Mr. Shapiro's 2008 Trade Scorecard

On a bitter cold, but beautiful Saturday morning in central Ohio let's take a look at Mr. Shapiro's '08-'09 trades. Shapiro made a name for himself through trades, like this one, so it seems like a good starting point. Now while it's a little presumptuous to judge trades only months after the fact, it's fun nonetheless.

Trade (July 7, 2008):

Brewers Acquires:

LHP CC Sabathia

Clevelands Acquires:

1B/LF Matt LaPorta

Player to be named later (OF Michael Brantley)

RHP Rob Bryson

LHP Zach Jackson

Essentially, this deal gave the tribe a top young slugger, a A ball flamethrower with closer potential, a AAAA filler pitcher and a "significant" piece to be determined at the end of the season. LaPorta continued his rapid rise through the system with an excellent '09 contributing a slash line of .299/.388/.530 at AAA and a .254/.308/.442 line in an 181 AB cameo in Cleveland. Kevin Goldstein recently had this to say about LaPorta in his Future Shock Series on the Indians:

"Reviews on LaPorta's bat aren't what they used to be, but they're still good enough to project as an above-average everyday player at first base or left field, and that means a middle-of-the-order run producer."

That still sounds good to me. Anyways, we'll just skip Zach Jackson and head onwards to Rob Bryson. Mr. Bryson, heralded as a potential closer at the time of the deal, hurt his arm and was on the rehab trail most of '09. However, he managed to pitch a little at the end of the season and appears to be making encouraging progress. He's another quality arm with potential that lends this system its' impressive depth. Finally, the player to be named later was as everybody knows Michael Brantley (thankfully not Taylor Green as the Hardball Times article supposed). Although Brantley's numbers on the surface appear uninspiring at AAA (.267/.350/.361 with 46 steals), he was a victim of bad luck (.288 BABIP) and was very young for his level (he turned 22 midseason). Brantley could probably use some more seasoning at AAA, but I believe that he could be a high-OBP speedster that sets the table for the Indians' impending middle-of-the-order quartet (admit it: Sizemore, Santana, Choo, LaPorta, 3-6 is damn exciting). Here's a recent ranking from Project Prospect that had Brantley as the fifth best CF prospect in baseball. Overall, this was a solid trade that infused high-quality talent into the system.

Grade: B

Trade (July 27, 2008):

LA Dodgers Acquire:

3B Casey Blake

Cleveland Acquires:

C Carlos Santana

RHP Jon Meloan

This trade might be one of Shapiro's gems. Shapiro leveraged Blake's high trade value (.830 OPS at the time of the trade) and got a pair of excellent prospects. Meloan, at the time a reliever converted to a starter, looked to still have back of the bullpen potential and Carlos Santana was having a breakout year for the Dodgers' A+ team. Although Meloan fell out of favor with the organization, was subsequently traded and bounced around a couple organizations in '09, Santana is one of the top 10 prospects in baseball. Mr. Goldstein at BP put it this way:

"All of the tools and skills are there for Santana to be a perennial All-Star."

With that I give this trade a Grade A+.

I'll check in sometime soon to review the 2009 trades, but for now I need to survive this December cold and survive a week of finals. Thanks for stopping by!

Your pal,

Alex Trebek