Gotta love this logic. "It ended up being a bad trade but it was still a good trade!"
There are different ways to judge trades/signings. You can judge the move itself and then the results.
Very, very few people hold off on having opinions or evaluating moves. If you are able to remain unbiased on every move that happens at the time they occurred and wait it out, more power to you. Most people evaluate the move long before they know the result, because it's impossible to predict how things will work out.
When a move first happens, people look to the thought process and value to grade it. If the line of thinking was solid, and the value was fair, then it would be seen as a good move at the time.
With Winnik, I felt the thought process of the move was pretty sound. He was having a very good season with Toronto and filled a need. The value was not that bad in my opinion, although I know many felt at the time we overpaid. The way I saw it was that the 2nd was a year later, which took the value down a round. The value equivalency of a 3rd, 4th and Zach Sill was pretty meaningless to me.
Now the result is different. Winnik didn't perform at the same level he did in Toronto. At the same time, we got our 2nd back.
Because of that, all in all, I think the
result of the trade is fairly inconsequential, but the
move was not bad at the time.