...to be proclaiming any of these players all-stars or aces.  Or platoon guys or duds, for that matter.

We'll have a better indication in a year or so, but whether it turns out or not, I think this is a reasonable deal.  There's risk on both sides.  Sure, maybe Hobbs will be an all-star next year.  But maybe he'll be on the DL, in rehab, or struggling to adjust to a league that has figured him out.  

And maybe next year, Volquez will be a proven starter, and much more expensive.

There's a saying about Wall St.: "Bulls make money, bears make money, but hogs get slaughtered."  It means "don't get greedy."  The Reds are selling high.  I'm not going to worry about whether they could sell higher if they waited.  They have a surplus of outfielders and a shortage of pitching.  And Texas needs a big bat a lot more than the Reds do.  This deal fills a need on both sides.

what is Volquez's contract status?  am i wrong in thinking we still have this dude for 6 years?  he has never pitched more than 40 innings of ML baseball in a season, but he's done it three years running.  are those his three non-arb years and he is eligible for arb now?  or do they not count because they were so short?  if someone has a better understanding of this, please elaborate.

i have to post this somewhere. I see this move as idiotic, why would we trade a potential all-star who was a 5 tool player. Hamilton was a great defender, had an amazing arm, great power, and hit for a .290 batting average, he was also more affordable than dunn and seemed he was an icon in cincinnati. He was traded for a pitcher just as good as two we already have, bailey and cueto. Why in the world would we trade hamilton at his lowest value, because of injuries, for a young pitcher who has struggled at all levels? I know everyone is saying that bruce is ready, and he might be but it would have been nice to have a backup plan if bruce struggles in the transition, i really dont see hopper or freel as a backup. Why do we buy a 13 million dollar option for someone who even though he is a great homerun hitter, but has a week arm and isnt above average fielder with so many strikeouts. I really think this is a bad move and will comeback to haunt cincinnati, what are we gonna do when griffey gets hurt again this year? Start freel and hopper????

to speak like an obnoxious economist for a minute here.

I think it's important to remember that we have to evaluate trades ex ante (i.e. from before) on the basis of, well, the players' expected value to the team and the risk involved in those players.  It's not so helpful to evaluate things ex post, since then we have all this information about how the players actually performed that we didn't have when we made the trade.  Sure, we can argue about whether, knowing what we know now, that was a good move to make, but how useful is that?

These players are all pretty risky, so it's particularly hard to evaluate their expected value.  I see Hamilton as a $1000 investment that maybe has a 10% chance of paying a hundred thousand dollars, a 25% chance of paying $10,000, a 15% chance of paying $2,000, and a 50% chance of being a total loss.  Maybe my numbers are different from what you'd estimate, but going with those, his expected value is $12,800.  Would you trade a player with a possible $100,000 upside straight up for a player worth $12,800, guaranteed?  Would you trade him for one worth $10,000 guaranteed (i.e. you're risk averse), or would you value that possible upside even more and insist on $20,000 for him?  

It's even harder to estimate these things when all players involved are pretty risky.  And then of course the two teams could have very different values on the players (which seems the very best type of trade).  In particular, the value of Hamilton to the Reds is his value over his replacement.  If that's Bruce, we could be looking at no drop in output at all.  If it's Freel/Hopper, it could be different, but still...

If we gave up a potential All Star but replace him with an All Star, we've given up very little.  To me, the payoff of the trade rests mostly on what our outfield will be.  If it's Dunn/Hopper/Jr., with a high risk of Jr. going down and being replaced by Freel, this trade isn't nearly as good as if we plan on Dunn/Bruce/Jr. with Hopper and Freel as possible replacements.