It's a busy Thursday in the baseball world as there have been several key trades.
The first move we woke up to this morning, and it with a combination of losing last night's heartbreaker, was a shot to the stomach. The Phillies were able to acquire Roy Oswalt for Happ and two minor league prospects. Further more, they were able to do it with the Astros taking a nice size (or bigger than expected) part of the money on the contract as well AND the Phillies do not have to gurantee Oswalt his 2012 option. Ugh…. It's just hard to digest all of that. Essentially Happ is Niese except Niese is better than Happ. So why couldn't the Mets get this done? Well mainly, they never really were considering it, and even with Happ having a decent upside, he has not been an integral part of the Phillies team this year. For the Mets two of their most talented rookies Niese and Davis are having a huge impact on the team, and their removal could do a lot of damage. I just hope Oswalt doesn't cause trouble with the Mets.
The second big move today really surprised me, Tejada to the Padres. It doesn't really make sense from the Padres perspective, I just didn't expect that to actually happen. The Orioles will recieve Wynn Pelzer, a talented pitcher (7th overall in the Padres system). The Orioles need pitching, terribly, and they don't need an underperforming thirdbasemen, so for them this makes sense for the birds, they can at least lose with a younger team getting experience. The problem for the Padres is that Tejada really is a shadow of his former self. I guess they are hoping, and I hopy for Miggy, that he can turn it on in San Diego and help out the team with his bat.
Other Moves so far today:
Cantu is now on Texas
