While fans and pundits alike declare winners and losers of trades only seconds after they've been announced and before the players involved take the field for their new teams, it takes years before we can accurately assess which club truly came out ahead in a deal.
That's especially true for trades involving prospects—many still years away from potentially making an impact in the big leagues. We know all too well that minor league success doesn't necessarily translate into big league stardom.
Of course, none of that stops us from continuing to declare winners and losers, and with two weeks of the regular season in the books, now is as good a time as any to take a look at the scorecard for the teams involved in some of the offseason's biggest trades.
It's tempting to label the Arizona Diamondbacks as losers, given the price they paid for Shelby Miller and his awful numbers (3 GS, 8.53 ERA, 1.82 WHIP). But the D-backs did well in their other big deal for Jean Segura (12 G, .333 BA, 7 XBH [3 HR], 6 RBI, 6 R), so those two essentially cancel each other out.
But worry not, for even without Arizona in the mix, there were plenty of teams that made significant offseason trades to choose from. What follows is a look at the two biggest winners—and the biggest loser—thus far.
Winners: New York Yankees
It might seem odd to label the 4-6 Yankees a winner given their losing record and the fact that their biggest offseason addition, Aroldis Chapman, has yet to make his regular-season debut while he serves a 30-game suspension. But the Yankees found a long-term answer at second base in Starlin Castro.
Acquired from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for right-handed starter/reliever Adam Warren and veteran infielder Brendan Ryan—one of the eight players the Yankees tried as a replacement for Robinson Cano over the past two years—Castro has been everything the Bronx Bombers could have hoped he'd be.
The three-time All-Star is hitting .342 with a 171 wRC+, has reached base safely in eight of the 10 games in which he's played and, per ESPN's Mark Simon, set a team record with seven RBI through his first two games in pinstripes. A day later, he broke his own record:
Considering that Ryan, Dustin Ackley, Stephen Drew, Gregorio Petit, Jose Pirela, Martin Prado, Rob Refsnyder and Brian Roberts hit a combined .225 with a 78 wRC+ while playing second base in the Bronx, it's easy to appreciate how much of an upgrade Castro represents.
Not only has the 26-year-old been an improvement at the plate, but he's proving to be a superior defender over that group as well, delivering highlight-reel plays like this:
Just entering the prime of his career and under team control through 2019 for a reasonable $40.4 million (through 2020 if the club exercises a $16 million option for 2020), this deal could ultimately go down as one of the best that general manager Brian Cashman ever made.
Losers: Houston Astros
Astros GM Jeff Luhnow swung a number of trades during the offseason, but none was bigger than the five-pitcher package he sent to Philadelphia for 25-year-old reliever Ken Giles and 17-year-old infielder Jonathan Arauz, who is years away from potentially making an impact.
It was assumed at the time of the deal that Giles would supplant reliever Luke Gregerson as Houston's closer. But Astros manager A.J. Hinch ultimately decided to stick with the veteran reliever in the ninth inning and use Giles as a setup man instead.
So far, the results have not been good. Giles has allowed five earned runs and five hits over 4.2 innings of work, walking one and striking out seven. While the strikeouts remain, he's become home run-prone, serving up three round-trippers.
How home run-prone has he become? Consider this: Heading into the season, he had allowed three home runs over 115.2 innings of relief—all coming at the bandbox known as Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park.
To his credit, Hinch isn't about to give up on a talent like Giles that quickly.
"He's been effective except for one pitch or two pitches in an outing, and it's hard to take him out of his role when it's really one mistake," Hinch told the Houston Chronicle's Jake Kaplan. "If it was a colossal struggle for him, it would be a little bit different."
That said, Giles has been more of a liability than an asset—and that's enough to label the Astros as one of the offseason's biggest losers through two weeks of the regular season.
Winners: Philadelphia Phillies
Like his counterpart in Houston, Philadelphia GM Matt Klentak was one of the busier front office executives in the game during the offseason. He made a number of trades as he tries to guide the franchise through its long-overdue rebuilding process.
Adding former American League Rookie of the Year Jeremy Hellickson from Arizona in exchange for minor league pitcher Sam McWilliams has paid off, with the 29-year-old allowing only two earned runs and six hits over his first two starts before Washington roughed him up in his last outing.
But none of Klentak's deals look as good as the aforementioned Giles-to-Houston trade. Philadelphia added five young pitchers in that move, including Mark Appel, the top overall pick in the 2013 draft, and Vincent Velasquez, who has emerged as the breakout star of the season.
The 23-year-old right-hander has opened the season with 15 scoreless innings, over which he's scattered six hits, walked three and struck out a National League-leading 25 batters. His most recent outing, against San Diego, found him passing one of the game's legendary aces in Philadelphia's record books:
A performance like that draws high praise, even from the opposing dugout.
"There's riding life in the zone with his fastball," Padres manager Andy Green told MLB.com's Todd Zolecki after the game. "It was explosive, reminds me of when I saw (Max) Scherzer going as well as he goes, and that fastball is literally exploding through the zone."
While it's far too early to put Velasquez in the same class as Scherzer—and you'd come off looking like a fool were you to even suggest he was anywhere close to the same stratosphere as a Hall of Fame talent like Steve Carlton—he's gotten off to about as good a start as humanly possible.
If nothing else, Velasquez has helped to bring hope back to Philadelphia, which is something that hasn't been offered at Citizens Bank Park for years. That alone makes the Phillies winners, even if their record says otherwise.
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs, and they are current through April 16. All contract information courtesy of Cot's Contracts (via Baseball Prospectus).
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