D’Andre Toney Sent To Astros to Complete Humberto Quintero Trade

In March, the Royals were looking for catching depth in the aftermath of two catching injuries to Salvador Perez and Manuel Pina.

In a move that wasn’t well-received then and still doesn’t look like a good trade, the Royals brought in Humberto Quintero and Jason Bourgeois from the Astros for left-handed pitcher Kevin Chapman, a 2010 fourth round pick, and a player to be named later. That player was named as outfielder D’Andre Toney this afternoon.

At the time, the PTBNL was noted as a big key to the deal.

Part of the rules of baseball transactions are that a player who was drafted last June can’t be traded right away, but has to be added later as the PTBNL.  That’s just one of the quirks of the system.

The fear was that some big bonus prospect might be involved – someone like Jack Lopez, Kyle Smith or Bryan Brickhouse.

In that sense, Toney – a 14th rounder – isn’t a huge loss for the organization in a vacuum. He rocked the Arizona Rookie League to the tune of a 1.018 OPS with 22 extra base hits in 43 games. He’s got talent and tools, but not everyone thinks he’s much of an impact guy. At 5’10”  and 170 pounds, he might not add much power and he’s only played at the rookie level.

While neither Chapman nor Toney will break he Royals organization, their loss wasn’t in a vacuum – it was for two other players, neither of whom have done all that much. Quintero has had some doubles and has kept the catcher spot warm while Salvador Perez recovers from knee surgery, but that’s really it. Bourgeois is struggling at Triple A and was a career minor leaguer before last year anyway. Many feel that the Royals could have had either or both of Quintero and Bourgeois off the waiver wire at the end of spring training (and might not have been worth the time even then). Instead, they traded two prospects with some level of room to develop for two players who were borderline acquisitions. As Rany Jazayerli said today “a bad trade got worse”.Hopefully, Dayton Moore doesn’t get in the habit of making those sorts of transactions going forward.