The Paul Goldschmidt trade sparked a disconnect between Arizona Diamondbacks fans and the front office about their expectations for the 2019 season. Led by strong campaigns from Luke Weaver and Carson Kelly, the Dbacks brass has been right all along in their assessment of the 2019 team.
The Diamondbacks offseason was defined in a moment: GM Mike Hazen traded Paul Goldschmidt to the St. Louis Cardinals, returning three players and a draft pick to Arizona.
By agreeing to trade Goldschmidt to the Redbirds, Hazen effectively closed the door on a seven-year era of Diamondbacks baseball. The era spanned – you could argue – from game two of the 2011 NLDS when Goldy announced his arrival with a home run off – go figure – then-Brewer Zack Greinke; it ended when Hazen sent him the Cardinal way.
The Goldschmidt-Era Dbacks never won a division title, finishing twice in 2nd, thrice in 3rd, and once each in 4th and 5th place. They won one playoff series, technically, the 2017 Wild Card game against the Rockies, otherwise losing twice in the divisional round. Rarely do team eras wrap up so smoothly, but the Goldschmidt trade did exactly that for the Goldy/Pollock/Corbin Dbacks.
The trade also ensured the ongoing juxtaposition of the Diamondbacks’ and Cardinals’ near-and-long-term futures. The trade itself needs time to grow into its destiny: a tall and branchy Trade Tree unlikely to reach its full height until after Goldy’s Cardinals tenure is over. It is now but a sapling in the primitive stages of development.
Chapter one of this saga (let’s call it Winter 2018) presupposed the Diamondbacks as a downward trending arrow preparing to punt on the 2019 season. Fast-forward to today – just seven months removed – and already perceptions of the deal have shifted.
The supposedly star-less return unfurled not one, but two players who outproduced Goldschmidt (1.1 rWAR, 1.0 fWAR) in the first half. Luke Weaver (1.6 rWAR, 1.7 fWAR) paced the rotation before his injury, while Carson Kelly (1.4 rWAR, 1.7 fWAR) has etched his name in permanent marker atop the catcher’s depth chart.
If I were really interested in balancing the ledger and naming a trade “winner,” I would factor in the 9 combined years of team control Arizona has over Weaver and Kelly – as well as the amorphous futures of Andy Young and Dominic Fletcher (selected with the traded draft pick) – each of whom will surrender their first six years of ML service to the desert should they one day make the grade.
But at this stage, it’s downright silly to name a trade winner (say, the Diamondbacks) or a loser (say, the Cardinals).
The Diamondbacks, once painted as middle-class victims forced to take cents on the dollar for their franchise player, have magically transformed into the prescient, crackerjack diabolist who picked the Cardinals pocket without a single one of us noticing. Which begs the question: as we move close to the next round of the trading season, do we need to adjust how we think about the Diamondbacks?