Cubs trade Samardzija, Hammel to A's for prospects and pitcher

The first domino of the trade deadline frenzy fell on Friday when the Cubs dealt Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel for top A's prospects Addison Russell, Billy McKinney and pitcher Dan Straily with a player to be named later included.

The deal makes perfect sense for both teams as the A's needed 2 front line pitchers that could help them in their run towards the division crown and it gives the Cubs two top prospects with the potential for a 3rd one to be included.

The Cubs are getting a potential superstar in Addison Russell who was often ranked in the top 15 by multiple baseball resources including MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Baseball America. He has the numbers in AA to prove it although it is a small sample size with a .333/.439/.500 in only 48 at bats. The Cubs also get a player who was often ranked as the A's #2 prospect in Billy McKinney, 19, who has been hitting fairly well in High-A with a .240/.330/.400 line with 10 home runs and 5 stolen bases. This only continues the Cubs way of acquiring offensive weapons to build into an amazing offensive juggernaut and building a team off of scoring runs.

The Cubs also got a young major league pitcher in Dan Straily, 25, who has spent parts of 3 seasons with the A's big league team including 152.1 good innings back in 2013. Although he has slightly struggled in 2014 with a 4.93 ERA his FIP suggests that it could be much worse. His issue this year has been the long ball and a 2.1 HR/9 rate proves that with 9 home runs surrendered in 38.1 innings.

On the A's side they are getting 2 proven players in Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel who both were having great seasons for the Cubs and have proven to be excellent pitchers who could easily help the A's as they are trying to advance past the ALDS for the first time since 2006.

There are some positional concerns involving this trade as the Cubs already have Starlin Castro at shortstop and Javier Baez already in the minor leagues so the decision to add another shortstop is questionable but the Cubs can always shift Baez to another position and Russell to another position as well.