Yes, the Swisher deal is absolute non-sense, but thus far the trade market is pretty weak for sellers. Outside of the Matt Holliday deal you can say each of the sellers has lost their deals (minus Florida in the Kevin Gregg deal) and even then it depends on how much you believe in Carlos Gonzalez likelihood to reach his potential. The market for corner outfielders is particularly looking poor, observe:
Willingham ~2ish WAR
Contract: Arbitration (first year)
Return: Okay defender, two prospects too far away to judge.
Swisher ~3ish WAR
Contract: Not awful (~7 mil/yr)
Return: Potential starter at third (Betemit), two pitchers neither of great status.
Holliday ~4-5ish WAR
Contract: Last year, but two draft picks
Return: Meh starting pitcher, decent reliever, good defensive OFer with some potential.
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To steal one of Peter Bendix's favorite lines (from FiveThirtyEight's comments) this is GREAT NEWS!!! For WASHINGTON!!! Who has more outfielders than they should. In fact a number of teams have abundances of outfielders, and if the early market is any indication, they won't be settling for too much in return. Oakland has 12 (!) on their 40-man. Just take a look at a few they might move who could help us:
Chris Denorfia - gets on base, no power, okay defender in the corners.
Rajai Davis - outstanding defender, gets on base, no power.
Matt Murton - good defender in the corners, hits lefties really well.
None of those players, minus Murton, is much for the offensive side, but defensively they're slightly better than Gross. Although I suppose Fernando Perez fills that role as well, and I'm quite interested to see what a full season of Nando in the field would look like, I'm guessing between five and ten runs. Then again, there's always Justin Ruggiano. His strikeouts aren't ideal, but they're not that far off from Milton Bradley's percentage (Note: I'm not saying he's near the hitter Bradley is, simply saying he's no Jack Cust or Jonny Gomes.) He's a decent defender in the corners, cheap, and despite some hacking tendencies made solid contact to the tune of more than 20% line drives.
We'll see how it goes, but I'm feeling pretty good heading into the start of free agency.