I don't want to root against the guy, and Lopez took some hits in scouting rankings before last year too, but it makes the price for Eaton seem a lot more reasonable. Compare it to the price for Sale - consensus #2 prospect, an arm comparable to Lopez, and other decent prospects. It doesn't look like Shelby Miller level stupidity.
Obviously in the end the trade will be judged by how the pitchers turn out and how Eaton does. But yeah, to me franchises are in this situation all the time - there are always teams with young fireballers rising in the minors and TINSTAAPP. You can go back 5 years, 10 years, whatever, and look at Baseball America's top 100 list and there will be a few teams that have multiple top-50 SP prospects, and I bet the majority of those teams wouldn't have regretted trading them for an impact, established position player.
5 years ago you could point to the Seattle Mariners - pre-2012 and pre-2013 Danny Hultzen and Taijuan Walker were both in the top 30. They were supposed to anchor Seattle's rotation for a decade.
5 years before that the Rays were looking forward to the HOF careers of Wade Davis and Jake McGee.
Anyways, of course it would have been nice if Giolito had a 2016 that made him look like the second coming of Stephen Strasburg. First of all, maybe we wouldn't still be starting Gio Gonzalez. But second of all, maybe we could have gotten a better player than Adam Eaton in return. However, Rizzo was not in that position and clearly was not trading a top-5 prospect. The scouting reports have a consensus on Giolito's devaluation.
