Well yeah, except that the Pirates got a better player than Lopez plus the low-A guy (who you might not have heard of, but prospect-followers sure had) almost immediately became a AA all-star and was traded for Keone Kela, who was already an established reliever and better and cheaper than Melancon. Rivero/Vasquez's criminality is the only thing that stopped that trade from being an enormous win for Pittsburgh.
The Melancon trade, the Doolittle/Madsen deal, and the Eaton deal are why we regard the Nats pitching development so negatively. Rivero (Sanchez), Hearn, Luzardo, Treinen, Dunning, Lopez, and Giolito are or have all been major leaguers, one is already a Cy Young contender while another is regarded as a #1 level arm, and there are two guys who have had stretches as premium, all-star caliber closers. I'm not arguing any of those were deals that provided zero help to the Nats, but they reveal perhaps a flaw in our self-scouting. Imagine if Fedde had been included instead of Treinen? I think it's a stretch to say Fedde instead of Giolito or Luzardo, who I suspect both Rizzo and the opponent GMs knew was higher end than Fedde or Romero (if he was around), but it is hard for me to imagine all these guys would have been busts under our minor league development system.
