Suddenly, we learn that Pete O'Brien was terrible?

Plays no position... giant hole in his swing... strikes out way too often... projected as another Rob Deer... no real loss... now sure what Arizona was thinking...

Yep, once again, the Yankees have made a mockery of the game by using their smarts to pick another team's pockets, and get a star player for next to nothing. New York should start now to plan the victory parade down the Canyon of Heroes, considering the incredible improvements on this team, at no cost to the future.

The Evils today traded Pete O'Brien, one of their farm system's great surprises of 2014, and one of two Yankee prospects selected for the recent Futures Game. (Two weeks ago, we traded Rafael DePaula, last year's representative, whose projections were also quickly rewritten to say he is too old; are we seeing a trend here?)  Last week, the Yankiverse celebrated every O'Brien home run - third most in minor league baseball. Now, the peanut gallery assures us that he was never going to be any good. Funny how that works.

They traded O'Brien to Arizona for 30-year-old INF Martin Prado, whose record you can judge for yourself, on the upper right box. He has 5 HRs this year, same as Brian Roberts. (Whom we'll get to later.) Arizona traded Prado after deciding he isn't worth the $11 million per year they must pay him through 2016. To Arizona, that's a bloated, excessive contract. To the Yankees, it's normalcy. I dunno. Maybe Prado can play 2B next year, since - considering O'Brien's revisionist history - up and coming prospect Rob Refsnyder is another dud-in-waiting - no position, hole in swing, etc.  Maybe our entire system is full of phantoms.

We also traded Kelly Johnson for Steven Drew, straight up, which is sort of like trading shingles for rickets. We'll take Drew's stupid one-year contract, and the Redsocks assume Johnson's stupid two-year contract. Drew hasn't hit this year, but the Yankees say he was hot lately, like Chase Headley and Brandon McCarthy were, before we nabbed them. Seeing a trend here?

One more point worth noting, if not celebrating:

Brian Roberts is gone, waived, dropped, vanished, DFAed, surgically deleted from the grid... so long, suckah.

Let the record show that Brian gave the Yankees everything he had. It just wasn't enough. Nevertheless, the Evil Empire did him dirt, dumping the guy just two at-bats shy of receiving a huge bonus. Not only that, but Girardi didn't play him in the last two games - (claiming he needed a rest.) It looks pretty creepy, a multi-billion dollar organization that simply didn't want to pay a guy. Yankee pride? Gimmie a break. For a franchise that bleeds money, that's being frickin' chintzy. These days, I guess screwing the players is what passes for Yankee ingenuity.

Well, what's done is done. On to Boston. We patched a few leaks. Let's see what new ones are ready to spring.