On Tuesday, the Diamondbacks acquired right-hander Shelby Miller from the Braves, but they did so at substantial cost. In return for Miller and young lefty Gabe Speier, the Braves will receive infield prospect Dansby Swanson, utility man Ender Inciarte, and right-handed pitching prospect Aaron Blair.
The Diamondbacks, after adding Zack Greinke and now Miller to a roster that already included the likes of Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock, profile as legitimate contenders. The cost, though, has been steep.
First, there's Swanson, who was the top overall pick of the June draft. How rare is it to do what Arizona GM Dave Stewart did with Swanson? The last No. 1 overall choice to be traded as a minor-leaguer was Adrian Gonzalez. It remains to be seen whether Swanson, a Vanderbilt product, sticks at shortstop long-term, but his bat will play above-average even if he shifts to second or third. He projects as a useful regular at the big-league level, and those are necessarily hard to come by.
On that point ...
Dbacks farm system now has no first-rounder from 2014 or 2015, and will have no first rounder in 2016 either.
— Zach Buchanan (@azc_zachb) December 9, 2015
Indeed: Swanson (2015) is gone, and Touki Touissant (2014) was traded to the Braves in June in exchange for getting rid of Bronson Arroyo's contract. As for their 2016 first-rounder, they lost it as compensation for signing Greinke.
But wait, there's more! Blair, was the D-Backs' second of two first-round picks in 2013, and heading into 2015 he was a top-40 prospect, according to Baseball America. He burnished that standing with a strong showing at Double-A and Triple-A. Now he's a Brave, too. All of this, of course, is to say nothing of the 25-year-old Inciarte, who finished fifth in the NL Rookie of the Year balloting in 2014 and was a valuable contributor last season.
This isn't to say the Diamondbacks now have an utterly barren farm system -- Braden Shipley and Pete O'Brien are still around, and Archie Bradley's still just 23. Moreover, if the Diamondbacks wind up hoisting the trophy in 2016 or 2017, then no one will lament the traded-away prospects. But the Diamondbacks, considering the price they've paid and considering how valuable cost-controlled talent is to mid-budget teams, do need to win.
