It just dawned on me, standing in my office on Jan. 8, that I never posted the recap of the Choostorm that hit a week before Christmas.
I had written—with a little help from my AI CoPilot—a breakdown of the trades Choo made, but as I was about to post it, he made another deal.
So I did what any normal, sane person would do: wait it out. I figured, I'd wait for the storm to settle and then give the snow totals rather than stand outside while still getting slammed in a blizzard.
Choo settled, however, and thus, I forgot all about this.
Better late than never, right?
So let's get into it. On Dec. 16, Choo made the ultimate decision to not wait until spring and clean house. He went into full re-tool mode with his championship-winning squad and in a span of a week, he sent out a front-line starter and three former MVPs.
Pablo López was moved at the end of the JLB Winter Meetings, and the week before Christmas saw Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts and Christian Yelich all pack their bags in a 24-hour span.
All together, those players combined seem really light in return for Judge, Betts and Yelich, but never second guess a Choo.
Even though Jazz may be sad that he has left the Dude, the real reason he is sad is because he will not get to line up with Aaron Judge on the Choo squad.
He should have had that chance. The urgency to move Judge didn't make too much sense for Choo. Judge, when at his peak, is essentially two fantasy players in one position. With a projected 55 homers, 132 RBIs, 129 walks and 120 runs scored, that is basically the output of 1.5-2 players in one lineup spot.
So to send him out the door would really have to bring back a king's arson. Er, I mean, ransom.
Is Nola, Reynolds, Anthony that ransom?
I'm not so sure.
Reynolds is a throw-in, a hope, so let's just throw him out.
What about Nola? He is 31 years old, just 2 years younger than Judge. He's been a workhorse, but there's still some concern there.
So does this really come down to Roman Anthony, a No. 1 prospect according to Baseball America's latest poll? The list of BA's No. 1 prospects over the years is impressive with names like Vlad, Rutschman, Acuna, Witt, Ohtani, Seager, Harper, but it also includes Delmon Young, Jay Bruce, Matt Wieters, Jurickson Profar, Andrew Benintendi and ... Wander Franco.
You're basically 50-50 on getting a star. Jackson Holliday was last year's No. 1 and we saw what happened to him. He was no where close to putting up numbers worthy of a trade for Judge.
At the end of the day, I believe Choo should have held out for a better deal. Hell, maybe if he would have held on for another few minutes, he could have had an even better deal.
The world will never know.
What the world does know is that the Cheese Steaks mean business with his legion of over-the-hill stars. Harper, Trout, J-Ram, Seager, Freeman and now Judge will all be on the same fantasy team, lining up with that pivotal power bat Jorge Soler. If they all can find the fountain of youth, watch out. The season may end before it even begins.
Here's a list of all the trades made before Christmas:
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