What Would a Trade for David Price/Jeff Samardzija Look Like?

The trade deadline is coming up in about a month, but there’s already quite a bit of rumor buzz springing up. The two hottest commodities, it would seem so far, look like they’re going to be David Price and Jeff Samardzija. Both have ace credentials in a world were pitching is hard to get ahold of. And not only do they come with those credentials, they both also come with the entire other year under contract after this one. One might call these the ejector seat of trade scenarios; in case you enter a premature tailspin, you can jettison them to save yourself to some extent.

Either way, since I’ve been comparing past trade packages recently, I figured why not continue further down this avenue? What can a team trying to acquire Price or Samardzija expect to give up for a year and a half their services?

Well, to start with, I went around looking for ace-type pitchers who were traded in the last few years. I tried to be as complete as possible, so in some cases, I stretched the similarities, going for players who were under contract for fewer seasons, or who were more “young with potential” than “ace-like” or “old and actually an ace”, and I might have missed some, but in the end, these were the cases I found, in no order: