I'm a little surprised by the Andrelton Simmons deal. In a market that values defense so highly, with Simmons the best in the game at the most important position, Simmons seemed like a player that the Atlanta Braves would keep to build around unless they got an overwhelming offer for him. Instead, the Los Angeles Angels sent back a return that seems fair, rather than lopsided in Atlanta's favor, so it's a good baseball deal but not the kind of home run Simmons' many fans in Georgia were hoping to see.

The Angels' side is costly, but fair: They got the best defensive shortstop in the game -- innumerate postseason awards be damned -- but gave up their top two prospects for him, which hampers their ability to make any other significant moves this winter without spending a lot of cash. Shortstop is locked up in Anaheim for the foreseeable future, as Simmons' glove alone makes him an above-average regular; the advanced fielding metric UZR (found at Fangraphs) has had him saving 57 runs over an average shortstop over the past three seasons. The next highest total at short, by J.J. Hardy, was 27, meaning Simmons' defense (by that metric) was worth about a win a year over the second-best shortstop in the majors.

At the plate, he doesn't bring much to the table, making a lot of contact but sacrificing on-base ability and, outside of a brief stretch in 2013, not hitting for much power either. There have been other players who, like Simmons, were glove-first shortstops who didn't hit but rarely struck out and later developed into good hitters for average, and if Simmons is done trying to pull the ball into the seats, I think he has a chance to develop like that in the next year or two. If he doesn't, he's still a three-win player who'll make $53 million over the next five years, underpaid in every year but possibly the last one at $15 million, and he makes the Angels a couple of wins better for 2016 (especially with several ground-ball pitchers in their rotation). That's all good, because the future is now for the Angels, whose farm system looks like General Sherman just marched through it. Twice.

Atlanta has been extremely opportunistic since John Coppolella started making more of the decisions around the major league roster, and this deal is no exception, as they landed one of the top left-handed pitching prospects in all of baseball in Sean Newcomb, plus another starter prospect and one year of Erick Aybar's services. Newcomb is the key to the deal, a big lefty with three above-average-to-plus pitches and a very loose, easy arm. He doesn't repeat the arm swing that well yet, perhaps because it has been so easy for him to overpower opponents so far -- he was the Angels' first-round pick out of the University of Hartford in 2014, so his college competition was light -- which has led to below-average command and control. He has been very good at keeping the ball on the ground and he continued to miss bats in Double-A even when he wasn't otherwise effective. I'd project him as a No. 2 starter, because it's hard for me to assume he'll get from his present command level to where he'd need to be to qualify as an ace, and he's probably more than a full year away.

Chris Ellis was the Angels' third-round pick in 2014 out of Ole Miss. He's a big, three-pitch starter whose changeup seemed to be his best pitch out of the draft, although that hasn't been the case in pro ball as left-handed hitters got to him in 2015. He's built like a mid-rotation starter with the fastball and durability to work there if he can refine his secondary pitches, probably a good eighth/ninth-inning guy if he doesn't miss enough bats to start.

Aybar is just a guy at this point, overpaid at $8.5 million for 2016, a mediocre defender who hasn't posted an OBP of .325 or better since 2009 and was at .301 twice in the past three seasons.

If I'm with the Braves' front office, I'd keep him moving to one of the handful of clubs looking for someone to just stand at the position. I'd also want to take that money he's owed and look at adding a bat or two in free agency, as their lineup for the next year or two could be scary in all the wrong ways.