Thursday, July 21, 2016

D'Backs Find Themselves Defending Trade Of Ziegler

An odd firestorm has broken out over the trade that sent now-closer Brad Ziegler to Boston. As Jon Heyman of TodaysKnuckleBall.com points out, a few teams are charging that they offered Arizona better prospect packages for Ziegler than the Red Sox (who sent Jose Almonte and Luis Alejandro Basabe westward). There are even anonymous charges that Arizona honcho Tony LaRussa engineered the 'sweetheart' deal with his old White Sox buddy Dave Dombrowski. This has resulted in an angry response from Diamiondbacks GM Dave Stewart, who stated, "Tony would not compromise the organization by settling for a player who doesn’t make sense. You’re talking about the integrity of the man. And I’m the GM, so you’re talking about the integrity of two men." The D-Backs insist that Boston's two prospects are legit and other teams did not offer anything better for Ziegler. An interesting sidelight to this controversy is the theory (mostly on the Internet) that Arizona mistook Basabe (a second baseman) for his twin brother is the Sox organization Luis Alexander Basabe, a switch-hitting outfielder, who might actually be better than his twin. Gotta love it!