Gambling on a ~Nelson type talent - healthy with a good arm, high pedigree, some ML success and/or experience, and lots of minor league success - is how they found their current ace. I think it's a route they will have to go down, and are capable of going down eventually, to avoid consistently paying the super high prices for established guys via trade or FAs. That said, I would like them to get a more established guy on their next trade too, nothing wrong about targeting the obvious once in a while when it is out there. their current ace is a guy they traded garbage for to gamble on. as far as i can tell, you're talking about trading good things for such a thing.