Arizona's Diamonds!

I'm sitting here shaking the Mitchell dust off my clothing and trying to pretend that if I hope hard enough it will all go away. Oh well, it's not. But I've said my piece and others (including Jayson Stark) will say it much better. So thank goodness there were some trades today to think about!

Arizona! Those Diamondbacks just got themselves a top of the rotation pitcher by prying Dan Haran from the Oakland Athletics along with a middle something prospect pitcher named, Connor Robertson for six player, one of which was their best prospect, Brett Anderson. The Diamondbacks used some of their best prospects, but got a proven and still young (and relatively cheap) pitcher.

Haran has been remarkably consistent while also improving his ability to win games. His WHIP (walks and hit per inning pitched) has remained at 1.21 for three consecutive years but has improved his batting average against for three straight years while increasing his strikeout percentage. And unlike other A's starters, he's remained healthy and has been in the 220 innings pitched range for three straight years.

Oakland is retooling and there is no doubt that Billy Beane got the prospects he coveted.

But Arizona wasn't done for the day. They also traded their league leading reliever, Jose Valverde to Houston in another big swap of players. Valverde may have been the best kept MLB secret last year. Valverde saved 47 games last year for the Diamondbacks who always seemed to be playing one-run games. While Valverde's strikeouts are off the chart, he has control issues and walks a batter every other inning. Perhaps the Diamondbacks got tired of the nail-biting? That is the only thing that makes sense with this trade.

The Astros unloaded Chris Burke, who was awful last year, Chad Qualls, a serviceable reliever, but with no closing track record (he did save five games last year for the Astros). The Astros also sent Arizona another reliever, Juan Gutierrez. Gutierrez is a roster-filler and not much of an addition.

While the addition of Haran is exciting for the pitching rotation to give the Diamondbacks the back to back punch of Webb and Haran, time will tell if they gave up too much. A proven pitcher is a proven pitcher and it's hard to fault Arizona for this deal.

Trading away their closer is a little more confusing considering they got little value in return. The must be more to this story than the headlines.