Brewers Trade Thornburg
This is just pretty much a first reaction, as the trade was finalized about an hour ago. The Brewers traded their top remaining reliever, Tyler Thornburg, to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for 3B Travis Shaw, 12th best prospect SS Mauricio Dubon, and 22nd best prospect RHP Josh Pennington. The Brewers also will get a player to be named later.
Obviously, Boston's motives are clear, as they need another reliever to go along with CL Craig Kimbrel in order to stay in contention for the American League Pennant. Boston gets a relatively inexpensive reliever to go along with Kimbrel, and all they had to do essentially was give up their temporary third baseman in Shaw. While Boston waits for top prospect 3B Yoan Moncada, Brock Holt and Pablo Sandoval will handle the duties Shaw had.
As far as the Brewers are concerned, why they chose Shaw over a prospect shows two reasons. One, Stearns really wants this team to continue to be competitive, and two, Scooter Gennett is on his way out with Jonathan Villar moving to second. Over his first two seasons, Shaw has hit .251 with 29 home runs and 107 RBI's as a secondary run producer for the Red Sox. He's probably the cleanup hitter next season for the Brewers should nothing else change.
When it comes to the prospects, I don't know a whole lot about them. Last season, Dubon hit .323 with 6 home runs and 69 RBI's in the Red Sox's farm system, and while he was 12th in Boston, he is our 9th highest prospect in Milwaukee. I'm guessing he will go to Biloxi to start the season. He slots in between SS Isan Diaz and SS Gilbert Lara. Pennington, meanwhile, didn't even crack the top 30 of the Brewers, which should show how deep the farm system really is. It is also too early to tell who will be the player to be named later. Overall, I'm pegging this as a win-win.
