Exploring a Trade of Jonathan Niese

As the landscape of professional baseball continues to shift toward homegrown, cheap, controllable players, the one glaring market inefficiency has become the most prized asset on the field: The starting pitcher. It's no secret that pitchers, especially the elite ones, who reach free agency will set their families up to live extremely comfortable lives for several generations. Often scooped up by the big market teams in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Chicago, these players are often paid for their past results while teams hope that their futures will only be marred with minor injuries and bigger successes. Oftentimes this isn't the case, and with the drought of quality starting pitching those who are mediocre to above average are beginning to wreak the benefits. There's no need to dive into Oliver Perez's albatross of a contract, because even that looks tame in comparison to the contract the Boston Red Sox awarded John Lackey prior to the 2010 season. Having not playe...