There were tons of options for closers out there ... Ottavino, Britton, Andrew Miller and Dave Robertson. In addition to Familia and Kimbrel Sure there were other options - I merely focused on the most popular one. But do realize that those all involved the buying of north-of-30-y/o closers -- and in some cases never-really-been closers (Ottavino, Miller) and/or no-longer closers (Britton, Robertson) -- on the open market. Certainly those were options but those are also the types of moves being linked to the Omar-type of strategy that's being dismissed in this thread as non-imaginative and as yesterday's news. I'm just saying that all alternatives need to be considered here including the downside of other moves as well. BVW could have just resigned Familia and called it a day but there are those on this forum who don't even like him as a set-up man right now, and of the others mentioned here, only Kimbrel (just turned 31 but also wanted six years) and Ottavino (32) are under age 34. There are all kinds of reasons to worry about the gap between that and a 25 y/o with, yes, one stellar season behind him but also two other good ones and who comes with four years of team control at pre-FA money. I also think you need to pump the brakes a bit on Kelenic. He's a potentially very good player (he wouldn't have been drafted top-10 if he wasn't) who had, at the time of the deal, a nice 200 ABs under his belt in two stops at the rookie ball level [.286/.371/.468]* which was enough to get him some back-half listings of the top-100 lists this past winter. That's a very nice start for a player out of HS but there's nothing to date that suggests he's a "once in a generation" kind of player for whom teams would trade current/in-their-prime MVP/CY winners to get (as suggested in another thread). I'm not necessarily defending the trade but I think it's defensible -- certainly in the face of standing pat while hoping someone worthy emerges out of the ether, and in some ways as compared to several of the other options -- and that doesn't change because the main cog in it (as much as this was labeled from the outset as 'The Cano Trade', it was really the Diaz deal) has, like, the worst night ever. Three-run/one-inning saves are blown at a rate of between 3 & 4 % of the time; doing so essentially without even getting an out (even though technically he got his first out seconds prior to the winning run scoring) is a very tough act to pull off and we're unlikely to see it again for a long time, whether from him or anyone else. Or maybe we'll see one again next Tuesday ... what do I know? * btw, Dom Smith, a #7 overall pick, during his first season in two stops at rookie ball w/200-odd ABs: .301/.398/.439