Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1884: The Great Trade Deadline Download

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

After a busy deadline day, Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley react to all the trade activity, beginning with a high-level overview of the deadline, a recap of the Rockies’ inactivity (5:28), the Padres�� Juan Soto, Josh Hader, Brandon Drury, and Joe Musgrove moves (13:58) and the mad genius of A.J. Preller, the equally unprecedented nature […]

The anxious cows, fighting for an egg's plate. Too late, too late, for what mistake? No cash and no exchange. Too late, too late. Hello and welcome to episode 1884 of Effectively Wild, Too late, too late This is the first I'm hearing of this, but I'm not surprised, honestly. How am I? How are you? I'm pretty, you know, I told you this before we started recording. I'm doing pretty good, man.

Like it has been a busy day. It has been a busy day for me. I'm going to ask you, put a pin in this thought because I want to come back to it. I'm curious your impressions of like how busy a deadline it was in toto because i think that my perspective on that is skewed by the fact that we had so many pieces run but you know i think the fan graph staff really kicked some butt when it comes to reacting to all of this busy deadline news both today and in the days leading up to the deadline and uh you know we have a couple more things to run that will hit the transom on Wednesday. I opted not to cover Austin Allen's deal.

Sorry to the Austin Allen. The exchange of Austins? The backup catcher Austin trade? Yeah. Austin Allen for Austin Romine? I was like, we got to make some cuts. Yeah. You know, I think that both of those

teams kind of agreed with me just for different Austins you know as it were so that one's gonna be left on the Fangraphs cutting room floor you have a low bar for what constitutes blog worthy coverage at Fangraphs which is appropriate

it is a baseball website but it is set somewhere the bar yeah the bar is there yeah or like um you know just assume we would have made a a gallagher joke if we had covered the cam gallagher deal find it funny and let's all let's all move on with our lives but luckily ben this this deadline it had some some piping hot deals that were really did of greater import to the to the baseball landscape than um than Austin Allen I'm sorry Austin like I I don't mean as a knock on you personally like it's it's fine yeah so but Ben I do want to ask does this deadline strike you as having finally gotten busy? That sounds funny out of context.

Because, you know, we had remarked that it felt potentially kind of quiet and had speculated as to the reasons why. You know, was it the expanded playoff field? Was it the Juan Soto of it all? Later that day, the Mariners were like, well, we would like one Luis Castillo, please. And the Reds obliged. So things kind of got going in earnest

on Friday evening. But was it normal busy? Do you think? Was it more busy? Do we need to like magnitude adjust the busyness because Juan Soto moved? What are we thinking about there? That's the thing. I have not run the numbers in the past. Sometimes I've done breakdowns on just how many deals there were. And we've seen some historic deadlines recently. I don't think just the sheer quantity of trades here was necessarily out of the norm, but I don't think it was worse than the norm either. I would not call this a quiet deadline. I would say it got really loud there at the end. It got really loud there at the end. So I'm not disappointed at all.

It really ramped up. I just I feel overfed and also over served. But in a good gluttonous way, I'm just totally sated by all of the action on Tuesday. It's like post Thanksgiving dinner when you push your chair back from the table, you loosen your belt, and you just in a daze digest. This episode will be like the gurgling of our digestive juices as we just chew on what happened here for the listeners' enjoyment. I mean, I took a brief nap post-deadline while you were editing the 20th through 30th FanCrafts post of the day. And I actually dreamed about recording this episode. Yeah. So this is the second time around for me. I had a dry run already.

I also said something really funny on the DreamPod. I don't remember what it was, but believe me, it killed. DreamPod. DreamPod. Great line. But that's just how much in the deadline mindset I was so that even when I went to sleep for a little while, I was still dreaming about the deadline or at least podcasting about it. It was just a lot of fun, this deadline, not for every fan base and maybe not for Fangraph's managing editors at all times.

But with one notable exception, every team made a trade. We had block clusters. We had weird deals. We had high comedy. I mean, Whit Merrifield to Toronto. The Rockies. Come on. This deadline had else. So can't wait to mangle some prospect names during this episode. We'll do our best. We'll do our best. Should we just get the Rockies of it all out of the way since they didn't do anything? Let's lead with the team that did nothing. I mean, sure. For our enjoyment, let's do that. Sure. Yeah. And look, they're the Rockies, right? Like on the one hand, I hope that at some point they're an organization whose on-field product and approach matches the beauty of their ballpark because that ballpark is lovely.

And Denver is great. We are not in that era of Rockies baseball, however. And so we got this gem of a quote. This is from Bill Schmidt. Rockies GM gm yeah the rocky's gym who was asked about being the only team that like didn't do anything at the deadline like the rockies had players who other teams were interested in it's not as if like there's there's nothing on that roster like they you know they decided to extend daniel bard i don't think that other teams would have necessarily done that but they probably would have traded something to the

rockies for daniel bard services and absolutely there was definitely interest in cj crone going into the deadline and then they decided not to do any of those things and he said we were also the only club to sign a player to an extension at the deadline 29 other clubs didn't sign anybody to an extension and and I'm here to tell you Ben, that is actually not true. That is not true. No. Not unless you take a very strict definition of the deadline. Because I guess

the extensions were the day before the deadline, maybe? But so is Daniel Bards. So is Daniel Bards. Yeah. Also, it's not the extension deadline. No. It's the trade deadline, famously. Yeah. I mean, there are times when guys aren't on your roster. And then in that case, you can't extend them. But you can pretty much do it any other time of the year. We're an industry

that is known to have transactions break on Christmas or the 4th of July, big holidays where people are eating as we did today at the deadline. So I also find it funny because of the three extensions that were signed, Daniel Bard, the Braves extending Austin Riley, and then the Padres deciding to extend Joe Musgrove, Daniel Bard made the least amount of money of any of those. That was arguably the least impactful extension just from a dollars perspective. And certainly in terms of the profile of the player or the amount of time that he will remain in his organization.

So, you know, I just think that this is probably something where he was maybe, you know, he just made a mistake. But also, you know, they seem to do that a lot over there. Yeah, I know that we're treading on Dan Zimborski's mock the Rockies corner here. We're encroaching on the corner. But really, like you could just hand out. It's like the Razzies for the Rockies, like the mockies. It's just like the weirdest, funniest things the Rockies did or said in a given year.

Because they just don't really seem to belong to the same league as every other team. They just don't seem to know what's happening or what you should be doing at any given time or like how Major League Baseball works and how the market functions. Like there was a piece in The Athletic by Nick Groke a day or two ago about the BART extension and just a couple of the wildest paragraphs that I've ever seen. So here's another Bill Schmidt quote from that piece. That was the biggest thing, referring to Bard's devotion to the team.

We talked in L.A. and I said, what do you want to do? Do you want to chase what's out there or do you want to be here? And he was open to being here. So, OK, let's make it happen. The deal came together quickly over the past three weeks after Bard signaled to his bosses he would not test a free agent market this winter that might signal a bidding war. Now, listen to this. The Rockies had been burned by John Gray's decision to sign with the Rangers last winter after they failed to sign the right-handed starter to a contract extension before he became a free agent. handed starter to a contract extension before he became a free agent.

And they have quietly fumed since then that if not for Gray's agent trying to find him a better deal, he'd still be pitching in purple. They fumed that Gray's agent tried to find him a better deal. The job of agents. They also didn't extend him a qualifying offer. They did not. How can they be grumpy about this? Okay, we've already spent more time on the Rockies than their deadline activity was,

but my goodness. Is there more to that quote or description of a conversation? I guess it's a more accurate way of putting it. It's not like a loyalty test. I no like keep the guys you like that's nice if you like guys and they fit in well like in a vacuum there's nothing wrong with the bard extension like the terms of it are fine two years 19 million whatever it is they're not paying them 50 million dollars right yeah it's not paying the cardinals to take Nolan Arnotto.

It's not the Chris Bryant signing even. It's fine. But he's also a 37-year-old closer and exactly the kind of guy that teams tend to trade because, like, you know, if you want to resign him as a free agent, you could do that. But you get someone who's in demand in that moment. And there's a Bud Black quote in that piece. There's a presence to him that rubs off on other guys. You feel good when he's on your team. That's important. You've got to have a lot of those guys. And he goes to the top of the list because he's team oriented, team first, and he wants to win. OK, that's fine. And I know that there might be

a special relationship there, a bond between the Rockies and Bard because they helped salvage his career and he did it in Colorado and everything. But when Black says, I do feel as though the best thing to do is put the best team possible out there and as often as you can, and you try to keep the guys you want to keep who are good players, who make sense to keep. And if guys don't want to come back or something else happens, you did your part to keep them. And that's called trying to win. That's what this sport is all about.

There are teams who take a step back because they need to, because it makes sense for them in that moment. But we haven't done that the last couple of years. What's next is tonight's game. That's what it's about. But Bud, how has that worked out for you? You're the Colorado Rockies. We're all on board for teams trying to win and not doing teardowns. But at this point, they're the Rockies. They have a long track record of not doing this well. It's like valiant that they're trying to win, but also they are failing to win. They've never won a division. They've never won a World Series. And more recently, they just haven't been a good team. So yeah, we applaud trying to be competitive, but also be realistic about whether you can be competitive. And if you can't, do something about it other than just, I like this guy. I like the cut of his chip. I think I'll keep him around. I mean, anyway, everyone can dunk on the Rockies and it's kind of fun to do. Frankly, it's pretty fun. Not for Rockies fans, but there's just 29 other teams and then there's the Rockies doing their own thing or not doing their thing as it happens yeah like I'm open to the idea that if you are the Rockies and

you find a pitcher you like and who is happy to be in cores that like you you would have interest in retaining that guy's services because I think that I can totally imagine that combination of things being hard to find because they have to pitch on the moon but also that is one positive toward extending someone in daniel bard's position and then you have to account for the other stuff that still isn't enough to make this an organizational fit based on where we want to be so right yeah like i don't have any problem with daniel bard getting paid like that's like dan Daniel Bard getting paid at this point is like, this is a great baseball story. It's a shame that the larger Rockies of it all is obscuring that part because given where we thought his career was going to be before this renaissance in Denver, this is an amazing outcome. I just expected if someone was going to pay him, it wouldn't be Colorado. Yeah, right. So anyway.

We got our yucks in. Yeah, like I don't want to yuck anyone's yum and like I certainly don't want to yuck Daniel Bard's yum. You know, put within the context of a particular person. I don't know if that expression holds up. But anyway, good on you, Daniel Bard. Weird on you, Rockies. Let's move on to other stuff, shall we?

We talked about the team that made no trades. For like 10 minutes. Let's talk about the teams that made some trades. Although there are some other teams that barely made trades. Barely made trades. Maybe should have, and we will get to that too. Yeah, we sure will. But let's look elsewhere in the NL West, shall we?

Yeah. To perhaps a team that was slightly more active than the Colorado Rockies. So normally I might say, I don't know where to start with all the activity, but I think it's pretty clear. Yeah, we know. We start with Juan Soto and the San Diego Padres. So AJ Preller is an absolute legend. The man is a maniac, Mick.

