Zack Attack!

The Royals traded Zack Greinke to the Milwaukee Brewers for a 2010 fantasy baseball SS sleeper gone wrong (Alcides Escobar), a late-season fantasy surprise CF (Lorenzo Cain), and two pitching prospects one of which has been suspended twice for using marijuana (Jeremy Jeffress) and another who hasn't pitched above single-A ball (Jake Odorizzi).

The Brewers are hoping this cover is still
true.  The Royals? Who knows what they think

The Royals have hands-down the best farm system in all of baseball, and one of the best in recent memory, but what they don't have is up-the-middle kind of players on offense.  Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers are all top flight hitting prospects, but they're corner outfielder/infielder types, not shortstops or center fielders.   So, when Greinke demanded to be traded, those were two positions the Royals wanted to fill as Yuniesky Betancourt and Melky Cabrera are more than just inadequate long-term solutions, they're among the worst regulars in major league baseball.

I understand the Royals logic before they traded Greinke. They have prospects all over the diamond except up the middle, so if they're forced to trade Zack Greinke (and he did demand a trade) they should try to fill their weaknesses.  Makes sense. The problem is in the end they just didn't get much at all in return.  All else equal it would be smart for the Royals to choose the SS/CF package, but all else wasn't equal and the Royals didn't even try to find what else there was.  

The Royals appropriately didn't want to risk having his value slip by holding on to Greinke for too long, but that only makes sense if, you know, get value in return for Greinke.  When you are trading someone like Zack Greinke, who is one of the best pitchers in baseball, is young and signed to a reasonable deal, you expect to get a possible star player in return.  The Royals chose quantity over quality which in this scenario is easy to quantify, as a horrible decision.

The Brewers, safe to say, did pretty, pretty good in acquiring Zack Greinke.  As a small market team who can't afford to resign Prince Fielder and in a market deep with 1b/DH types, the Brewers were smart to not trade Prince for $0.50 on the dollar or ride him out on a sub-par team and watch him leave in 2011.  By gutting their farm system the Brewers fixed their rotation adding 2 top pitchers (Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum) to go along with Yovani Gallardo and the 4th best offense in the NL last year, instantly becoming playoff contenders.  This time next year the Brewers may, and very likely will, be waving goodbye to Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks but that was a realistic scenario before this trade, and because of it they may be waving goodbye with an NL Central ring on their hand, or whatever else teams give out these days, which doesn't happen very often in Milwaukee.