Thoughts about this trade: 1. Even when Stearns is shipping out a top prospect, he's still bringing in more players than he's shipping out. This was something he discussed a lot during the rebuilding cycle, but it's hard to do when buying vs. selling. If Pomeranz helps stabilize the bullpen and get us to the playoffs, it's probably a fair deal. If Black can turn into a late inning reliever for a few years, it's probably a fair deal. Stearns would rather have multiple avenues to get value out of this trade. 2. At the same time, Black is a weird trade target. He just turned 29, he has no options remaining next year, which means he probably better figure something out in the next couple months, otherwise he may not even make the team next year (same reasoning applies to Faria, except he's a few years younger). I think you have to look at this deadline's moves all at once rather than individually, especially the Aguilar/Dubon trades. Stearns is essentially trying to buy upside for as low a cost as possible, and if he buys enough upside, maybe one of these guys will turn out and be worth all the trades. Even if Lyles can keep us in games for the next month or two, that will go a long way to justifying all of these trades. For this year and the future, I'd kinda rather take my chances that Grisham is an impact bat than make a deal depleting what's left of the farm to get a "TOR" guy with huge question marks, which is pretty much all that was available at the deadline. I think the Stroman deal just got everyone's hopes up that all these guys might be available for a price we'd be willing to pay, but that just wasn't the case. I think these moves aren't the best to help us win this year, but they're the best when taken as a whole (also combined with the moves Stearns didn't make) to help us win for the next 2-3 years.
