Kevin Towers has acquired another capital C closer for his Diamondbacks, picking up White Sox stopper Addison Reed in exchange for third baseman Matt Davidson. Towers traded Heath Bell to the Rays earlier this month, and still has J.J. Putz in the fold in Phoenix.
Chicago was rumored to be listening on Reed, who turns 25 at the end of this month, all offseason, and Rick Hahn finally pulled the trigger. In 2013, Reed saved 40 games for the White Sox, posting a 3.79 ERA to go along with 72 strikeouts and 23 walks in 71 1/3 innings. He won't be eligible for arbitration until after the 2014 season.
Davidson, who was Arizona's #5 prospect going into the 2013 season, heads back to Chicago in the trade. And honestly, his trade seemed to be in the cards for awhile, especially after last winter's acquisition of Martin Prado, who was later given a contract extension. The 22-year old Davidson spent nearly all of the 2013 season with AAA Reno, hitting .280/.350/.481 with 17 homers. In a 31 game stint in the majors to close out the 2013 season, Davidson hit .237/.333/.434 with three home runs.
This is the second trade the Diamondbacks have made with the White Sox over the last week, following the three-way trade also involving the Angels that sent Adam Eaton to the South Side and brought Mark Trumbo to the desert. Trumbo's acquisition made Davidson even more expendable, and was the final nail in the coffin of his Arizona career.
Considering that the White Sox seemed prepared to go into the 2014 season with Jeff Keppinger at third, acquiring Davidson is a no-brainer for them. His acquisition, along with that of Eaton and the signing of Cuban Jose Abreu, gives Chicago a much younger core of players compared to where they were at the end of the 2013 season – something that looked impossible given the state of their farm system.
As for the Diamondbacks, they add yet another power arm to their bullpen, but Reed isn't exactly Craig Kimbrel. He's very fly ball prone as a pitcher, and going from US Cellular Field to Chase Field isn't going to dramatically make his gopher ball tendencies vanish. I'm stunned at the degree to which Towers is going all-in on the 2014 season. Since the end of the 2012 season, he's traded Tyler Skaggs, Trevor Bauer, Eaton, Davidson, and David Holmberg – five of the organization's top six prospects last winter. In return for those five players, all the Diamondbacks have to show for themselves is Trumbo, Reed, and shortstop Didi Gregorius – not a great use of resources, in my opinion. I'm not even really sure if Reed makes them a dramatically better team, and Davidson might have been able to be used for a better purpose for the club.