Has his team won anything significant yet? No, not really. But the entertainment value of his trade and signing sprees over the past several seasons, some of which have worked out, some of which have not worked out, but either way, just off the charts in terms of, wait, what? He made that trade and he got this guy and that guy. No one else, like not even Jerry DiPoto can rival A.J. Preller when he is on one.

When he is locked in, probably not sleeping for several days, just like pulling the trigger on trade after trade after trade. He got Juan Soto. He could have said, hey, we're 12 games behind the Dodgers. We're not going to catch them this season. We're probably good enough to win a wildcard as it is.

We're about to get Fernando Tatis back, right? I mean, a lot of teams probably would have said, hey, the biggest deadline acquisition anyone will make is we're getting Fernando Tatis back from the injured list. It's like the Mets got Jacob deGrom back from the injured list on Tuesday, right? And promptly he got no run support and then no decision and the Mets lost the game. But he pitched well. But hey, he's back, right? And you can sell that to yourself and to your fan base as, look at this superstar. We just added to this already pretty good team.

But not the Padres. They're not going to content themselves with that. Not only did they get Juan Soto and Josh Bell from the Nationals for Mackenzie Gore, C.J. Abrams, Robert Hassel, James Wood, and Harleen Susana. But they got Josh Hader from the Brewers for Taylor Rodgers, Denelson LeMet, Robert Gasser. Great name for a pitcher, Gasser. Yeah. Esturi Ruiz. Then they got Brandon Drury from the Reds for Victor Acosta.

The Padres, I mean, they probably just lead the league in trades, period. But they definitely lead the league in trades where I'm like, where does that guy even play? You just have so many players. I guess they'll find a spot for Brandon Drury. But it's like, you have so many players now. Do you have more players than you're allowed to have? Right. Are there secret roster spots that are available to San Diego that are not available to other

clubs? Right. And then they got the aforementioned Cam Gallagher from the Royals for Rooker. Oh, yeah, they did that too. Right. That went a little bit under the radar. That got overshadowed slightly by the Juan Soto trade. And also, they extended impending free agent Joe Musgrove to a five-year, $100 million deal.

They did do that. So, wow. Wow. Wow. Take a bow. Take a breath. Take a nap, AJ Preller. Yeah.

Take some coffee and caffeine, whatever you got to do, because wow. I mean, at last year's deadline, he lost out, right? Like we talked about how Preller got beaten for once. He got scooped. And by a division rival, the Dodgers swooped in. They got Max Scherzer. They got Trey Turner. The Padres had very much been in on Scherzer. Well, this year we get AJ's revenge, right? Because the Dodgers were in on Soto too. And nope, the Padres topped their offer. They topped every other offer. Just an incredible bit of business for the Padres over the last day or so. Yeah. And it's remarkable, right? Because they gave up a lot to get Juan Soto. And arguably, that return for Washington might still feel late to you.

And I think that that's a defensible position, right? I was talking through that deal in its various forms. And we got to do five minutes on the TikTok of this in a second. But when it looked like the Nationals were going to take on Eric Hosmer and potentially have to pay Eric Hosmer more money. Yes. I left out Luke Voigt, by the way, of the players that the Padres traded away. So to set the scene for our listeners who have lives and normal jobs, right? When this first came across the wire, the prospect piece of it,

so the guys who are still technically prospect eligible, so Abrams and Hassel and Woods and Susana, that part came across. I was like, that's pretty good. I was like, is it enough for Juan Soto? Then Mackenzie Gore is coming to you. I was like, oh like oh boy that's like you know like that's five guys and those are all good guys and there's risk attendant with all of them and some of you know like abrams and gore's early big league careers have been rocky but like i think we still see them long term as having a lot of potential and we can talk about

why that might be particularly the case for Abrams and him being rushed and this and that. And then Passon's like, and the Nationals want a big leaguer. And I was like, oh boy, who do they want? And then it was like, they want Eric Cosmer and I was like, wait a minute.

I feel like that makes this a less good deal for the Washington Nationals because look, he can scoop it, but Eric Hosmer's not a very good baseball player anymore, Ben. He was never as good as that contract, but he's definitely not that good now. I was like, oh, boy, this is going to be quite a day. Then it came through that the Nationals were actually on Eric Hosmer's limited no trade list. I don't know if you know this, Ben, but players can say no when given the opportunity if they have a no trade clause. Often what happens when a player has a team on their no trade list and then is being asked to approve a trade to one of those teams they get a little sweetener

you know they get a little they get a little something out of that yep and so i was like look eric costar is not very good but the nationals are gonna have to give him more money and that is going to haunt that is gonna haunt rizzo for the rest of his life that is gonna be in and like it is a weird thing i hope that this doesn't sound too like macabre like here's the thing someday mike rizzo will die i hope it's not soon i don't know man but like i hope that he has a long and fulfilling life sure but when he does die and the baseball part of his obituary is written this trade is going to be on it like this deal will be on there it'll be on there you know he was asked about that right like how does is going to be on it like this deal will be on there it'll be on there you

know he he was asked about that right like how does it feel to be the guy who traded one photo he did point out he's also the guy who signed one photo sure point right yeah and like he's won a world series yes they have done you know their their baseball team has been around for a little while like they've done a great many things, right? And I don't know if this was even totally his choice, right? I mean, there was probably ownership pressure involved. There was almost certainly ownership pressure, right? Almost certainly ownership pressure.

So, but it's like a weird thing to know about a stranger that, like, when that guy goes, we're going to talk about this. I mean, who knows if we'll be around. But, like, if we are, we're going to be like i mean who knows if we'll be around but like if we are we're gonna be like remember when my research was so i was like oh no you can't have eric cosmer in there you can't have eric cosmer going up the works and look i don't know eric cosmer i know that like he was kind of rude to eno one time and he you know That'll be in Eric Hosmer's obituary. Yeah, definitely. Westbrook to Eno Saris one time. Might be in Eno's obituary.

But like, you know, it was like, again, we hope everyone lives along and happy. But so like, I don't know if Eric Hosmer and I would naturally get along, right? I don't know if we'd be pals. And again, I think he's a not very good baseball player. But when I saw that Eric Hosmer was just like, I don't want to play in DC. I was like, that's one of the most metal things I've ever seen a baseball player do.

I'm going to do a swear. That rules. And of course, they were still going to get the deal done because Eric Hosmer was not the important part of that deal. And it sounds like they had the Eric Hosmer version of the trade and then they had an alternate version of the trade. And all of these guys are repped by the same agency. So who could have thought that it would get out

and that there would be all these people and that everybody would know all the stuff going on in this deal? Of course, that's going to happen. They're all repped by Boris. But it was a really beautiful 20 minutes. It might have been my favorite 20 minutes of the entire deadline day when I was like, is Eric Cosmer going to torpedo this trade? Yeah, there was that brief moment where it was like Eric Cosmer already perhaps not a

fan favorite. Everyone was tweeting this is the most power that Eric Cosmer has had all year. And it's a tough spot for Eric Cosmer. I felt for him. I did too. This was a no-win situation for him. No win. I mean, I know.

It ended up being fine. It ended up being a going-to-live-in-Boston situation for him. I don't know if he views that as a win or not, but that's what it ended up being. He's a Major League Baseball player making $21 million this year. He's winning plenty. I know. But just from an interpersonal standpoint, he had the choice of like potentially be the person who sinks a Juan Soto trade. At least it looked like there might be the potential for that to happen.

And then like how do you stay in San Diego? I mean, it's not his fault necessarily, but like he's the guy who prevents your team from getting Juan Soto. And also he's just not that good at baseball. Not very good at baseball. That's not good. But also, like, well, why would you want to leave San Diego to go to D.C. and play for a terrible team? I mean, yes, maybe you get something sweetened, something tacked on the end of that deal.

But like, just all else being equal, you probably wouldn't want to do that. He's comfortable. It's a hassle to get traded, especially to get traded to a terrible team. So I wouldn't have wanted to do that deal either for him. And then it ends up being Luke Voight when Hosmer says, no, no, thank you. So I wonder what Luke Voight is thinking about Eric Hosmer too right now. I don't want to speculate that he might have thought can i have eric osmar killed but like i wonder if he thought it for a minute i'm very loose tonight but i'm in a good mood you

know sometimes we do these uh deadline reaction pods and you can like hear my ass dragging across the floor but not tonight i feel impressed i know what are you on aj preller uppers here this is impressive i don't want to speculate what age is on i feel like that might get back to him and i'll get in trouble i will not speculate about what you were on. I feel like that might get back to him and I'll get in trouble. I will not speculate about what you were on, but I'm impressed by just- I'm drinking water and I have had three sips of a beer, so I'm doing just fine. Okay. Well, I hope you don't crash in the middle of this episode, although that's a distinct possibility. But yeah, that's a tough spot for Hasbro to be in. And ultimately, he ends up going to the Red Sox and the Padres basically eat his whole deal, it sounds like. So that's the resolution of that saga.

But that was quite a wild little interview there. So the Padres get Juan Soto. Juan Soto is a San Diego Padre. That's amazing. He's going to be in their jerseys. He's going to be in their jerseys. He's going to be in their City Connects. It is. Everyone under the sun has said this, but there has never been a trade like this.

There has never been a player like Juan Soto traded. Nope. Mid-season, a player as young, as good, as established as Juan Soto just has never happened. And understandably so, because if you have Juan Soto, generally you want to keep Juan Soto. So this is a singular trade. And I mean, now you're looking at Tatis coming back soon. You're going to have Tatis, Manny Machado, and Juan Soto. Oh, and they got Josh Bell.

And they got Josh Bell. That's the other thing. Right. So Josh Bell has had a fantastic season. He is not hitting as many grounders, it seems like, as the ground ball rate goes. So Josh Bell goes. So he has like a 140 WRC plus this year. He's hitting fewer balls into the ground.

So that's like you would think that this package could have been had for Soto alone, but they got Bell too. Well, because they originally were like really excited about one Eric Hosmer. Yeah, apparently. So to get Soto and have him now for two and a half years, right, and also have the inside track at signing him to an extension if you want to do that. You already have Tatis and Machado locked up long term. So, I mean, who could think of a more exciting offensive core than that?

And then you've got Musgrove signed too. Like the Padres, at least for the next few years here until some of these contracts start expiring and guys potentially start moving on, like they are set up. I mean, they're not going to catch the Dodgers barring some incredible collapse in Los Angeles. But just from today on and with Tatis coming back soon, you do not want to face the Santiago Padres. I mean, their roster when Tatis comes back, assuming he is at full strength, which I guess is not a given. But if you have him, you have Soto, you have Machado, like this team is stacked. You do not want to face this team in a playoff series. There are not many baseball teams better than this.

