Wonderboy to Rangers

This won't be Jamey Newberg quality, but here we go anyways. The Reds swapped Josh Hamilton for Edinson Volquez and Danny Ray Herrera.

Jon Daniels has proven to be a risk taker in trades since taking over for John Hart and some of those haven't worked out so well - like trading Alfonso Soriano, Chris Young, and Adrian Gonzalez. He's also had his fair share of deadline deals outside of just the Eric Gagne and Mark Teixeria deals remember when he acquired Carlos Lee?

Essentially the two teams here swapped future potential stars for each other - the Rangers giving up the last part of DVD, and the Reds sending their Rule 5 prized pig.

Let's start with the Rangers - Hamilton is a risk, but every player in this trade is - he's become injury prone, and there's always the lingering possibility that he might recede back into the depths of drug usage. Despite missing a ton of time last year he showed a power stroke - versus righties at least, he boasted a 1.028 OPS against his handiness he only managed a .588 one, he also had a lower OPS away from the Great American Ballpark, but it's not as if Arlington is a huge offensive drop off.

Volquez showed some signs of life last year as a 23 year old he was league average but has far superior stuff than his performance suggested, he just allowed too many baserunners. He's a flyball pitcher so heading to a better hitter's park (through park factors) may or may not work out for him. Herrera is a screwball reliever, not sure exactly how far you can project him out, but the Reds could do worse for a minor league arm.