The San Francisco Giants are the recipients of the Shea Hillenbrand Explosion in Toronto.
They receive Shea and middle reliever Vinny Chulk in return for middle reliever Jeremy Accardo.
This deal certainly lends credence to the idea that the Blue Jays management made a mistake with a player they clearly wanted to be rid of.
Is Hillenbrand worse than Aubrey Huff?
Huff's career line: .287/343/476
Shea's career line: .290/328/451
The Rays received two medium prospects, one of which, Ben Zobrist, looks like he'll be a major league contributor. (Yes, I am focusing solely on AVG, OBP and BB:K ratio which is greater than 1.0.)
The Jays received a rookie middle reliever who was not dominating NL hitters and had to include a middle reliever to boot to move Hillenbrand.
I have little room to rationalize that the Jays organization was not harmed by the rashness of the DFA-ing of Hillenbrand.