And you can look ahead to next year, too, because Soto is there for next year and a year beyond that. Josh Hader is there for next year. Musgrove now, who was an impending free agent, is now not. You have basically an entire rotation locked up there for at least the next couple of years. I mean, this team is like entirely imported, right? Because Preller has just turned over the roster and the entire farm system repeatedly. So you look at their depth chart on roster resource and it's just trade, trade, trade, trade, trade, free agent, purchase, trade, trade, trade, trade, trade. The only homegrown guys, is there anyone, maybe a couple of pitchers, not even important pitchers, maybe were people who were signed as

amateur free agents or draftees here. But every prominent player on this team is someone that Preller imported and was able to do that by doing a nice job of scouting and developing to some extent, at least to the point where he's traded like two entire farm systems worth of prospects, it seems like over the last couple of years. Like I remember a Baseball America article about just the quantity and quality of prospects that the Padres have traded over the past couple of years or whatever it is. And somehow they just keep coming, those prospects. Now, maybe they have finally exhausted the resources there because looking at the board at Fangraphs, they have plummeted down there as one would expect. So they're 26 now in terms of total farm system value. But the fact that they have managed just

to make their prospects a renewable resource to the point that they were able to make so many deals without giving up the core guys. And then now that they have finally given up the core guys, it's for Juan Soto, which this approach comes back to bite them. And there will come a time where they have to make some difficult decisions about the state of the roster because they want to extend Soto. How do they grapple with their free agent pitchers who are going to roll off? Because they didn't extend everyone, right? They're going to lose some guys at some point. And the farm is quite bare at this point. There's not much there right now, but you also can't want some.

Yep. I think that you have to take the division context into account. Keeping up with the Dodgers is hard, right? The Dodgers are this perpetual motion machine. They have payroll. They have incredible player development. They draft really well. They'll spend, they'll identify guys in trade.

Like they have all of these avenues for talent acquisition. And so I think that when you see yourself being in a position to like get a guy that you think is gonna be a difference maker, even if you end up relegated to the wild card, like you just kind of have to do it. you know i think that san francisco had a relatively quiet deadline right we can talk about some of the guys who didn't move which includes rodon but like it's not like that team isn't going to spend money at some point right like at some point they're going to decide we're going to go spend some money right like maybe the giants will say hey

aaron judge what if you came back to california right like they have options available to them in the off season and they too have established themselves as being really really good at player development and and in short order and like you don't have to worry about colorado as we've talked about but like arizona's farm system is really good too and at some point they might end up being, you know, at least a threat in the wild card race. So I think that their division forces San Diego to be aggressive. Now, does it mean they have to be as aggressive as like Preller is willing to be? I mean, maybe not, but also they have Juan Soto.

So maybe I should shut the hell up. Yeah. And it's not a big media market, obviously. I know they have the city to themselves, basically. But they have spent. They've spent like a lot of teams in bigger markets have not. They will not only make these trades and use their prospect capital, but then they will sign Manny Machado to a big deal. They will perhaps somewhat regrettably for them sign Eric Hosmer to a big deal. They will, perhaps somewhat regrettably for them, sign Eric Hosmer to a big deal.

They will sign Fernando Tatis to a big deal. Potentially, they will sign Juan Soto someday to a big deal. So you have to applaud their ownership group's aggressiveness, too, and just putting the lie to the idea that you can't compete. You can't keep up with the big boys if you're not in a big market. So it's really refreshing to see. It's just fun to see a team get so aggressive. And I mean, you can look back to when Preller first took over and he was feeling feisty and he tried to turn that team into a contender overnight.

And it didn't go great. It did not. He tried the quickie shortcut rebuild and it did not work. And ultimately, he had to play the longer game. But that was just the appetizer that showed that he had the appetite to make a mood. Right, sure. Sure. But after that, then he just went for it repeatedly and has like, I remember writing in 2020 at the 2020 deadline that he had just an incredible flurry of trades then that he had broken his own record for just the sheer number of players traded in like a span of three days, I think it was. You just never know when he's done. I'm disappointed that he did not go get Wilson Contreras. Like, Austin Nola, not so hot this year. Could have used an upgraded catcher. Where were you, AJ? Come on. But really,

pretty impressive showing. And I just want to say also about that hater trade. So the hater trade was an exchange of closers, which is really rare, perhaps unprecedented. Like as unprecedented as the Soto trade was, this was not as spectacular, obviously. But this was another entry in the genre of Padres doing things that just no one has ever done, really. So this is sort of a mini StatBlast. We don't have time to play the StatBlast song today. We have too many trades to get to. But I did ask frequent StatBlast consultant Ryan Nelson to see if there were any previous

examples of a trade of two teams' respective saves leaders. And he found that there have only been 47 trades ever where both teams gave up a player with a save. So just a save. There just haven't been many examples of that. Looking for examples where both teams swapped their respective saves leaders, there are essentially two and neither one really counts. So June 11th, 1959, the Senators Dick Hyde for the Red Sox's Murray Walls, who had five saves and three saves, respectively, that led each team at the time. But saves did not exist then, and closers did not exist as we currently conceive of them. So not going to count that. The only other example is, well, I'm going to say special circumstances, special in quotation marks. It was the Roberto Osuna trade. So yeah, the 2018 Astros Blue Jays, Roberto Osuna for Ken Giles trade, who I think had like nine and 12 saves respectively. But there were other circumstances.

Right. There was an icky tinge to that move. sent away a player with five plus saves. There were two other times that that has happened. One was 1988, the Rangers' Dale Mahorchik for the Yankees, Cecilio Guante. Mahorchik had five saves, and the Rangers were led by Mitch Williams at 18, so he was not the closer, and Guante had 11. Dave Rigetti had 19 for the Yankees. He was the closer. And then the other one, the last one, 2014, the Pirates' Jason Grilly for the Angels, Ernesto Frieri. Both guys had 11 saves.

Grilly was the leader over Mark Melanson, but Frieri was behind Houston Street. So really, this is the first ever, basically, closer for closer trade between contending teams like this. And it's a really interesting one, I think. And I guess we could talk about it from both sides. But this is an example where you might say, well, the Padres are doing it for the story. They're going all in. Maybe this is one where they gave up a little too much. I don't know. Potentially, I certainly see the wisdom of it from the Brewers end, like Josh Hader, by far the biggest name in this trade and a much bigger name than Taylor Rodgers, the pitcher that the Brewers got. But

the actual difference in performance between those guys, not great, not that huge a gap, honestly. And Hader, like, yeah, I guess if the Brewers blow some big October game this year and you could think that Hader could have been on the mound, maybe there will be some blowback for that. But they have Devin Williams, who is probably better than Hader, right? He's great. So he slots right in there. They get Taylor Rodgers, who is very good. They got Matt Bush from the Rangers as well.

So I feel like they'll be OK. And Hader, as great as he is, his stats this year are down now mostly because he had a couple of blowouts recently. And those count, obviously. But if you want to discount that slightly just because it was so concentrated, you can. But really, the thing is that we think of Hayter when he first came up and he was pitching multiple innings and he was coming in the game at all times. Now he is not. He is like the most rigid closer usage guy there is. He pitches pretty exclusively in the ninth inning. I think he's only pitched in the ninth this year maybe. And he only pitches

an inning at a time. And I don't know how much of that is his preference or the Brewers preference, but I think I've seen him say certainly that that's how he wants to be used. So that's limiting. Like even if he were automatic, if you can only use him one inning at a time and it's only one inning, then that's tough. That definitely detracts from his value somewhat. So I see the point of this from the Brewers' perspective. You get back someone who is a lesser name but almost as good frankly and then yeah who knows you get a couple prospects you get a speed guy you get a good pitching prospect you get Lamette who I imagine the Brewers might find a good use

for like he's I'm stoked off and on but I'm like stoked for Denelson Lamette if he can stay healthy I like here we are praising the Padres. So I can sneak in a little bit. I can get a little in, which is like I have greater confidence in the Brewers capacity to fix Lomet than San Diego's. And then that's not just a change of scenery thing. Like, I think they're just going to be better at that. But, you know, like he has to stay healthy first. So there's that part. Yeah.

So does Prowler overpay for closers occasionally perhaps? Sure. Maybe going back to the Craig Kimball trade. But I get it. He's really going for it this year. Josh Hader, I guess, probably makes you a bit better at least for this season. So Soto, Bell, Hader, Drury, the Musgrove extension. Wow.

Just what a month, what a year for the Padres compressed into a day or so. So I can't wait to see this team at full strength once Tatis comes back. And you have Machado and Tatis and Soto in the same lineup, not to mention some other good guys. I mean, Bell and Cronenworth and just him you know, him and like just a lot of good players. A lot of profile, just like a lot of positional flexibility. I guess you got Grisham who's having a down year, but that's another Brewers Padres trade that I guess has somewhat worked out for both sides ultimately. So, you know, I guess the only surprise is that they did not deal will myers he's still around they did try they sure did try yeah well and i think that like you know

in addition to sort of putting the lie to the idea that there's only kind of one both one profile of team that can compete and then one approach to to team building which is to have these like planned down cycles where you don't spend a lot. And, you know, it's sort of a bummer to go to the ballpark. Like, I think that they're challenging that. And then, you know, not that fans don't just expect you to be good all the time, but at least when I think about how teams, how I think about teams, when they're going through their various competitive cycles, if you have tried in great earnest to win, when stuff doesn't work out or when you do go into a little bit of a down period, I am willing to grant so much more grace to that decision than I am to teams that just always feel like they're trying to extract every last dollar and are completely immune to

sentimentality. If we we wanted this could be a transition to talking about the baltimore orals approach to the trade deadline but you know it's not always going to work out when you make that many moves when you seem to rely as heavily on the scouting side as aj does and i don't say that to to knock scouts i just think that like their their balance of you know the two sort of hemispheres of the brain from a baseball perspective is a little different than it is for for most other teams right now and sometimes that can bite them and sometimes that gets them fernando tatis jr right like it it's a there's a lot of variance to that but the upside is pretty

high so you know when things don't work out, I'm like, yeah, but you know, you sure were willing to trade for Juan Soto. So I think you want to win most of the time. You should just keep doing stuff. Right. It's like we know what people will say about Mike Rizzo when he passes and we know what Rick Hahn thinks about at 3 a.m. when he can't sleep. So it's a weirdly intimate industry in some ways, right?

Yeah. So from the Nationals perspective, not quite as exciting, although there are things to be excited about. Well, I mean, yeah. So like I said, I think that you can simultaneously go, wow, at what they got in return for this and also feel like it's a real shame that they chose this course, right? Because I understand why having made the decision to trade Soto,

it made sense for them to trade him right now, right? Because you're never going to get more value than you are when you can offer him to a team that gets three postseason runs out of him instead of just two, right? You're maximizing your potential return. You know, the sort of original sin of all of this was failing to either because, you know,

of underperformance or a lack of willingness to put a competitive team and keep a competitive team around Soto, right? Like that's the original sin of all of this. But having made the decision to trade him, like I get why they did it now. And boy, did they get a lot. They did.

Right? Like at the beginning of the day, the Nationals had the 24th ranked farm system in baseball per our farm system rankings, which update live, right? So like all of the trades that had preceded this that were notable were accounted for in those farm system rankings, which update live, right? So like all of the trades that had preceded this that were notable were accounted for in those farm system rankings. Like you might look at Cincinnati and be like, wow, you guys are in much better shape than you were before the Castillo trade, right?

