Zack Greinke Dealt To Los Angeles Angels

To get Zack Greinke, they gave up:

When they traded Zack Greinke, they received:

What we knew first was nothing. What we knew next was that Zack Greinke was going from the Brewers to the Angels, and that Jean Segura and two pitchers were going from the Angels to the Brewers. Now we have all of the details. The Angels are up one ace, and the Brewers are up three pretty good prospects.

Before the year, Baseball America ranked Mike Trout the No. 1 prospect in the Angels’ system, of course. They ranked Jean Segura No. 2, Johnny Hellweg No. 4, and Ariel Pena No. 9. Segura is a 22-year-old shortstop. Hellweg is a 23-year-old righty who stands 6-foot-9. Pena is a 23-year-old righty.

It’s a different kind of maybe now. Maybe Greinke just likes the idea of choosing his employer for the first time in his 11-year professional career. With Cain and Hamels out of the offseason picture -- and with them signing huge deals without the competitive frenzy of the open market -- maybe Greinke likes the idea of building a 14,000-square-foot treehouse out of platinum bars. He’s definitely going to test the market, and the Brewers are definitely going to trade him.

Now it’s time to be vultures and see who might trade for him. It looks like there are four different suitors, and here they are from unlikeliest to likeliest.

Zack Greinke is officially available, and Jayson Stark has narrowed the list of serious suitors to just four teams:

My money’s on the White Sox, for the simple reason that they’re in the middle of the closest race for a division title; granted, that can easily change before the trade deadline. But as Stark notes, it might not make much sense to trade two good minor-league prospects simply to boost your chances of getting into that one-game Wild Card playoff.

“We’re taking phone calls,” Melvin told WTMJ’s Greg Matzek. “We’ve been working here. I’m in the office in the ‘war room’ already. It’s a busy week. At this point we have to listen to opportunities to improve the ball club for the future and still try to win ball games now.”

Asked by Matzek how many teams have contacted him about Greinke, Melvin said, “There’s a lot of teams that make contact. You try to narrow the list down in that regard. You take the serious ones.

Two clouds, really.

There was the performance cloud: In his last four starts, Greinke had given up 15 runs in 14 innings. He’d struggled so badly that the Brewers gave him 10 days off between starts. He’d struggled so badly that suddenly there were some questions about his trade value.

Plenty of teams want things they never get. The Rangers might reach August without having added a starting pitcher of considerable value, if they add a starter at all. But don’t think the Rangers won’t sniff around the most expensive cheeses. They are a people of wealth, and of exceptional taste.

We don’t know a whole lot about people. Even the people we know the best have things about them we don’t know and never will. People who aren’t close friends or relatives are closer to being complete mysteries than they are to being understood. We don’t know strangers, even if we know a few things about them, and this obviously carries over to athletes and professional baseball players, whom we know for their skills. We’ve got a pretty good grasp on which baseball players can best perform which baseball activities. The players, the people themselves ... well, we don’t know the people, nor do we usually care to.

Right now, Greinke’s had his next start pushed back. The Brewers want him to “recharge his batteries,” and this isn’t helping his trade value. He’s probably fine, though. And as for this:

Buuuuuut, they have to prepare for the possibility that Greinke is determined to try this wacky free-agency idea out. And if that’s the case, they might as well get some prospects for their ace. According to Jon Heyman, the White Sox are considering a move for the right-hander:

The White Sox also have the worst farm system in baseball according to John Sickels, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and FanGraphs, but other than that, I’m sure they’re loaded with chips to trade to the Brewers. I’m sure Kenny Williams can do something ... and I’m just dying to see what it is.

Yes, that happened and it was really strange.

Unfortunately, Greinke didn’t pitch well in those three games. In the first, he was ejected after throwing four pitches. In the second and third, he got knocked out early. Overall, he gave up 10 runs in eight inning over the three games, his ERA jumping from 3.08 to 3.57 in an instant ... which made Tony La Russa look a bit smarter for not choosing Greinke for the All-Star Game.

The problem is that Greinke is good at baseballing, and he’s been the best pitcher for the Brewers this year. The Brewers would love to keep him, and according to Jon Heyman, they’re going to make a concerted efford to do so:

It’s still exceptionally likely that Greinke will wait for the bidding war of free agency. But whether the Brewers trade him away or not, this might be a sign that they’ll be one of the participants in the bidding war.

We’ve already touched the Orioles (here) and the Braves (here), so I won’t belabor their chances.

It’s the Brewers’ chances I’d like to explore.

But I can’t predict anything. All we can say for mostly-sure is that the Orioles are aggressively interested in Zack Greinke. They might not get him, if anybody gets him, but it’s been a while since we could talk about the Orioles in this way. It’s kind of refreshing.

What O’Brien means is that he thinks the Braves might still try to trade for Greinke even if they can’t get him signed to an extension right away. He lays out his thinking in a blog post. The Braves have young and talented arms to deal for an older and talented arm, and Greinke lives in Florida, which isn’t far from Atlanta. The Braves have the players to swing a Greinke trade, and the circumstances are such that Greinke would probably consider sticking with the Braves for a while.

The Brewers won’t trade Greinke today or tomorrow, and if they do decide to move him, there would be a handful of contenders. But you can put the Braves up there at the top of the list.

Here’s the situation: Zack Greinke is exceptionally good, and he’s a pending free agent. The Brewers were hoping to be good, but they are not, so there’s a possibility that they could trade Greinke for prospects before the deadline. If they can’t sign him to an extension, which they’d probably like to do.

The Rangers are good, and they’re always in the market for help. God knows they have plenty of young talent they could exchange for more big-league-ready talent. They’ve fallen victim to some pitching injuries. And so on, and so on.