Views on the AL Central trades

Kenny Williams just made the dumbest trade in baseball history or one of the smartest. The health of Jake Peavy (left) will be the deciding factor, and nobody has labeled him the second coming of Mark Prior.

— Chicago Tribune baseball writer Phil Rogers in Saturday's column

If Toronto ace Roy Halladay had gone to the Angels or Red Sox, his new team could have outpitched anyone in a series in this year's postseason. But Halladay went untraded. Now it's the trio of (Justin) Verlander-(Edwin) Jackson-(Jarrod) Washburn who can out-pitch any other AL team and lead the Tigers to victory in a playoff series. That is, presuming the Tigers can score at least a few runs.
— Detroit Free Press Tigers beat writer John Lowe in Saturday's column

...(O)f the teams that spent July selling off, nobody reeled in the quality haul of prospects the Indians did. They collected six solid young players who are either big-league-ready now or will be shortly (Chris Perez, Justin Masterson, Carlos Carrasco, Lou Marson, Jason Donald and Jess Todd). And they built both the (Cliff) Lee and (Victor) Martinez deals around younger, 6-foot-5 flame-ballers who both project as No. 1 starters — Jason Knapp and Nick Hagadone, respectively.
— ESPN.com's Jayson Stark on the Cleveland Indians

(The White Sox are) going to show up on a lot of other people's "Winners" list after pulling off that sneaky Jake Peavy deal about four seconds before the deadline. But is "winner" really the right term for a team that just dealt a big package for a guy who (A) might not throw a pitch until mid-September (if then), (B) is going from the NL to the AL, (C) is moving from Pitching Heaven (Petco Park) to a pitcher's worst nightmare (The Cell) and (D) is adding more than $55 million to the payroll through 2012?
—Stark again.