Honestly, I was somewhat dumbfounded at this trade, but I have read up on Molina before. Molina is a pretty good return for Santos, given the circumstances on what we did to acquire and groom Sergio under. Sergio, whom is a pretty dominant closer for the course of this year and partially in '10, is 28 years of age. This is when players start to hit their peak, and then even out over the course of the next few years. The, by the time you are early to mid 30s, you are all burnt out, unless you are Mariano Rivera and aren't human.
Now, as for Molina, I absolutely LOVE getting a legit top 50 prospect in return. It is a good feeling when we can finally have some pretty good talent in our farm, which seems to be the case in the state we are right now. See here, Molina is a control pitcher, with excellent peripherals, and gives up little-to-nothing in the HR/9 category. I believe it is .6 HR/9 for his minor league career in 292 2/3 IP; 255H; 8.5K/9, and 1.5 BB/9 for his career, with also a high ground ball rate. I mean, ffs, the man has a minor league career FIP of 2.27, and a minor league career BAIP of .327, which necessarily isn't a bad thing, according to his stats he just puts the ball in play more, case in point him being a pretty extreme ground ball pitcher. I don't know about you guys, but I'm excited for this kid. He's now my favorite Sox prospect aside from Addison Reed.