cap space, they were probably better off with DJ and Schoop. Odor was one of the few players I pegged PDS to keep. With one less guy, I’d expect to see a lot of new faces on their team next season, I hope they enjoy the turnover.
For Dusty, he trades a borderline top 100 prospect for even more 2b depth. He has Cano at 2b, so Odor is pretty much looking at playing time on his team at Utility. With Taylor, Spangeberg, Priela, and Sogard… Odor might be just another guy on his team. That being said Odor does have some nice power potential and could be big down the stretch if he gets hot on the first place Oysters. It’s a low cost risk for a currently hot swinging Odor.