Even Without Nick Madrigal, The Cubs Easily Won The Craig Kimbrel Trade

10 weeks ago:

Advertisement

Today: 

I thought it was a good trade at the time if they let Kimbrel close. It's never been his thing to setup or come in early or really do anything but pitch a ninth inning when his team has a 1-3 run lead. That's one of the most obvious things about any player in Major League Baseball but you can at least understand the Sox hope that he'd convert to a setup man. If that was attainable then you'd really have the best back end of the bullpen going into October. It certainly felt like a balanced risk/reward situation. 

End of the day though Kimbrel will be seen as an immense flop since leaving the Cubs. If the Sox lineup shows up in game 1 or 4 then maybe it goes differently but fact is he just really wasn't that good for the White Sox. And now they need to give him $16M and then go find a trade partner willing to listen to a sales pitch that he needs to be a closer. It will be Sox leadership selling the same logic they just spent months telling people it didn't apply. That's an interesting twist. Fortunately Kimbrel is a legit hall of famer and pitches at the top of baseball when asked to close and given a routine. Good luck to both parties as they try to clear this shit up. 

Personally I'm just happy the Cubs won a trade. It's honestly been forever since that happened. 

You could've left Madrigal out of the deal and it would still turn out to be a massive win for the Cubs: (1) you don't owe Kimbrel $16M on a rebuilding team and (2) Codie Heuer should conservatively make 250+ relief appearances for the Cubs. That alone makes this a swindle if Kimbrel ends up getting traded and never making an impact for the Sox. 

Mix in the career .317 hitter in Madrigal with his 110 OPS+ and advanced plate discipline and you really got yourselves a haul. This was Jed's first offseason making deals and safe to say he's putting us in a good position to move forward out of this mess. 

PS - Frank Schwindel is now on Cameo. You can lose a trade but when it comes to Frank, everybody wins 

Advertisement

PPS - What about the Quintana deal?