The fire sale continues

Rick Ankiel and Kyle Farnsworth are gone, finally! There's not another pitcher in team history that had an ERA as low as Farnsworth's 2.42 and was simultaneously hated by Royals fans. Well hate may be too strong, how about extreme dislike? There was rejoicing in the streets when the trade was announced and really I don't think anybody cared who KC was getting in return. When fans said they'd trade Farnsworth for already chewed bubble gum they meant it. And I would have figured that Ankiel was simply untradeable but the .407/.448/.630 line he put up over his final seven games must have tempted the Braves into thinking he can still hit.

But KC actually did get back some value, Gregor Blanco seems to be another Mitch Maier in that he can play all three outfield positions while not embarrassing himself with the bat (.361 career OBP in 633 PA's). He won't be a star and maybe not even a starter (though as an ex-Brave I'm sure he will be) but he won't be Willie Bloomquist either. I'm not sure why KC also received Jesse Chavez, he did appear to be useful for Pittsburgh last year but has been dreadful for the Braves this season. I imagine if he can't be fixed into something serviceable he won't be around long.

Those two alone would have made the trade worth it just to rid the roster of Ankiel and Farnsworth but Moore somehow got the Braves to throw in Tim Collins, a small pitcher with big time stuff. He's listed at 5'7" but is said to be closer to 5'5", which was the listed size of a certain Royals hall of famer. As Yoda once said a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, "size matters not", and it's true because Collins minor league career has been nothing short of phenomenal.

Year	Lev	W	L	ERA	G	SV	IP	H	HR	BB	SO	WHIP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	SO/9	SO/BB
2007	Rk	0	0	4.50	7	0	6.0	6	0	2	7	1.333	9.0	0.0	3.0	10.5	3.50
2008	A	4	2	1.58	39	14	68.1	36	3	32	98	0.995	4.7	0.4	4.2	12.9	3.06
2009	A+-AA	9	7	2.91	49	3	77.1	59	3	35	116	1.216	6.9	0.3	4.1	13.5	3.31
2010	AA	1	0	2.29	41	11	51.0	31	5	19	87	0.980	5.5	0.9	3.4	15.4	4.58
4 Seasons		14	9	2.35	136	28	202.2	132	11	88	308	1.086	5.9	0.5	3.9	13.7	3.50

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

What's impressive is that with each level he's advanced he has upped his SO/9, I'm guessing he won't keep that up for AAA Omaha, I mean 15.4 is absurdly ridiculous. I'll be taking in my first Omaha Royals game soon and I'm really hoping he makes an appearance.

Despite finding offers for Jose Guillen insufficient I felt Moore did a good job handling the deadline. True he didn't land a stud bat but he wasn't exactly offering much either. I think a fifth starter (O'Sullivan), three relief pitchers (Collins, Chavez, Pimentel), a catcher with limited upside (May), and an outfielder that gets on base (Blanco) is a pretty good haul for Moore, especially considering what he gave up (meaning not much). Add in Kila Ka'aihue getting called up and you could consider this a great weekend even if the team didn't just take the final three games of the Orioles series. But they did and that just made the weekend even sweeter!