Bccran, all the reports I’ve seen are that Tampa was enamored with Randy Arozarena and thought he was likely undervalued by the prospect community and our own organization. I haven’t seen anything suggesting they would have taken one of our other outfielders.
I think Mo and the organization deserve criticism for not properly evaluating Arozarena. But his stat line wasn’t even that unusual especially given his age. Nobody had him as a top 100 prospect until after the trade, and that was largely due to recognizing how smart the Rays are and figuring they saw something others hadn’t yet. The real problem I have with the Arozarena trade (in addition to the player development point I made) is that Mo and Girsch don’t seem to be better at evaluating our own players than the prospect community is, yet Mo and company should have way more information and skill in this area than they appear to have.
They would never trade away a Carlson or Gorman because their talent is obvious, but players like Arozarena and Gallen get misevaluated and become stars in other organizations.