They were 24th to start the day. They are eighth now. Yeah. And that doesn't even count Mackenzie Gore, who is technically not a prospect anymore, right? Now, C.J. Abrams is going to graduate pretty soon. And so they will dip again a little bit. But like they they really altered the trajectory of their farm system in this trade in a way

that is appreciable. Like they they added more value or about as much value to their farm system in this deal as there was in their farm system at the beginning of the day. Yeah. Right? Like, this is potentially a franchise-altering trade. There are other ways to alter the fates of your franchise that don't include trading Juan Soto. wish that those had been the ones that they had chosen to avail themselves both in terms of better player development better drafting keeping some guys who are really good and maybe signing other guys but this is the course they charted and they sure did get a big return and they didn't have to pay eric osmer extra money right so that's good maybe it's the most they could have gotten i

mean i guess it is the most that they could have gotten right now at least or they would have made a different deal. But it's hard to feel like you won a one-soto trade, obviously. Yeah. And to the Nationals fans who are listening to this, this super sucks. Yeah. It super sucks. And I don't want to discount that. And I don't want to say that we have to approach team building this way.

There are, as I said, other ways to do it. The Dodgers exist. So I don't want to discount that piece. I am saying that having charted this path, I think they did pretty well for themselves. But I wish that they had charted a different course. Right. And you'd think that they could have in theory. I mean, it feels less bad than, say, the Mookie Betts trade, which we bemoaned when that happened. made a better extension offer than the Red Sox reportedly had prior to doing that. Yeah. And, you know, I think that it could have been better and it sounds like a ton,

but it was also 15 years. And so when you look at it on an average annual value perspective, you can see why it's not as competitive with some of the biggest contracts that have been handed out recently. And also maybe they couldn't have signed Juan Soto now. Who knows? I mean, if you're Juan Soto and you're on a team that has suddenly become very bad and has ownership uncertainty and you're already making pretty good money because you're a Super 2 guy and you're already into your arbitration years, you don't have a huge incentive to stay there and to sign right now and to sign away your entire career with all the question marks hanging over you. So I can see why Soto might not have been super receptive to it unless he was blown away. So I think there's that. And I think also the Nationals are terrible now.

Yeah, they're really bad. The Red Sox were not terrible when they traded Mookie Betts. I mean, they had a hope of contending if they had kept Betts and they made it back to contention pretty quickly. And they had been a contending team and a World Series winning team not long before that, which, well, you could say about the Nationals as well. But for those reasons, I think just because,

look, it's a team that has basically bottomed out or I guess now it has without Soto, but even with Soto was not going anywhere and was probably not going anywhere even before he reached free agency. Of course, he's young enough that you could still build another contending team around him, but that presupposes that you could keep him around that long and that was not a certainty. So between all of that and maybe also just the fact that, I don't know, Soto has not been a national as long as Mookie Betts was a Red Sox quite, just because he's younger and hasn't been in the big leagues quite as long. And I know that the Nationals are certainly not a small market, low payroll team, that's for sure, but maybe not quite as big spending as the Red Sox. And you just throw all those things together.

I don't think it's as much of an embarrassment or a disgrace that they traded Juan Soto. It still sucks. Yeah, it still sucks. Yeah. And even though they got a lot back and who knows, like maybe it turns into a Mark Teixeira type deal where a few years down the road, we look and say, hey, they got a lot of talent. They got a lot of key contributors out of that trade. It worked out okay. Or maybe not. Maybe Abrams' early struggles, he's super young. It's a small sample, but who knows? Maybe he doesn't pan out as much as they want him to. Or, I mean, Gore just reestablished himself and now he's hurt, hopefully not seriously.

Yeah, he's on the injured list. There are always question marks and there are basically no question marks about Juan Soto. That's the difference. So you look at the Nationals lineup on Tuesday and they won the game, but it's bleak. Yeah. Here is to me the perfect way to think about the tension within this trade. I think I started to have this thought earlier and then I got distracted by the Eric Cosmer of it all. So when we were talking internally about this deal and the return and sort of what our impression of it was, you know, I'm talking to Ben because he's

writing the big react to the whole thing. And then I'm talking to Eric because he's writing about the prospects involved and kind of working through like, do we think of of cj abrams now right because as you noted like he's quite young and he's had a weird trajectory right he lost a season to the pandemic in 2021 he had a number of injuries and so he didn't get a lot of time and so when he debuted in the big leagues this year because, remember, he made the team out of camp this spring. Like, he had played, like, 76 pro games. Like, that was it, you know? Like, and he had played at the alternate site and all of that.

But, like, his trajectory was altered by the pandemic. And he's so young, right? And you're like, he's so young. He's the age of, like, the guys out of college who got drafted this year. And then I was like, but Juan Soto is 23. Yep. Right? Like he's not that much older than those guys.

And so, you know, that is the tension that exists within this trade. Like it could end up working out really great for the Nationals. And, you know, maybe there was no dollar amount that would have induced Soto to sign because he wanted to test free agency. He's a Boris guy, and they often do. And I don't say that as a knock on the decision. I think that that is very often a lucrative choice, and it's certainly one that has benefits

that redound to the rest of the player pool. But maybe there was no number that was going to induce him to sign because the Nationals are bad and they're going to be bad for a while. And he doesn't know what the new ownership group's philosophy is going to be. Right. Like that group might say, we want butts in the seat right away because we just bought this baseball team. And so we're going to spend a bunch of money. Or that group might be like, we took on a bunch of debt to buy this baseball team. We're going to run super lean for the next five years because we have to, you know, be mindful of our margins because we took on debt. Right.

So he doesn't know. And so I think it's perfectly reasonable for him to be like, I don't want to have anything to do with that, you know, in a 15 year kind of way, which doesn't mean that they couldn't have kept him and like enjoyed Juan Soto in in two and a half years kind of a way, but that seemed like an unlikely decision. And I think that for whatever reason, this front office, or perhaps more accurately, the current ownership group was keen to settle the question

before they execute a sale, which, I don't know, feels like a bit of kindness to the new ownership group that I would be disinclined to extend. But, you know it feels like a bit of kindness to the new ownership group that i would be disinclined to extend but you know there's a reason i'm not a billionaire i mean there are a couple of reasons i'm not a billionaire yeah so yeah i'm sorry nationals fans i mean you did win a world series like two years ago three years ago now and that's exciting but also you're probably not going to be in the running for one for a while and that doesn't feel good yeah they're really testing the idea that you get a grace period post-championship.

Because it's been about as bad an aftermath of a championship as has ever happened. I mean, maybe putting aside the Marlins fire sale, it's been rough because they got bad quickly. I know that they were not like the best team even when they won. And it was super exciting when they won. But you look at that and you look at just the exodus of players that has gone on even before that World Series. I mean, Bryce Harper and Soto has left and Scherzer has left and Rendon has left. Not that he has made them sorry that he has left, but you've lost a lot of superstars there. The team has gotten bad quite quickly. It doesn't look like hope is on the very short-term horizon, although I guess horizons can be far away. So on the longer horizon, there is some hope and there's some good talent there, but it's going to be a while. So it's been a quick come down and then you have like Steven Strasberg just basically not pitching since he was resigned and extended after that season.

So it's been rough, but that one flag flies forever at least. So there's that. And they got a lot of great prospects. And they also, in a separate minor Adrianza trade, they got Trey Harris, former Effectively Wild guest from Atlanta. Cool guy. That was another one we didn't write up. I'm really sorry. That's okay. So yeah, if you trade a player, the likes of whom has never been traded before, you're not going to feel like you won that. And when you give away a superstar or trade away a

superstar, it's hard to get equal value back and you have to wait years to find out what kind of value you did get. So it's tough. But I guess once they had decided that they were going to deal him, they did as well as they could have right now, which is perhaps some consolation. So we have a ton of other teams and trades to talk about. I have to interrupt here to really bring down the mood because of some news that just broke since we started recording. The Dodgers announced that Vin Scully has died at 94 years old, which is a pretty crushing loss for pretty much everyone. Not just Dodgers fans, but just baseball fans. He was just kind of the voice of baseball to everyone, really.

but just baseball fans. He was just kind of the voice of baseball to everyone, really. I know there had been some concerns about his health recently because I think he hadn't participated in some celebrations or tributes that had gone on recently, and his absence was noted and worried about, I guess, for good reason. So this was not how I wanted to break into this podcast or how we wanted to end trade deadline day. This is sad news. We can't really do justice to Vin Scully in the middle of a trade deadline roundup probably. So this might be something that we devote more time to later in the week. And I guess I will direct people also to episode 909, which was when Vin Scully was

retiring his final season. Sam and I did a little tribute to him and talked about the significance of his career and where he would be and whether he would be on a baseball Mount Rushmore. So I thought that was a good discussion that might be worth revisiting. And maybe we can talk more about him later in the week. It's hard to go from trades to this guy died to trades. So there's no great transition there. I'm very sorry he's been a constant in baseball. I mean, not just for us, but for people who are twice our age or more. He's just been there.

He's just continuity going back to Jackie Robinson. I mean, just going back to Brooklyn Dodgers, just legendary days. He'd seen them all, called them all. And it's sad that he had to go. He's just one of those guys that you never want to lose ever. it's, I don't know. I don't quite know what to say. It's like, you know, there are a number of different ways in which baseball can feel like it has a voice and that voice can vary for different people. So I don't mean to say that there's only one that can emerge for folks, but it just, uh, one of those is, is him at the end of the day. I think for us West Coasters, we had the great privilege of enjoying him in closer to waking hours for East Coasters. He was often the thing you listen to last if you were listening to like a late night Dodgers game. And losing him and Angel in the same year is just like. I know.

And kind of comparable, right? Like different media, but sort of the same caliber of storyteller in their own way. They did it in very different ways. Angel did it in thousands and thousands of words and long New Yorker essays often, whereas Scully would do it between pitches. But they did it both just as skillfully, just as memorably, just as incomparably, really. So, I mean, those are two people who have no equal, basically. You're poet laureates of baseball types. And obviously, when they are getting up there in

their 90s or 100s, you know that they can't live forever, but you just sort of want them to because just the memories, like I don't even feel qualified to testify to Scully's greatness the way that someone who's been listening to him their whole life or a Dodgers fan could. Like it was a great comfort and pleasure for me

in his later years as a broadcaster to be able to tune in late and if I was up, which I often was, just to be able to listen to Vin Scully and always made a point of listening to the Dodgers broadcast when I could select the Dodgers broadcast. So that was a great memory for me, but not tied up for me personally with my fandom and with my family and how I grew to love the game the way that it is for a lot of baseball fans and Dodgers fans especially. So I'm sure it is hitting them very hard, but it's the kind of thing where like broadcasters typically a local phenomenon, right? Like you love your own broadcaster, but maybe it's not a national thing. And people who grew up around that broadcaster, that broadcaster's voice was the soundtrack of their childhood or their early baseball fandom. Then you really feel that connection. Whereas everyone else in other cities might not know what they were like and what made them great, whereas Vince Gulley, just because of his longevity, because he was a national guy often for many years and would do World Series or even do other sports. And so he transcended the Dodgers fan base more than many broadcasters do with their local fans. Vince Gulley and just like all the viral clips, you know, even in his later years where people would just share him relating some incredible anecdote in like the 30s or 40s or something.

