Oakland trades for closer and moral quandary, Jeurys Familia

With Manny Machado and Brad Hand off the market, the trade dominoes are starting to fall.

We’re less than a few weeks away from the trade deadline passing, which means more dominoes are expected to fall in the coming days. Once Manny Machado was dealt, the clog backing up most trade pipes was cleared, and since then we’ve had a handful of deals completed.

Most of those deals, including another coast-to-coaster that went down on Saturday, involve bullpen arms. Brad Hand was seen as the top reliever on the market but was dealt to Cleveland on Thursday. Now Mets closer and moral quandary Jeurys Familia is on the move as well.

It was a deal that could have gone down on Friday night but didn’t end up coming together until the following afternoon, but Oakland has bolstered its already fantastic bullpen with a devastating closer. Familia represents a deadly force in late-inning situations as well as a carrying with him serious baggage that not all fans will be willing to accept.

Here is what the trade looked like on Saturday night:

Oakland Athletics

Already boasting one of the most surprisingly good bullpens in baseball, the A’s now added a lockdown closer to the mix as they push for the playoffs. With Seattle starting to look unstable, there’s an opening for Oakland to push for the second Wild Card spot in the AL, and acquiring Familia is directly about closing down games in the postseason.

It’s not a move for the greater good of the community.

While many will tout this as a move Billy Beane made to bring in a guy he thinks can help Oakland make a dent in the postseason, it’s impossible to divorce Familia’s past. It’s one that involves a suspension for brutal domestic abuse. Trading for a guy with a history of domestic violence harkens back to when the Chicago Cubs danced with the devil in a similar light, dealing for Aroldis Chapman just months after he was reinstated from a suspension stemming from domestic abuse.

It’s also not the greatest trade for the greater good. While Oakland now has no of the most feared bullpens in the pennant chase, Beane didn’t fill a position of need. Instead, he dealt for a guy with serious baggage instead of trading to upgrade the starting rotation or solidify the offense. That’s another thing that makes this trade hard to swallow, or at the very least cheer for.

There’s no doubting that this trade helps make the A’s an even more serious threat in the American League. It’s also one that comes at quite a moral cost.

Grade: B+ for baseball, F for humanity

New York Mets

Many thought the next trade the Mets made would be to move another one of its starting pitchers. After Matt Harvey was dealt, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard looked like they were pitching on borrowed time in New York.

Instead, it’s Familia who is on the move, although there’s still a chance the Mets move more pieces. As seen in the return for their closer, New York is thinking about the future — one that involves a rebuild. There was no reason to accept any Major Leaguers in this deal, but both William Toffey and Bobby Wahl could be decent pieces for the future.

Neither are Top 100 prospects, but Toffey could slot in as the third baseman New York needs with Wahl adding an arm to an uncertain future rotation. It’s not a blockbuster haul, but the Mets weren’t in a position where Familia was helping and that position wasn’t changing anytime soon. To get back a couple of Oakland’s better prospects is more than they otherwise might have gotten elsewhere.

Grade: B-