It official, Dave Stewart’ first major trade has been completed after sending longtime Diamondback Miguel Montero to the Chicago Cubs for a pair of pitching prospects. In a league where offensive production for a catcher is at a premium, on would assume that the two prospects would be of the high value variety.
Instead Dave Stewart got a couple of low A-Ball pitchers who don’t figure to get a glimpse of the major leagues for at least 3 years. Jeferson Mejia and Zack Godley have a lot of baseball to play and could turn out to be big contributors on the big club. That said there contribution is an unknown comdity while Miguel Montero was a top-tier MLB catcher.
Jerferson Mejia seems to be the prize in the trade for the Diamondbacks but reviews on him are decidedly mixed according to a story by DBack’s beat writer Nick Piecoro. One of the scouts Piecoro interviewed for his piece on AZ Central compared getting Mejia to “taking a flyer” on a guy.
"“It’s an obvious salary dump, but they did take a flyer a high upside guy,” the second scout said. “Big dude, mid-90s fastball, really no secondary to speak of at this point. But it comes out pretty clean and it’s just a question of how good his secondary pitches will get and how good his command will be. They’re taking a flyer on a guy and hoping to get lucky. I suppose if everything breaks right and he picks up a secondary pitch and commands his fastball a little better, you could get a No. 3 or 4 starter. You need more than a fastball, but it’s not a bad guy to take a flyer on in this kind of transaction.”"
Teams are supposed to “take a flyer” on an aging player with a proven track record, not on a 19-year-old right-handed pitcher. It will be years until a final judgement can be cast on this trade but on the surface it looks bad for the new Diamondback’s GM.
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