And it's like, well, no one else can do that because no one else can conjure this player in their mind's eye. And Vin Scully could do that. And he could just start telling stories about like, you know, Duke Snyder or Red Barber or whatever. And it's like, oh, well, no other broadcaster can do this and have the one man booth and just all the rest. So again, like we probably must move on for now,

but we will return to Vince Gulley and he will be in our thoughts and condolences to his family and Dodgers fans and everyone who valued him for so long. Yeah, I will just say one more thing about him, which is that like it is like a testament to him as a broadcaster that, you know, for a guy whose's like job is to talk for a living that I think one of my favorite things about him was that he knew when to let the moment breathe. Right. Like he knew when to be quiet.

He knew when to be still and let you take it in and experience it and not have to have that interrupted by a voice even as great as his with anecdotes as good as his were. So I think that was one of the things that made him really, really special. So it's quite a sad end to an exciting day. It is. Yeah. It's not a lesson that really is transferable to podcasters. If we just let the moment breathe, there will just be a lot of silence. That would be kind of odd i think people would remark on that and find it strange yes probably so then we will move on i suppose and we will keep talking but there's no easy transition here so we will just acknowledge

that you can't really move on from learning about the passing of Vince Gulley to going back to the trade deadline. But again, there will be many tributes and we will probably have some here. And we already have had some here as we did for Angel before he went. So again, like Angel, this was a case where Vince Gulley knew, I think, how loved and valued and cherished he was and what an impact he had made on the game, which was enormous, more so than anyone else in his profession. But that was not lost on him, I am sure. This is not a case of someone being appreciated only after they're gone or not knowing while they're still here that they made an impact on many millions of people. I'm sure that he felt that and he certainly should have. So I guess we can move on to trades. Just because we mentioned the Brewers in that Hader deal, just to wrap up them, they got Hader, they got Matt Bush, they picked up Trevor Rosenthal from the Giants who had recently signed him. That kind of closes the books on what the Brewers did. So they were semi-active.

They were doing some tap dancing. They were one of the teams that was adding and subtracting at the same time sort of, which is also always a delicate dance and one I appreciate when it is pulled off well. But they're a team that doesn't have or doesn't deploy the resources of some other fan bases. Or doesn't deploy the resources of some other fan bases. And so Josh Hader, it seemed like had been mentioned as a possible trade candidate for years, really, because of his salaries, which were escalating. And so they kind of have had to or chosen to do raise type things. Right. I mean, they have committed to some guys also, and they have spent and that has been admirable at times too. But also sometimes they got to like do the race thing of dealing away the bigger name, higher salary guy and getting back a lesser name, lower salary guy who is maybe kind of comparable and also picking up some prospects and everything. So we'll talk a little bit about the Cardinals. They were active too, but those teams jockeying for position obviously in the central and in the wildcard race and were not idle. So they didn't make an enormous splash other than the Hader-Rogers deal, which was interesting, but not an enormous short-term upgrade for them. But they did some stuff.

Yeah, they did some stuff. All right. So the biggest non-soto splash was the Mariners move that I mentioned, right? So the best pitcher to change teams here was Luis Castillo. And the Mariners made that move. They have the second most hyperactive general manager. now, I think, between Preller and DePoto. Preller's in his own league at this point. But the Mariners got Luis Castillo from the Reds and they also paid a hefty prospect price themselves. So,

Noel V. Marte, the Mariners' top prospect, shortstop, as well as Edwin Arroyo, Levi Stout, and Andrew Moore. They also made a couple of minor moves. Different Andrew Moore. Not the other former Mariners farmhand Andrew Moore. Different Andrew Moore. I would not put it past Jerry to acquire the same person or

trade away the same person multiple times. I'm sure he has done that. He has done that. Absolutely he's done that. But this is a different Adam Moore. They also got Jake Lamb from the Dodgers in a cash move on deadline day and they picked up Matthew Boyd and Kurt Casale from the Giants yeah they're bringing they're bringing all the former northwest area amateurs back in they're bringing back Boyd and Lamb and now they just have to go sign Michael Conforto and they'll have right they'll have completed the set I guess he's a free agent right yeah he can be busy. Get busy, Jerry. They also promoted this guy, Jared Kelnick.

Have you heard about him? Seems like a big addition, potentially. Oh, Ben, I don't think- Have you seen his AAA stats? I don't think he's very good. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone. Let's focus on Luis Castillo. Why don't we focus on the fact that, like, thankfully, it seems like Julio is going to

be fine. I think that is the like the bigger takeaway here right we will not be living the travis jankowski lifestyle for terribly long but right yeah so the mariners have been a bit banged up yes julio on the al not a long-term thing but he did get hit by a pitch and so he's out for now and they've got a couple other guys who've been injured, but they got a big upgrade in Castillo and it's really exactly what they needed. Right. And so much like the Padres, I guess, who have a rotation that is locked in, not just for this year, but for next year too with, well, in the Padres case, they have Darvish,

with, well, in the Padres case, they have Darvish, they have Clevenger, they have Snell, they have Musgrove, they have Minaya, they have all these guys, right? And I should also mention they got a prospect back for Hosmer, right? Jay Groom from the Red Sox didn't mention that because they paid the money, again, flexing their financial muscle. Yeah, they paid that deal down, but for the minimum, right? Yeah. And so the Mariners now have Castillo, who is under contract for next season, right, before he hits free agency. And then, of course, they have Robbie Ray. They have George Kirby. They have Logan Gilbert.

They have a lot of talent there. They have Chris Flexen around and Marco Gonzalez around. Yeah. So that's a lot. They can put Boyd in the bullpen if and when he comes back. So Castillo, I hate the, is he an ace? Is he not an ace conversation? He's a really good pitcher. He's really good. He is a playoff caliber starter, I think is the way that I would think about him, which I think is probably also the way that the Mariners are thinking about him in terms of his impact. Yeah, he is probably the best pitcher on the team, right?

I mean, Robbie Ray was signed to be, but has not quite been. It's Castillo or Gilbert, and I think it's probably Castillo. Right. And so, you know, Castillo started the season on the IL with a shoulder issue. But since he came back from that, he's been really good. And he's basically what the Mariners needed, at least on the pitching side. And they paid a price for that. They gave up prospects. I mean, they pushed their chips in, much like the Padres did.

And these are two teams that, I don't know if you've noticed, have never won a World Series. And in the Mariners' case, have never been to one. Never won a World Series and in the Mariners case have never been to one. And can't recall the last time the Mariners made the playoffs. Seems like it's been a while as well. So he's got jokes. When you're in position to make the playoffs, as the Mariners are, after the longest drought in North American professional sports, et cetera, et cetera, you got to go for it. And they started slow too, and they have really turned it on until very recently. And they're in pretty good wildcard position.

And you got to feel good about that team, which probably record-wise isn't much different from where last year's team was, but the underlying numbers are much stronger. And I think you just got to hand it to the Mariners for realizing that, yeah, that was a 90-win team last year, but it wasn't really. Yeah. It was super clutch or fluky or however you want to put it. Right. And they didn't rest on their laurels and they knew there was going to be regression.

And so they went out and got guys, many of whom were Cincinnati Reds. Yeah. so they went out and got guys, many of whom were Cincinnati Reds. Yeah. And they have just become a better team between that and between the internal promotions. Yeah. They're just a pretty solid team now. So you got to be excited. Mariners magic, Mariners mojo, it's happening.

Yeah. I think they're like, you know, and they're going to get Hanager back soon and he will hopefully be okay. And it sounds like the long-term prognosis for Julio is fine, and Ty France was banged up a little bit, even though he didn't go on the IL. He didn't go on the IL, right? Someone else went on.

Dylan Moore went on the IL. They had a game in Houston where there were some very creative fielding configurations going on because, boy, were they stretched then because of injuries in a specific game but yeah this is they're in the exact right place on the wind curve to pay extra to get a good pitcher like this is exactly what they should be doing and yes they gave up they gave up a haul like you know they gave up two top 100 guys to get castillo and they you know gave up some

interesting guys beyond that right but also the thing about it ben is that they haven't been in the playoffs in like you know it's gonna be like 21 years like their drought can their playoff drought can drink it can also drive without supervision hopefully not doing both of those things simultaneously like it, it's time. I went on a Mariner's podcast like before the deadline. I think that they were expecting me to be like very circumspect and like they should be conservative and they should do what surplus value tells them. And I am going to say now what I said then and I'm going to do a swear and a big one. I was like, let's go.

Like go get a guy who can help you. I wish that they had upgraded the bottom of their 40 man a little bit more than they did. I think he hit a home run tonight against the Yankees, but Sam Haggerty is factoring prominently in the Mariners' plans, and Kellnock is not good. Man, it's tough because even if you did like a minor league equivalency of his triple a line this year yeah an above average big league batter yeah but like i know like there's

been some whiff there and there's been ben there's been there's been some whiff there it's concerning it's like yeah he just he just might not be very good. The number of times we have gone back and forth on that Canoe deal is wild, because now I'm sitting here like, gosh, it would be really nice to have Edwin Diaz. Even if they had to pay out Canoe's deal. But he was striking out 24% of the time in AAA, and like, okay, but what? Anyway. I mean, if he could be even decent, okay, but what? Anyway. I mean, if he could be even decent, that would be huge for them. It would be huge. Because they could really use that.

Sure. They could have used another hitter, right? If anything, it's sort of surprising that maybe they didn't deal Kelnick. Like if it's gotten to the point where he is a change of scenery guy. I don't think he has any trade value. Yeah. You don't think so? I don't know.

I don't think he really has any trade value right now. Like their DHs have been so bad. So bad. 57 WRC plus by Mariners DHs this year. Worst in the majors. Yes. They got Jake Lamb. They got Jake Lamb.

Who was part of the Dodgers roster crunch. So that should help a little bit. But, you know, another masher might have been nice. Or even, you know who would have been a really good fit for this Mariners team? Zach McKinstry. It would have been really nice to get a Zach McKinstry. This is reflective of

where they are in their cycle because I think that they are certainly a much better team than they were last year. I think that they are a credible playoff team. This is not a team that is smoke and mirrors especially with Castillo. And if, if Julio comes back and is healthy and doesn't like miss either significant

time or, or doesn't sort of stumble upon his return from this risk thing, like this is a good, this is a good team. Like this is not in any way an embarrassing team. If you look at their underlying metrics, like they're over-performinging their Pythagorean expectation in their base runs record by a little bit,

but it's not crazy. This is a good team. This is a team that is credible and should be in the playoffs. But you want to think less about Abraham Toro. You want to think less about Sam Haggerty. You don't want to see Dylan Moore play the outfield. These are unserious decisions and they are

decisions that are being made out of necessity so I don't mean to say that the front office doesn't know that this is a problem. But it would have been nice if they had gotten a little more than Jake Lamb. But also Ben, did you know that the Mariners got Luis Castillo?

He did. So that's pretty great because I don't know like Marco Gonzalez has been important to this franchise he still eats innings but like you want him to be at the bottom of your rotation and candidly like Robbie Ray's been up and down would maybe be the charitable way to describe Robbie Ray's season he's had moments where it seems like he has figured some stuff out and where he has improved the shape on his fastball and then he'll have a start that's a total clunker. So I don't know what you make of Robbie Ray.

