Brandon Moss Traded to the Cleveland Indians

Once again, Billy Beane has made a deal that most fans just don’t understand in sending Brandon Moss to the Cleveland Indians for an infield prospect Joey Wendle.

Moss – who was one of Oakland’s seven All-Stars this past season –  had his name thrown around a lot last week in trade talks but it had been unclear who the A’s would get in return for first baseman. Then it broke this morning that Moss had been traded for what appears to be a promising middle infield prospect in Wendle.

Wendle was drafted by Cleveland in the 2012 first-year player draft in the sixth round. In 2014, Wendle, played for the Indians double-A team in Akron, Ohio and had a batting average of .253, with eight home runs and 50 RBIs. In his minor league career, he has a .292 batting average with 28 home runs and 155 RBI’s in 261 games played.

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On the field. Wendle has played 218 career games at second base and 21 at shortstop, with a .977  fielding percentage. However, Wendle is not quite major-league ready and it will be some time before he puts the green and gold uniform on, much like the prospects that the team acquired in the Josh Donaldson trade.

Like the Donaldson trade, this one does not make a lot of sense for next season, especially after the signing of Billy Butler. No one can make any sense of what Billy Beane is trying to do, and why not – who trades away All-Stars for prospects?

As a fan it is frustrating and annoying to start to have hope and believe that your team is going in the right direction only to have it implode right before your eyes every year. But looking into the future this trade will eventually make sense.

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One of the A’s biggest needs right now is the middle infield position, but if the A’s can make it through these next few years with the likes of Eric Sogard and Nick Punto. then eventually Wendle and others will be ready to play. At this point in time it is hard to gauge the talent of these prospects, but in the end, they could be the next big thing.

There are two ways of seeing these recent trades, one being that Beane is trying to re-build his farm system because he shipped out all his top prospects in the 2014 season in the Jeff Samardzija and Jon Lester trades.

Or maybe Beane has a bigger move up his sleeve that will land a big name player and getting rid of Moss and Donaldson’s contracts free up cap space for whoever it is that Beane has his eye on. Most likely, Beane is just re-building the farm system, but if he wants to please his fans and win them back he needs to snag a difference maker.