Arizona Diamondbacks: Grading the Zack Greinke trade

The Arizona Diamondbacks ended up trading Zack Greinke to the Houston Astros today and officially kicked off the D-backs rebuild.

In a buzzer beater trade, the Houston Astros acquired starting pitcher Zack Greinke from the Arizona Diamondbacks.  Greinke was not the pitcher I expected to be traded, rather I thought Robbie Ray was headed to another team.

Houston sent a huge haul of prospects to Arizona to get Greinke.  I’m going to be analyzing this from the Diamondbacks point of view.

The Diamondbacks traded Greinke and in return received pitchers Corbin Martin and J.B. Bukauskas, first baseman/outfielder Seth Beer and infielder/outfielder Joshua Rojas.  Arizona is also sending cash to help offset Greinke’s huge deal, roughly $24 million, but the final number is not final.

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Martin made his debut this year and has started 5 games and pitched a total of 19 1/3 innings.  He is 1-1 with a 5.59 ERA and 19 strikeouts, but has given up too many home runs (8) and walked too many batters (12).  He is young and that can be corrected.

The others are prospects and they are pretty good.  Beer and Bukauskas are the No. 3 and No 4 prospects respectively in the Astros farm system.  Beer has been slashing .307/.401/.535 with 37 homes runs and 128 RBI’s in two seasons in the minors.  Pretty darn good if you ask me.

Bukauskas has gone 6-6 with a 3.90 ERA and 178 strikeouts in 3three seasons in the minor leagues.  Again, a pitcher who can and will improve those numbers with continued help.

The Diamondbacks could be the right system for both him and Martin.  They have churned out some great pitchers, i.e. Robbie Ray, Patrick Corbin, Wade Miley and back to even Brandon Webb to name a few.

Rojas has been no slouch either as he has slashed .281/.364/.481 with 38 home runs and 164 RBI’s in 3 seasons in the minors.  Rojas is rated as the No. 22 prospect in the Astros farm system.

As far as how this looks for the Diamondbacks?  I like the deal.  It’s clear the Diamondbacks weren’t going to be contenders with Zack Greinke and they cash in on him while he is still coveted by plenty of teams and stock so more awesome players into their farm system.

Again with every trade, you can’t give final judgement until we see how the prospects pan out, but it’s looking like it is a win-win for both the Astros and the Diamondbacks.