Fansided Reactions to the Zack Greinke Trade

I promise, this should be the last bit I write about Zack Greinke.  It’s time to move on.  But anytime a former Cy Young winner gets traded – especially two years before his contract is up – it’s going to send shockwaves through the major leagues. With that being the case, most fans, writers and teams will have an opinion and a reaction and the Fansided network is no different.  The massive list of links is after the jump:

• The first place we should stop by is Reviewing the Brew, where Lou Olsen has to pinch himself to ensure he’s not dreaming, then says the trade may turn out to be the biggest in team history and makes the Brewers instant contenders for the NL Central division title.
• Fansided’s resident trade analyst on Call To The Pen, Nathaniel Stoltz, views the Greinke trade in light of past trades involving superstar pitchers and sees a trend of teams not paying huge packages of prospects for aces.  He’s also a bit unsure of how to read the Royals return. (Note: I completely forgot to link this in the first posting.  Apologies to Nathaniel, whose excellent work should never be so overlooked.  Mea culpa.)
• Ray DeRousse at Redbird Rants says “not so fast” on anointing the Brewers the favorites in the division.  The Milwaukee defense is pretty bad, especially now that they’ve replaced Alcides Escobar with Yuniesky Betancourt.  While I agree that Greinke has a bad defense behind him in Milwaukee now, he’s still better off than in Kansas City where it would have been totally feasible to say that Billy Butler was the most accomplished fielder behind him.  Billy Butler.  Yeah.
• Staying in the NL Central, Jordan Campbell at Cubbies Crib mentions that the Greinke trade hurts the Cubs in a few ways – one, it means they have to face him more in 2011 (the Royals and Cubs have an interleague series in Kansas City next season), two, it takes the slim chance they had to sneak into the playoffs and dashes it, and three, it makes it more difficult for them to trade for another starter like Matt Garza who might be a target of those teams who lost the Cliff Lee and Greinke sweepstakes.
• One of those teams that missed out on Greinke was the Washington Nationals.  Apparently the signing of Jayson Werth wasn’t enough to compel Greinke to ignore his no-trade clause because the Royals and Nats reportedly had an agreement in place.  Scott Stewart at Teddy Never Wins would have liked to see Greinke in our nation’s capitol, but he’s also relieved because Washington would have probably lost Jordan Zimmermann among other big prospects.
• I felt that the Blue Jays had a good chance to snag Greinke, but they didn’t want to meet the Royals asking price of Kyle Drabek, Travis Snider and others.  Mat Germain at Jays Journal weighs in and also prefers an affordable six years of Drabek to two of Greinke.
• In the aftermath of all of this, Carl Pavano is the most accomplished starter on the market now and Josh Hill at Twinkie Talk thinks it works in the Twins favor that the Brewers got Greinke since they were after Pavano.  Now the Twins have the leverage, he says.
• My favorite part of the trade is that the Royals found someone to take Yuniesky Betancourt off our hands.  I don’t care if he tied for the team lead in homers and RBIs – he’s terrible.  Ever since he dropped a routine popup with his glove off to the side last season I’ve had it out for him, and I say good riddance.  Chris Hannum at Motor City Bengals is equally surprised that someone else was interested in Yuni.
• Yuni’s departure means I can watch with glee as he makes his way through the rest of the league.  Griffin Cooper at SoDo Mojo made me laugh with this map showing Betancourt’s movement.  Good riddance.

And because I have to get reactions from the stellar baseball writers closest to the Royals, bonus content, Kansas City media edition:

• We start with Joe Posnanski, because you should always start with Joe Posnanski.  He doesn’t see a star in Kansas City’s haul.
• And because it’s JoePoz, he’s going to say a lot.  He does some reading of the tea leaves and worries about how Melky Cabrera might effect Lorenzo Cain‘s time in centerfield.  Gulp.
• Sam Mellinger preaches patience.  Trust the Process.  The huge stash of talent in the minors is Dayton Moore’s way to make amends for not surrounding Billy Butler, Alex Gordon and Greinke with enough talent as they developed, so now, the Greinke move is like taking awful-tasting medicine in the short term, but in the long term is going to help make it all better.
• Rustin Dodd checks in and gets some insight from Frank White, Kyle Davies and Mike Moustakas, none of whom were surprised that Greinke got shipped off.
• Of course, I have to include the best beat writer in baseball, Bob Dutton.
• Finally, Rany Jazayerli provides the best rundown of what the other GMs may have had in mind when creating trade offers for Greinke.  A fantastic piece that you must read.  Maybe it’s because I have a less sour impression of the trade, but I thought this was better than Posnanski’s reaction.

Phew.  Okay.  It’s out of my system.  Zack Greinke is gone, likely never to return.  I’ll look back at the magical days of 2009 during the Zack Greinke Experience, days when his slider would turn left-handed batters into children and his fastball was wearing out the black of the plate.  Those days are over, the next step starts now.

Dayton, you better be right on this one.

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