I think that Luis Castillo was the most impactful non-Juan Soto addition that this team could have made. And they did that. And that's pretty cool. Could they have done more? I would have been happy if they had, but I'm also happy with the move that they did make. I think having Kirk Gasali as some catcher backup doesn't suck

because those guys just get banged up all the time, and when Cal Raleigh's not back there, it can get a little dicey. Good on the Mariners, and good on the Mariners being willing to pay something of a premium to get what they needed and doing it early. Right. Like if I'm a Mariners fan, I would rather have Luis Castillo than Frankie Montas. And so I think having determined that they were not really in the Juan Soto sweepstakes. Right.

They did seem to compete in that space, but did not clearly get to the final rounds. They just were like, oh, we'll just go do this other thing. I still think that they should endeavor to retain the services of Otani, but I think they might have to wait till free agency for that bite at the apple because they do not have the prospect capital to do it anymore. Yeah, that's the only thing we didn't get on deadline day. No Otani trade, unsurprisingly.

Are you sad about that because now we won't see him in October? Or are you happy about it? Because I don't know why you would be happy about it. Because I just love seeing him in that Angels red and white. Yeah, no. I like their City Connects. Their City Connects are pretty cool. I'm not sad about it because I didn't expect him to get traded, but it would have been exciting if he had been traded.

And now the Angels will just be even worse around him because they made some deals. They traded some players. They did. So they got even worse, and it's going to be even more depressing to watch Angels games when I want to watch Showtani the rest of the season. But anyway, I am happy that the Mariners did something and did something significant. I know you're not as much of a Mariners fan as you used to be, but hopefully some of that residual fandom— But more than like three years ago. Yeah, will return to you as they make their run down the stretch. And they had to do something.

They had to shore up this roster because there's no playoff lock here as we speak. They're like a game ahead of the Rays, two games ahead of the Guardians here. Like they're still fighting for a playoff spot. And in their case, they have to fight for that playoff spot more than any other franchise. So on the other end of that Castillo trade was the Reds. And I guess there's some similarities here with the Nationals in that they gave up a good player. They got a bunch of good prospects back. And it's kind of like, well, the Reds didn't really have to be in this situation. But once they were in this situation, they did OK with this deal, it seems

like. You can look back at last year and look at where the reds were competitively or even how they've played since their historically slow start to the season which they've been pretty solid despite doing their teardown over the winter like there's some alternate history where more like the padres they just decide to spend and decide to just even keep the players that they had and probably could have been competitive this season. And they did not do that. And deadline day kind of closed the book on both the Reds teardown and the A's really because the Reds not only sent Castillo to Seattle, they also sent Tyler Malley to the Twins who had already gotten Sonny Gray from the Reds. So this is it, I guess. Other than Ramon Laureano, I guess, didn't move. And they didn't end up

trading Sean Murphy, the ace, that is. But almost everyone who was going to go, it seems like, has now gone from both of those teams. And that's depressing, obviously. If you're a fan of those two teams, it's easy to think about what could have been if they had had ownership groups that were willing to invest in what were pretty solid rosters. But they decided to do what they did. And having done that, I guess it's better to go all in and strip to the studs, more or less, than to get caught in some middle ground where you're not getting as many prospects as you could, but you're also not contending currently. So, you know, like you look at the Mariners farm system, they're down even further than the Padres now. They're at 29th

on the board. Atlanta's dead last and the Astros are 28th and the Padres are 26th and well, the White Sox, we can talk about the White Sox. They're 27th. But these teams, these are good teams. These are teams that are going for it. It's okay to have a bad farm system when you have leveraged a lot of that value to get better at the big league level. It's tough to be the Rays and be good and have a good farm system, or even the Guardians to some extent. It's just tough to juggle all of those things at the same time. So the A's have gotten better. The Reds have gotten better. Neither, I guess, has as strong a system as the Nationals do right now, at least according to this ranking. The Reds are at 11th, the A's are at 17th. But, you know, you look at the return for Castillo and that seems pretty strong, right? I know that opinions are divided on Marte's positional future.

It seems like Eric believes in him as a shortstop. He does. Yeah. So that's encouraging because the Reds have had shortstop issues. They've tried to turn all sorts of non-shortstops into shortstops. And now maybe they've gotten one who can stay there hopefully for them. Yeah. Well, and they might get two bites at the apple because Arroyo, at least for right now, is a shortstop. I think that Eric's opinion of his ability to stay there is more mixed than it is for Marte, but he is one, presumably. You have Eli De La Cruz floating around, who might be one of the most exciting players in the minors and has air bars as wide as O'Neal Cruz's tall, as tall as Eli De La Cruz's, for that matter, because he's 6'5". So, you know, they have some shortstop talent percolating.

Like you said, which of those guys is able to actually stick at the position long term, I think is a subject that has inspired debate. We are higher on Marte there than I think some other publications are. And, you know, maybe are a bit lower on Arroyo than some others. But this was a pretty good return. They get some exciting guys who have upside. There's some volatility here, but it's pretty promising. And then, like you said, like there's pitching that was exchanged in this deal and that will be ready to sort of pitch at presumably at the big league level and in pretty short order.

So, you know, it's a haul. I had to keep coming up with new words for haul. And then Ben, Ben used blockbuster in his Soto react. So then I couldn't use blockbuster when headlining. We've debated before what qualifies as a blockbuster. No question about that one. That's the dictionary definition right there. Yeah, that one was unambiguous. So I think that, again, you're right. The Reds didn't have to chart

this course, but having charted it, I think there are some players here who in a couple of years, Reds fans will be like, oh, wow, that's our next good insert position here. So that's exciting. It's like making the best of a self-imposed bad situation. And yeah, they got quite a bit here. So that's pretty cool. So the A's putting more touches on their teardown, I guess, lets us lead into the Yankees because the big move the Yankees made, they traded for Frankie Montas and Lou Trevino from Oakland for four prospects, three of them pitchers. The Yankees were also busy in other moves. They acquired Harrison Bader from the Cardinals for Jordan Montgomery, which was an interesting one.

It was a little bit of a head scratcher for me. Yeah, me too. But the rare, I guess rare-ish two contenders swapping real major league contributors at the deadline. The Yankees also got Scott Efros from the Cubs for another pitching prospect. Efros is a reliever who is not young, but he is under team control for quite a few years and has been quite effective. And that has really allowed the Yankees to make up for losing some of their relievers, right? Like Michael King and Chad Green, those guys are gone. So even though the bullpen has been strength, it has not been as big a strength.

Recently, Clay Holmes has looked a little more mortal. Chapman has not been good this season. So getting Efras, that helps. Getting Trevino, who I know has an ugly ERA, but his peripherals are basically what they always were. He's generally pretty effective and has pitched better of late. And the Yankees, we talked about the Andrew Benatendi trade they made last week. And they also inevitably dealt Joey Gallo to the Dodgers for pitcher Clayton Beater, a Texan pitcher from the Dodgers named Clayton, but not that one. Not that one. I'd like that you say inevitably dealt because you're right

that it felt inevitable that Joey Gallo was going to have a different uniform come Wednesday than he did on Tuesday. But I still think this is a really weird move for the Dodgers. I don't quite know what the appeal of the gallo of it all was for them but also maybe they'll fix him and that would be exciting right he'll fill out the uniform nice if they fixed him i mean lots of whiff-tastic lefty sluggers in that these days but gallo wasn't till this year a good player an all-star level player so if the dodgers can tweak something and he just like he needed to get out of he needed to get out of new york whether it was new york that caused his issues i don't know but yeah exacerbated them and like just from the sound of

some of the quotes in the interviews like he was not in a good place like i i had not seen his quotes to yes until I was, or no, rather, sorry, his quotes to the athletic, to our good friend Lindsay Adler. So here I am, I'm sitting here feeling good about Juan Soto, and I'm editing Jay Jaffe's reaction to this trade. And then I get to this quote that Gallo gave Lindsay, and I just was like, someone go hug Joey Gallo. I know, I felt terrible for him. Yeah, he said, I feel bad. It's something I'm gonna have to really live with

for the rest of my life. It's going to be tough. I didn't play well. I didn't live up to expectations and that's a tough pill to swallow and I just feel so bad for the guy. I know that he did not play well for the yankees and i know they gave up prospects to get him but like joey buddy yeah can only my guy

like yikes yeah every time i see a yankees hat every time i see a yankees jersey it's something i'm going to have to understand i didn't play well as a Yankee. I wish I had. I mean, he was out the door before he was out the door. It's rare for a player who's still on a roster to basically make clear that he knows he is going to be gone, but also wanted to be. I mean, back in June, he said, I'm just not good enough when he was asked what was going wrong. And this is someone who has played at a pretty high level in the past. And yeah, the quotes to Lindsay just go on and on. And he talked about how it's tough not to play well in New York. It doesn't make you feel good about yourself. That's something I needed to learn. I see it as part of a growing for me as a person and as a

player. Man, I mean, if you want to talk about deadline winners, I guess getting out of New York for him is a win, although it doesn't sound like he's just in a good place, psychologically speaking, right now. And it wasn't just the quotes to Lindsay and just how deflated he sounded when he talked to her last week, but he gave, I think, a subsequent interview to New Jersey Advanced Media. And if anything, it was like even darker sounding stuff here in New York. If you don't get enough hits, it doesn't matter what else you're doing. They're going to tear you apart. I feel like people are a little sick of me here.

So I don't really know what else I can do at this point here. I haven't played well, so I think it'll help me to move on. I don't go out in the streets. I really don't want to show my face too much around here. Oh, my God. It just goes on and on. It's just, man, it makes me feel like a piece of shit, honestly. I remember playing here with the Rangers,

watching guys get booed off the field and thinking, holy shit, I feel bad for that guy. Now it's me. My confidence suffered. I would say I hit rock bottom. Oh, my gosh. Like, I hope things go better for him in Los Angeles. I guess they couldn't go worse.

But I know that he is maybe a uniquely frustrating player when he's not going well. Because, like, he's going to hit 200 even when things are going as planned, basically. And so if he's hitting 160 and he's not making it with the pop, yeah, it's bad. It's not a great spectator experience, even though he does contribute a bit on the bases when he's on them or in the field. But yeah, you would have thought that would be a decent match, but it turned out not to be. And I guess it was past time to move on. out not to be. And I guess it was past time to move on. But the more major moves that the Yankees made there, I also sort of scratched my head about the Bader for Montgomery. I guess they felt like having gotten Montas, they had a surplus of starting pitching perhaps, or they could make up

for the pitching loss with the defense because Bader is like a true center fielder and one of the best in baseball. And I mean, they've had Hicks out there who is a decent center fielder, but hasn't really hit. And then they have Judge who's done a credible job out there, even though he doesn't have the build of a stereotypical center fielder. But I guess you don't want to jeopardize his health or anything. So I don't know. Like you wouldn't want to jeopardize his health or anything. So I don't know. Like you wouldn't want to bench a better bat there. I guess they could platoon him with Benintendi for now.

