Throughout baseball's modern history, one of the most intriguing topics regards the value of an everyday player versus that of a starting pitcher. This topic has become a subject of much attention since the recent trade between the Texas Rangers and Cincinnati Reds in which the Rangers sent last year's minor league Nolan Ryan award winner, Edinson Volquez to southern Ohio in exchange for the offensive machine, outfielder, Josh Hamilton.

Edinson Volquez, 24, was last season's top minor league pitching prospect. This season, however, Volquez is not only in the major leagues, but is almost a shoe-in for the National League Rookie of the Year Award, and he stands as a candidate early on for the National League Cy Young Award as well. Posting  10-3 record with an ERA just over 2, Volquez's impressive 2008 campaign also includes the posting of 110 strikeouts in just 16 starts.

The Reds weren't just given a pitching prodegy, but instead attained him only by sending red hot hitter, Josh Hamilton, to Arlington.

Josh Hamilton was a star minor league prospect from the late 1990's until early this decade, but his demons of drug abuse overcame him, and in 2003, Hamilton left the game of baseball, seemingly for good. But the young slugger returned in late 2006, and he made his major league debut with the Reds on April 20, 2007.

In his rookie season, Josh played in 90 games, hitting 19 long balls and putting up a .292 batting average. And while he didn't even hit the 50 mark in RBI's, the Rangers saw enough potential in him to give potentially the best starter in many years for him.

On the season already, Hamilton has 80 runs batted in, and has met his own home run total from all of last year. He has quickly become an MVP candidate.

While both men have had phenomenal season thus far, the question of their value is still, and may always remain, in question. 

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