Trade Deadline recap

Here's who the Pirates have traded today:

Arizona Diamondbacks: C Chris Snyder and SS Pedro Ciriaco(prospect) for RP DJ Carrasco, 2B/SS Bobby Crosby, and OF Ryan Church.

San Francisco Giants: SP Joe Martinez and 1B/OF John Bowker for RP Javier Lopez.

Los Angeles Dodgers: RP James McDonald and OF Andrew Lambo for RP Octavio Dotel.

Chris Snyder is a decent catcher whose career BA is .233, with a high of .277 in 2006 and a low of .200 in 2009.  This year he's hitting .231.  He had a career high of 16 HRs in 2008, and he has 10 this year, well on track to match or exceed that output. My guess is that he will take over the starting catching job with Kratz as the backup.  They can then decide how Doumit fits in, if at all, when he comes back.  Pedro Ciriaco seems like a decent SS prospect, something the Bucs have been lacking lately.  He's similar to Argenis Diaz, and he will presumably join AAA Indianapolis. Hate to see Carrasco go, but I'm not at all sad to see Church gone and frankly I'm surprised anyone would want him, even if he was fluff in this trade, with the real meat being Carrasco. Bobby Crosby was okay, and was a decent backup for Cedeno at times.

Joe Martinez has only pitched in a handful of games for the Giants and his ERA hasn't exactly been stellar. He was a 12th rounder in the 2005 draft. John Bowker is a weak outfielder whose career stats are not that great. Both of them will head to Indy. Lopez was okay, but not exactly great, so if either one of these guys pan out I'll call it a win.

James McDonald is a decent relief pitcher who pitched well last year, but hasn't had many games this year. He can start and relieve, so presumably he'll replace Carrasco or Lopez in the bullpen for now. Lambo is a pretty talented prospect whose career got derailed somewhat for violating the drug policy.  He was the #3 prospect in the Dodgers organization at the beginning of the year, so this trade looks like a big win for the Bucs at this point.  He'll head to Altoona, I'm guessing. Dotel was great as a closer for the Bucs this year, but he was only supposed to be here until Meek was ready to take over the closer role, and Meek definitely seems ready after his All-Star berth this year.

Surprisingly neither Paul Maholm nor Zach Duke garnered any interest, so they will the stay with the team.  All 3 of these trades seem like wins at this point, but trades have looked good before only to fail miserably, so we'll just have to wait and see how these turn out.