They could use him next year out there. Like there are a lot of moving parts. Stanton is hurt currently I guess. But, you know, they have all full healthy Hicks season. But Montgomery's good. Maybe he's a better fit for St. Louis just because ground ball guy and that defense and everything, but he's good. That's a significant loss there. And getting Montas makes up for it, maybe more than makes up for it. He has had issues outside of Oakland. They know. And he has shoulder concerns. Right. So maybe that's why the A's didn't get more from them than they did is that were wary of that that they couldn't get full value for him but if he's healthy then he's very good and he's a good addition and even the Yankees

just had Severino move to the IL like the 60 day yeah they still should have a pretty deep rotation in theory but they needed someone yeah Cole who could really give them consistent innings and I don't know if that's Montas if he's healthy it would be him but and I know that they still at least at this point it sounds like they still expect Severino back but you know not until probably the the latter half of September and so then you have to wonder maybe in a relief role at that right like what does that look like for the postseason for them it's's probably not, you know, he's not going out there and giving you seven innings in all likelihood, right? Yeah. So I would have, you know, if I ran the Yankees, well, first of all, no one would have to cut their

hair. And then I would say- Does Vader have to cut his hair? Because that would be a judge. I think he does. Oh, man. I was, look, part of this is, you know me, I often find myself exhausted by the discourse, but part of why I was relieved that Castillo didn't get moved to New York is because what if they had made him cut his dreads with their wackadoo policy that we should just be done with already. But anyway, we were spared that particular. Yeah. I like the get vaccinated policy much more than the have short hair. Yeah. Shift it around, right? You're putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable, as it were. I think that the tired is starting to kick in, Ben. That's what I'm experiencing right now. But anyway, what I was going to say was I was surprised that they were as confident in the

sort of strength of their depth not that they don't have good pitching but that it is has been and is currently kind of hurt and so the fact that they were willing to move on from that for something that i didn't see as like a strong positional need was kind of weird to me yeah i understand the the feeling of the organization being like i think you know some of the the guys who they moved from montas were maybe a little higher on than than some other places but um i get them saying well we just draft and or sign guys and make them pitch good so we can give up some prospects because we have confidence in our ability to replicate this process over a prospect population and kind of churn out other Waldechucks.

I mean, just like, you know, like Joey's gone. So I got to go there. Yeah. It is funny, though, that like I was seeing, you know, Brian Cashman trending prior to the deadline. It's like Cashman's got to do something, got to make a big move. It's like, have you seen the Yankees record? Have you seen their lead in that division? It's like Yankees fans never satisfied.

And I was one, so I get it. And like I understand that they have been playing more 500 ball lately than their amazing pace, but they are still the only team in baseball with 70 wins, right? Mm-hmm. Yep. So they got better. And probably the Yankees and the Astros were the AL favorites going into the deadline. And they probably both got better by the most in that league too, arguably. So the Astros, they got catcher Christian Vasquez from the Red Sox for a couple of prospects. That's a pretty big addition. Yeah. Because their catching was a garble. Yeah. At least in terms of the hitting, I think. Right.

We talked about that with Jake Mintz, right? And how Martin Maldonado gives you things that don't show up in the slash line. Yeah. Like as a human, to be clear. No, of course not. I don't say things like that. But with the bat, it could be better. His defense makes it easier to live with the bad bat. But in Vasquez, they get a great glove and a good bat.

So that's a pretty big pickup. And they also got Trey Mancini and a raised pitching prospect in a three-team trade that sent Jose Siri to Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay also got David Peralta and the Astros. There were pitching prospects in that deal too. Pitching prospect Chase McDermott went from Houston to Baltimore. Ray's pitching prospect Seth Johnson also went to Baltimore. And then the Astros also sent starter Jake Odorizzi to Atlanta for reliever Will Smith. So the old chestnut about you can never have too much pitching.

Well, the Astros arguably had too much pitching or at least too much starting pitching. So they traded one of those guys, Jake Odorizzi, to the Braves who have had guys struggle in that rotation. And so they needed someone who's just sort of solid, dependable, mid-to-back rotation type like Odorizzi. And Will Smith has not had his best season, but he has a track record of being effective. Will Smith has not had his best season, but he has a track record of being effective. So the Astros, you know, not any one move that's a major splash, but I would say they got better. And now probably they are still the favorites, but even more so in the AL. Maybe we're heading for a Yankees-Astros-ALCS.

Who knows? Well, first of all, at least prior to the the deadline the ALCS is going to feature the Mariners and the Orioles now will feature the Mariners and somebody else I love that Will Smith is still the only lefty in that bullpen yeah right like what is up with that the Mets also are like just uninterested in left-handed pitching it's like you could

you could entertain some of it you could be like hey we we want a lefty that isn't just the one guy. Anyway, Jolie Rodriguez, that's their one lefty. Yeah, I thought it was a fine deadline for Houston. They traded from what they viewed as positions of depth, namely pitching and primarily glove for centerfield guys. And they got some stuff back. And so that seems useful to them.

And they certainly needed like a better option than Maldonado. Jason Castro, I think is done for the season now with an injury. And so in addition to just needing a more competent bat, they like also were kind of lean when it comes to catcher. Now, Jason Castro was the offensive version of a good catcher in Houston, and he still wasn't very good. So I think that that's a good move on their part. We were treated to, we get at least one of these a deadline

where it's like you're playing the team you were just traded to, except that Vasquez had literally taken batting practice as a red sock and then was like, no, you're an Astro now, and go put on a different uniform, please. A legal way for the astros to know which pitches are coming. He's got jokes. I'm sure I'm the only one who made that. Yeah, probably the only one.

Because we have such a diversity of jokes on the internet. Allow me to say the following. So it is interesting. You noted the farm system ranking moving around that was done and since he improved and obviously washington improved and the a's improved but one thing that i think is useful to keep in mind with them and eric highlighted this when he wrote about that deal like their talent acquisition strategy on the on the prospect side during this teardown has been like big league ready or near big league ready guys and that trend continued with the montas deal like we're gonna see a lot of those guys in in oakland i think in relatively short order maybe not this year but certainly next year and so they

might fall again just from graduations yeah not just yet so yeah and they haven't had extended troughs and slumps, the A's, historically during the Billy Bean era. So when they have rebuilt, they haven't done a long-term teardown, which is one silver lining. They haven't had a long trough. Yeah, exactly. They can't feed a lot of animals at once. It's a short trough. Well, talking about teams with long troughs, so just to touch on the Orioles here for a second because they did decide to sell to be a team that was subtracting from their roster. Everyone bought or sold or bought and sold except for the Rockies who held. But the Orioles could have gone either way. And ultimately, they decided to trade Trey Mancini and also Jorge Lopez, their closer, who went to the Twins, though they did get Brett Phillips from Tampa Bay for a vibes boost. But they will need that because, you know, there were some quotes coming out of that clubhouse, too, about people being upset about losing Mancini, who's sort of the heart and soul of that team.

So just not trying to upgrade or reinforce that roster that is exceeding expectations and is finally contending again after so long being bad. And, you know, it's not a shock that they went this way just given who runs that team and the way that they tend to look at roster construction. And Michael Ias had one of those kind of clinical quotes where it was like, we didn't think we were going to win a wild card, even though they're, you know, two and a half games out of it. And look, I think he's probably right about that. I think they probably were not going to. It's just, it's tough. And maybe it will all be forgotten if the Orioles next year are better and call up other top prospects. And these prospects pan out for them. And they do have the top rated farm system, according to Eric.

And so there's a lot of help on the way. And it's just a more respectable team than it's been. And I get it. Like, you know, get what you can reinforce the team like you've been through this tank. Like might as well just stick to your guns here and stick to the plan. And you're not quite ready, you think. And so fortify your foundation as much as you can and then really make a run for it and hopefully spend at some point. But it's tough.

I think it's tough to tell that team and to tell that fan base like we're close, even though it's because of this expanded playoff format, even if our odds of actually winning one of those wild cards wasn't that great, like to be that close that you can almost taste it at this point and then say nope not yet even if it's understandable it's it's just a tough pill to swallow i'm sure and especially with someone like mancini who has meant a lot to that team obviously i think a couple of things about this i mean i get the mancini move more from a just if we want to set the the feeling part of it aside and i'm not i don't say that like that part is unimportant but just to like set it you know just to the side for a second i understood the mancini decision more just from a pure roster construction perspective because it

doesn't seem like they wanted to bring him back and even though like the return was sort of whatever i think they did better than I expected them to from a return perspective, but like, I kind of get that a little bit more. And I know that Lopez has been less good lately and that there's a lot of volatility with relievers. And I think that front offices tend to view them even ones who are pretty good. i don't think that lopez was necessarily like elite elite but like he was a good reliever as fairly fungible right they have confidence that they are going to be able to replace that production either elsewhere on the roster or cheaply in free agency or from their farm system and and that it's not super consistent year to year for the most part. And so whatever.

But they had another two years of Lopez and maybe they like Bautista more. I think that we know that now based on this deal. But surely they like Lopez better than some of the guys who are getting moved up the bullpen death chart because of his absence, right? Yeah. So there's that piece of it and then when we bring the feelings back in it's like mancini means so much to this i mean like this is a dude who is

i'm watching on sports center last night like thanking the training staff for saving his life right right because like demographically he's not the guy's, he's not super likely to have had the kind of cancer he did. And like they found it and it saved his life. Right. So like you have that piece of it. And I know that when we are thinking about like what, what did they retain that in terms of players who are going to be good during the, like when they really mean it. Right. Like they didn't move Cedric Mullins.

Right, exactly. But also Cedric Mullins has feelings, right? Like this is the piece of it that I always think is just a little bit off. I know that we can't quantify like chemistry and I know that guys come and go and even on teams that are good, like guys come and go.

But like Cedric Mullins has a view on the direction of the orioles and presumably that's a guy you want to keep kind of happy so like is it worth disrupting the sense that the team has that like we're all in this and we're trying to win and we are you know on some level they are probably clear-eyed about their ability to really like challenge the other al teams that are likely to make it to the postseason but like they're in it you know and they care about this and they are respectable for the first time and in a while just been a good minute and so i get it and i think it kind of sucked yeah i mean you don't want to demoralize your up and

coming core and make it feel like they don't have the support of ownership in the front office and that they won't spring for supporting pieces. And I think that could be overcome if, let's say, next year, maybe it's a better team, maybe more guys come up and maybe they are a team that is adding at the deadline instead. This doesn't preclude that happening. So maybe it's just a temporary bummer. It's still a bit of a bummer. And, you know, we were just criticizing the Rockies for like prioritizing maybe loyalty too much or just like, I like this guy or it's a nice story.

And so we're not going to do anything and we will just be in this middle ground forever. And so we're not going to do anything and we will just be in this middle ground forever. Like I would rather be almost too clinical about it like the Astros were like the Orioles are where it's like I think there's a middleini, obviously mixed feelings for him to be leaving this team that helped save his life and also is where he's played his whole career. And also he gets to go be an Astro. Right, that's the thing. He might win a World Series ring, right? Exactly. It's not a total bummer for him. I get that piece of it, too. And much better fit for his swing at this point, right?

Because he has suffered from that Camden Yards fence move and fence height change. And when he pulls balls in the air, he is not doing nearly as much damage this year. And he has really been a victim of that change. Whereas now he's going to the Crawford boxes. And it's like, hallelujah. He's going to hit a billion dingos. He's going to hit so many. It's going to be great.

