Off-Season Trade Activity Brisk

It's been a pretty steady pace of trades leading up to Season 10, with some fairly big names changing teams. The rundown:

Durham gets rookie C Andres Julio, Season 6's #12 overall pick.
Salt Lake City gets 2-year vet SP Heinie McNally, Season 2's #10 overall pick.
Analysis: Intersting swap of former high first-rounders. McNally has 24 wins and a solid (especially in Durham) 3.94 ERA. He has a pretty nice array of pitches to go with good control; he does have his struggles with righty hitters, but will likely thrive in the decidedly more pitcher-friendly Franklin Covey Field. Julio should put up some nice hitting numbers (1.004 minor-league OPS) and calls a good game. His accuracy to second is a little suspect, but he's a good, well-rounded C. It did raise a few eyebrows when Durham, which has hitting and needs pitching, traded a nice young SP for more hitting. But the object is to score more runs than the other team; vandydave just focuses more on the "score more runs" than the "than the other team" part.

Philadelphia gets SP Len Keats (Sea 3 #18) and RP Walt Sandberg (Sea 7 #31)
Kansas City gets RP Tomas Lee (Sea 8 IFA)
Analysis: Keats has been biding time at KC's AAA team for 4 years, a good prospect but not good enough to crack the tough Masterpiece rotation. He gets his shot in Philly, and KC gets a prospect in Lee who has a chance to be a very good reliever in a couple of years.

Montgomery gets SS Gus Harper (Sea 3's #2)
Helena gets gets RP Pablo Plata (Sea 4's #37)
Analysis: Bit of a puzzler for Helena. Harper's a solid SS who's neither old, overpaid, brittle, nor lacking endurance. Sure, his glove is a little clanky for a SS, but he also hits 30 dings a year. The team can use relief help, but is Plata it? He has good control, is pretty tough on lefties, and has a great first pitch (sinker). But he's always going to have trouble with righties...lots of trouble. His 4.01 ERA last year was pretty good considering the .761 OPS-against. Alright, he could be better in the more-neutral ballpark in Helena. But the in't no place for erffdogs could've done much better.

Kansas City gets 2B Josh Bolden (a league-startup AAA prospect with the Biscuits)
Detroit gets OF Leon Durrington (a league-startup LoA prospect with the Houston organization)
Analysis: Bolden has been a backup his whole career, albeit a pretty effective one with a career OPS of .788. Durrington was a long-time minor-leaguer who finally came up in Season 7 and got more than his 15 minutes with an All-Star, Silver Slugger Season 7 (.313/26/100). Bolden appears to be penclied in as Juan Olmedo's defensive replacement; Durrington might see full-time DH duty.