NEWSLETTER
Tony Campana had trade value after all.
A week after designating the speedy outfielder for assignment to open up room for Scott Hairston, the Cubs managed to trade Campana to the Arizona Diamondbacks (ACQUIRE ALL THE OUTFIELDERS!) for a couple of 17-year-old Venezuelan pitching prospects.
The pitchers are both righties, Erick Leal and Jesus Castillo, whom I will now research extensively. Jed Hoyer called them “projectable arms,” which means the Cubs don’t hate them. Still, we’re talking about teenagers who’ve only played professionally in the Dominican Summer League (below rookie ball), so there isn’t a whole lot of certainty here.
It’s likely a worthwhile return for a guy who simply didn’t have a spot on the Cubs right now. Campana will get a shot to play off the Diamondbacks bench, and I can’t help but wish him well.
By the way: Tony had clear trade value. If the Cubs had resorted to waiving Campana, the Diamondbacks would have had the 7th highest priority for claiming him. That means that, because they gave up actual value to trade for him, they expected (1) another team was going to trade for him, and/or (2) one of the crappy NL teams would have claimed him first if he’d been waived. Seems pretty clear now that the Cubs knew they could trade him when he was DFA’d.
