Trade for the holidays

Merry Christmas everyone, in case you haven't noticed, the Theo Epstein trade analysis is up, when I come back from holidays I'll analyze it a bit further here and work on some past ones. The White Sox and Rangers have agreed to a five player deal that will see Brandon McCarthy become a Ranger. Interesting deal, has anyone benefitted from having a surplus of pitching more than the White Sox? McCarthy has performed well out of the pen for Chicago, last season he had an ERA+ of 100 in 84.7 innings, the previous year he mostly started and had an ERA+ of 110. The 6'7 23 year old is a former 17th round pick and was traded to Texas with 18 year old outfielder David Paisano. In exchange, Chicago receives three pitchers; lefty, and former first round pick, John Danks along with righties Nick Masset and Jacob Rasner. Danks was ranked as the number one Texas prospect by baseball america, while Masset was 8th on their list. Jay Mariotti, for one, doesn't like the trade. It seems the White Sox are constantly trying to build from within and as Mariotti states this is two pitchers that are traded for prospects. This would make a lot of sense if the White Sox didn't have such a strong team.

• The Jays are finding out that Alex Rios is highly coveted...to me this should be a sign that he's going to be a special player and should be kept. But if the right package comes along...
  
• Bad News for Angels fans as Juan Rivera has broken his leg in Winter ball.
• The Yankees were taxed $26 million in luxury tax