Now on to the big news items of the day:

-    Diamondbacks deal Carlos Gonzales, Brett Anderson, Dana Eveland, Greg Smith, Chris Carter, and Aaron Cunningham to the Oakland Athletics for Dan Haren and Connor Robertson.
-    Diamondbacks deal Jose Valverde to the Houston Astros for Chris Burke, Chad Qualls, and Juan Gutierrez.

Let's address the "smaller" deal first:

Essentially the Diamondback get a player who can play CF/2B - and replaces Alberto Callaspo, dealt to the Royals earlier today -  a set-up man, and a 23 year old swingman for their closer who was under team control for the next two seasons. Not sure I really get this deal for the Backs, but for the Astros it looks great, except the whole thing about their rotation being Roy Oswalt and not much else, and their bullpen being Doug Brocail and now Valverde.

For whatever questions the Valverde deal made the Haren deal should cease them. Josh Byrnes dug deep and definitely paid for Haren, but you have to admit that Brandon Webb, Haren, and Micah Owings form one hell of a 1-2-3 punch. You all know about Haren; essentially he's good for 200 innings and a sub-4 ERA, which is very valuable, although I'm not sure he's 3.07 ERA good. Bill James has him down for a 3.7 ERA next year, that's pretty much in line what I'd expect - particularly considering that his HR/FB  rates were down a bit from his career averages, and his line drive rate was also down.

Connor Robertson is a 25 year old reliever who in Sacramento last year posted a 4.35 ERA in 31 games, 39 innings pitched with a 1.63 WHIP - higher than his  career 1.25 WHIP. Robertson will probably see some burn in the Arizona bullpen before this year is over, and very well may start the year there.

As for the players the A's acquired, here's a rundown of each:

Gonzales, the Backs' best prospect, has a cannon, he's 21, and has a career line of .287/.340/.478 and could begin the season as the A's center fielder - there was some speculation behind that idea not too long ago.

Anderson was ranked third on the recent BA list, and that's pretty impressive for a 19 year old pitching in high-A. He got touched up just a bit in Visalia - has a good slider, reminds me of J.P. Howell, but I'd expect him to fare better than that.

I'll just quote what Mike said about Chris Carter a week or so ago:

I've never actually heard about Greg Smith, his numbers are pretty good, and he's a lefty, I'd assume Eveland and Smith might find their way into the Oakland pitching staff before this season's end.

It's a bit interesting that Beane would deal Haren with three seasons more of control over him, I suppose he might knowing something we don't, that or he just really loves the six players he got - the more likely scenario as he basically takes half of the D-Backs top ten prospect list.