I’m pretty excited about this deal.

First, in principle, the Mariners were wise to flip a young pitcher for a young hitter of equal or greater caliber. Long story short: we have enough pitching that the drop off between a Mariner starter and their replacement is considerably less than that between a Mariner hitter and their replacement.

Second, in practice, I think there’s plenty of reason to believe that Montero is a young hitter of equal or greater caliber to Pineda.

Look, Pineda was great. He was one of our few bright spots over the last few years. But I’m not sure that Pineda will be better than a #2 starter. First, Pineda doesn’t have a third pitch, let alone fourth, and that really hurts, especially when it comes to left handed hitters. Second, he’s quite dependent on plus plus fastball velocity, and there’s no guarantee that he holds it over the medium run, even if he doesn’t get injured. If you don’t believe me, check out Felix’s declining fastball velocity over the last few years. Now, Pineda could become a #1 starter given his age, uncanny fastball control, and room for improvement, but I would have liked to see more improvement in his change up.

I look at it like this: if you believe that Pineda is already an occasional All Star, with the potential to contend for a Cy Young (if everything goes right), then I think we would want a hitter who we can *expect* to become an occasional All Star, with the potential to contend for an MVP.

I believe Montero is such a player. Even his (relative) detractors, like David Cameron, compare him to Carlos Lee, a career .286/.339/.491 hitter. Now, if Montero does that at DH, that might make him an All Star once in a career year. But Montero’s advocates have a much more ambitious vision of his potential. Both tonight and in the past, I have read comparisons to Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Delgado. Now, even if Montero doesn’t put up a career .929 or .950 OPS, that’s the type of hitter who will flirt with an MVP in a career year. If Montero matches those formidable hitters, then we really are talking about an MVP caliber player. I don’t pretend to know whether Montero is a true talent .840 OPS or .940 OPS hitter. From a stats perspective, his last two minor league seasons have been a little short of what one might expect from the latter. That said, minor league stats aren’t perfect, and there’s a reason (besides false hopes of catching) why he’s been ranked at times as the best pure hitting prospect in the minor leagues.  

The best reason to be upset with this deal, as far as I can tell, is that we didn’t screw over the Yankees like the Padres screwed the Reds. At the time, the baseball punditry universally condemned the deal as an overpay, but somehow an “overpay” has suddenly become “market value.” That’s not what “market value” means.  Market value rises and falls with supply and demand, not in the context of opportunities lost in December. Unless someone can demonstrate that the Mariners had a better offer on the table, or could have had such an offer, the “market value” argument doesn’t hold. Just because the Reds went a little off the deep end doesn’t mean that the Mariners should refuse to accept any offer which doesn’t commensurately overpay.

For the record, I’m disappointed by the decision to include Campos-Noesi. That said, I’m pretty impressed by what I’ve read of Noesi’s combination of control and fastball velocity, and I don’t think it’s as bad as some make it out to be, given that Noesi can compete for a job this spring and the risks involved with 19 year old pitchers. At the very least, it’s not bad enough to outweigh the relative benefit of re-balancing the organization somewhat more in the direction of hitting.

The bottom line is that the range of possibilities for both Montero and Pineda are relatively comparable. Given the Mariners organization needs, trading a pitcher for a comparable hitter is a win. If you’re not quite convinced, you can revisit my case here, where I elaborated on the logic underpinning this type of deal, including the possibility of trading Pineda for Montero in the comments.