Andy Sisco traded for Ross Gload

Interesting trade yesterday as Royals made an inter division move sending lefthanded giant (6'10") Andy Sisco to the White Sox for bench player Ross Gload. The reason the trade is interesting is because the Royals organization is a very light on upside arms, but relatively deep in terms of depth of corner types. Alex Gordon, Mark Teehan, Mike Sweeney, Emil Brown, Billy Butler, Justin Huber, Ryan Sheely, and Reggie Sanders - all are under control for next year. Now Sweeney, Sandersm and Brown won't be part of the next good Royals team, but will the 31 year old Ross Gload? Even if Gload projects to be the third best hitter on the Royals? Which he does.

Gload makes a lot of sense for a lot of teams, but I'm not sure if the Royals are one of them. I guess, the Royals may hope that by giving him his first shot at a full time job he will play well enough to be able to traded for a greater return than Sisco? Or maybe they are tired of Sisco 10 cent head screwing up million dollar arm? Or maybe they think the Sisco we saw last year, with the 90 mph fastball and the rolling slider was the real Andy Sisco... and the Sisco of 05, with the 95 mph heater and sharp slider is gone to parts unknown.

One thing worth pointing out is that the Royals have traded away two guys (Sisco and Ambriox Burgos)with very live arms over the last week for two guys (Gload and Brian Banister) without a ton of upside, who will likely help them more in the upcoming year or two but who won't ever be much more than what they currently are. These are the deals where we get a handle of how good at talent evaluation Drayton Moore is.