"Mat Latos is less than a sure thing and more than a lottery ticket. He is a pitching prodigy in need of personal growth, alternately exciting and exasperating, sometimes unhittable, sometimes uncoachable.

In trading this manchild of the mound to the Cincinnati Reds, Padres General Manager Josh Byrnes has sided with the safety of numbers against the possibility that Latos will grow up to be Tom Seaver. Byrnes has swapped baseball's scarcest commodity — potentially dominant starting pitching — for three prospects and a veteran pitcher, Edinson Volquez, whose recent past includes both a 50-game drug suspension and Tommy John surgery.

Since most Padres fans have recently graduated from nagging doubt to severe skepticism, their default position is to wonder how this deal cuts costs. But since money does not appear to be a motive, and because the industry consensus seems to be that the deal is slanted in the Friars' favor, the main reservation worth expressing would be if you believed the Home Team has forsaken Latos too fast."