Offseason Trades

The Astros have strung together a fury of trades over the past few days let's take a second to see what implications they have for 2011 and beyond.
One of the first moves Ed Wade made after being named GM was to sign Yordany Ramirez to a minor league deal. Two years (and four CFers) later Yordany finally found himself with a big league role. After hitting over .300 for the month of September and fielding a slick CF his stock was never higher. So like with Bourn and then Schafer, the Astros attempted to sell high. This time they netted Jay Bruce who's everything Jason Lane was supposed to be.

Next up the Astros shipped Brad James to CIN for 3M cash which they immediately invested into their winterball club. The ultimate goal is to try and hone in some of the skills of the prospects they picked up this year.

Then late last night, amongst the blizzard of trades and FA, a Blockbuster came through that sent SS Hanley Ramirez to BOS. But, wait, this is a Houston blog so what is this guy talking about, right? Well they managed to land top Boston prospect Ryan Westmoreland. Rumor mills had HOU discussing deals with Boston all season long but to no avail. FLA is the clear winner here getting two top shelf prospects and HOU's 3rd round pick from last June, Fitz, for Hanley. While BOS managed to get RF Carter, a Nick Johnson wannabe, from HOU to lessen the blow of dealing three top 100 prospects for Hanley.

It seems like a rare Win-Win-Win three way trade. The real winner as far as the Astros are concerned is clearly the Express who get treated to some of the best minor league talent of the last few years in 2011.