When the Royals traded Matt Strahm and Esteury Ruiz away for three Padres pitchers, Trevor Cahill being the headliner at the time, most of my excitement around the deal was geared towards Brandon Maurer. When the trade went down, his ERA was nothing to drool over, but with decent peripherals and a promising amount of raw talent in his right arm, and the fact that he was controlled until 2020, my thoughts at the time weren’t crazy. I’ll defend that.
By my gosh, that deal couldn’t have gone any more poorly.