So I think it's going to be good for him in a way. And he could always resign with the Orioles if he wants to. He probably won't. And I don't know that they would want him to. But that option is theoretically out there. So I sort of understand it. But it is tough and it is a little just like take all the emotion out of it and what this player means to that team. Like if you're getting a huge upgrade, maybe it's worth just living with that stuff and doing it. If it's an upgrade, but more of a marginal one, then maybe it's not worth it. And maybe that wasn't worth it for them here. It's tough to tell, but I get why people are sort of upset about it while others sort of understand it.

So, yeah, I think that, you know the tolerance that the fan base is going to have for this kind of stuff is going to vary person to person and i think that people uh their mileage is going to vary on this form of team building they're never their their astros dna is never more like obvious than it is a moment like this and so i i do get it but i also think

it kind of sucks you know it's it's sort of like juan soto except much lower stakes pick up the pace before you completely collapse here so we mentioned that the twins they got mally they got jorge lopez yeah they also got michael fulmer from Tigers. They got Sandy Leone from the Guardians. So they got better. And not only did they get better, but I think there's a strong contrast between them and the team that they're fighting with or the teams that they are fighting with in that division. Because the Guardians did bupkis. Other than sending Sandy Leone to Minnesota. To Minnesota. Nada.

Nada. Yeah. To Minnesota. Weird trade. I guess the Guardians have done well to be competitive with so little support from ownership and just not making any major moves. But just over and over, they chose to sit on their hands. And they have the second best farm system, I guess, in the game, right? Like right behind Baltimore. But, you know, they're at a point where you might actually want to trade a prospect every now and then to get better at the major league level. Because even though they've done a good job with development, especially pitching development, and they've managed to stay competitive, even when their ownership group is not investing in that roster, like this is when you got to go for it.

Like that division is winnable. So to see the Twins get better while their two rivals there just did almost nothing, like k kudos to the twins, but where were you, Guardians? Where were you, White Sox? Yeah, and just, oh, yeah. Unlike the Guardians, the White Sox don't have the farm system where there could have been players for, like, Soto. Right, like, they were limited in that respect, but, like, all you're doing is bringing in Jake Diekman, who might be kind of cooked.

Ben wrote up that deal as part of a reliever roundup, and go look at Diekman's average leverage index when he enters from the start of the season to when he was traded. The Red Sox lost confidence in Jake Diekman. Yeah. And it's just. Get like Brandon Drury, like the Padres like fourth move or whatever,

like the White Sox could have used a second baseman. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's, it's sort of unfathomable.

I mean, I, I applaud Minnesota for, despite the inactivity, relative inactivity of their division mates being like, we would like to have better pitching. Please let us go do better pitching. But I just can't, you know, I can't quite account for it.

It's a shocking lack of activity. And I think the White Sox had some stuff after the fact. They were like, we tried to do stuff. We are disappointed too. And I'm like, who are you? You're the guys who do that. And I know that like it's a market.

And so other teams are competing for some of the same guys that they are. And you're right to point out, particularly in Chicago's case, like that is a bad farm. It is not like it is no longer the worst farm because other farms have done stuff with their farms. But like it is not a good farm. They did not have like a surplus of guys. But like to do nothing. Yeah. I think it's bad ben it is it's bad so elsewhere we had the cardinals we talked about the montgomery for bader deal they also picked up a resurgent jose quintana and chris stratton from the pirates for prospects look the Pirates helping fix a pitcher and flipping him for once.

That's nice. And the Cardinals also dealt Edmundo Sosa to the Phillies for Jojo Romero. Yeah. So I guess because the Cardinals were looked at as a leader in the Soto sweepstakes. I found this deadline pretty underwhelming for that, but I might have mentally traded Juanan soto to the cardinals last week so that's maybe why but also i don't know like it doesn't feel amazing when like your big move as i guess quintana it's basically that and i guess jordan montgomery you know yeah but

they gave up a real player for that i mean their, their outfield is thinner post-Bader. Yeah. I know, because Bader's hurt a little bit, right? Isn't he hurt a little bit? Yeah, he's got plantar fasciitis, I think. Oh, that seems bad. That sounds uncomfy. But I am trying to accurately assess my view of the Cardinals' deadline and how much of it is just that they didn't get Soto. Yeah, that's just going to be a letdown, inevitably.

Yeah. And how much of it is just that they didn't get Soto? Yeah, that's just going to be a letdown, inevitably. And the other teams we haven't really talked about, I guess, just a quick whirl through the NL East, right? So the Braves, they got Raizel Iglesias, a late buzzer beater. Yeah, Jesse Chavez and Tucker Davidson. No offense, guys, but that's a good pickup. Well done, Atlanta. That's a pretty major move, right? I mean, that's a good pickup. Well done, Atlanta. That's a pretty major move, right?

I mean, that's just almost a straight salary dump, basically. Iglesias was one of the best relievers available this past offseason and hasn't been his best year, but he's still pretty good. Yeah, he's an upgrade on some of their other options. Yeah, they got Robbie Grossman from Detroit. They got Adrianza from the Nats. They got Odorizzi, as we mentioned, in the Will Smith trade with the Astros. They famously extended Austin Riley. Yes, they did to a 10-year, $200 million-plus deal.

So, I mean, now their core is all extended long-term, like a lot of it, right? Acuna and Albies and Olsen and Riley. I mean, just a lot of those guys are going to be Braves for a very long time. A long time, yeah. Yeah. And this was somewhere between. I mean, this was not an Albies deal. Everything is judged against the Albies deal these days, it seems like, in terms of team friendliness.

But Riley has turned himself into a superstar, basically. I mean, he doesn't have the name recognition of like your arenados or your machados but like performance wise he's up there so you know he he should not have been the mvp last year it feels weird to have to say that and i don't think i actually do to our our listeners but like there are a lot of people in atlanta who are like austin really was the mvp last year and i was like he sure he sure wasn't but like he had a good he had a great season last year and he is now hitting 301 360 604 he has a 163 WRC plus I know that there are error bars on war but he has basically matched his season from 2021 already in 2022 and it is famously only August 2nd so he has more time to go and he's hit 29

home runs in a year where as we've established the ball first stretches has had on we so uh i'm definitely getting punchier as we go ben i think it's still okay like i think the analysis has still been like fine keeping it together yeah but i can tell i'm like i can tell that it's getting punchier so yeah he he will no no doubt get MVP votes this year, and he will sure deserve them, especially relative to last year. So it's great for Atlanta. The moves they made this year were different from the moves they made at last year's deadline, and they're in a different position now than they were then. But it's going to be a race. Like, it still is a tight race there. The Mets are not going away, and they just added Jacob deGrom and the other moves that they made. Ben, who's this Jacob deGrom fellow?

I don't know if I know who it is. He's, you know, one of those hard-throwing, flame-throwing prospects. Spindly guy. Used to have long hair. I think he should grow the hair back. I think so, too. The Mets got Darren Ruff for J.D. Davis and three pitchers with the names— Did that feel like a big haul to you?

That felt like a lot for Darren Ruff. Yeah, it did. The pitchers named Seymour, Sapucky, and Zwack. Zwack! Which I enjoyed very much. They also added Michael Givens from the Cubs for an A-ball pitcher. And then prior to the deadline, they had picked up Tyler Naquin and Daniel Vogelbach. So, you know, I know that people were wish-casting Soto to the Mets too, but- That never felt like a fit to me. Right. And I mean, they are another team that could have used Wilson Contreras, right? Yeah.

So let's talk about this. Why isn't Wilson Contreras on the Mets? I do not know. Or any team other than the Cubs. What was going on there? No hap trade, no Contreras trade. Well, and like if they weren't blown away, then fine. Here's another question for the Mets.

So you haven't gotten Wilson Contreras. You want to compete for the World Series. Is there a reason that Francisco Alvarez is still in the minor leagues? What are we doing? Yeah, I mean, they really could use help at catcher. Wilson Contreras was right there. So I don't know if the price was way too high for a rental.

Like the Cubs are not new to trading away players at the deadline. So like they should have some idea of what realistic expectations are there. And if they weren't met for some reason, then that confuses me that a team like the Mets was not willing to do that. met for some reason, then that confuses me that a team like the Mets was not willing to do that. So that is one of the big surprises of deadline days that Wilson Contreras is a cub. And Ian Happ. He and Happ can keep hugging each other for the rest of the season. Yeah, it's pretty shocking. I mean, we don't assign a ton of pre-writes for the deadline because there's variability about whether guys move like we had you know we had some soto content in the can right before we came into today and

like smart of you to anticipate that yeah like we we had some castillo content like ready to go and we had some monta stuff ready to go and then we had contraris stuff ready to go poor jjf he never got to use it i mean mean, I'm happy for Cubs fans because they get to keep watching, you know, Contreras and they get to keep watching Happ. And that's exciting because they're not getting that team stripped down quite the way that we thought they would. But yeah, I kind of can't account for it. I just I do wonder and we will never get a completely accurate TikTok of these things. But, you know, you just really have to wonder how much did the Soto of it all throw everything off? I did hear from a couple of people in front offices that the entire deadline was just kind of weird for them because of Soto. It's like, we want this guy and that

team will not talk to us because they're involved with this Soto thing and they don't know what they're going to have at the end of it. And so I do wonder, is it just that the market didn't crystallize quickly enough for Chicago to feel like they were getting what they wanted? I don't know. It's weird. I hope they keep hugging.

It's nice to hug in lower stakes moments. Yeah, you don't have to hug when you think it's going to be the last opportunity to do it. You can hug anytime. Yeah, like, I mean, like, as long as everybody wants to hug, like, you should say, like, hey, are you a hugger? And then if they say, yeah, like, you know, like, hugging's nice. And the other NLB's team, I kind of like what the Phillies did, actually. Yeah, how about that? So, Phillies picked up Noah Sindergaard from the Angels. I'm getting louder. That's not a good sign.

For Mickey Moniak and another prospect. And then they got David Robertson, another go-around for Robertson with the Phillies from the Cubs for a pitching prospect. Then they picked up Brandon Marsh from the Angels too. Suddenly the Angels were like, everything must go except for Otani.

And then they also got Sosa from the Cardinals. So kind of like these moves. Syndergaard, Robertson, Marsh. Like getting a – I know Marsh has not hit that well. He's struck out a ton. But he is a good defender. He was recently a top prospect. And so the Phillies have needed that

better than having odubo herrera out there for multiple reasons so to get marsh to get robertson who has been lights out this year and to get cinder guard who is not like flame throwing thor peak cinder guard but is still like an effective mid-rotation guy it seems like you know it's nice work for the phillies i think yeah i quite liked their deadline you're right that like marsh has not hit i think he has like a an 80 wrc plus or something right now but the thing about brandon marsh that is different from the other guys in the outfield for the phillies is that he is an actual outfielder yes he is not a dh pretending to be an outfielder and i think that i think they're going to enjoy that experience i think they're going to be like hey you know this brandon marsh guy can play some defense yeah at

least he gets to keep his hair presumably so that's nice at least and oh yeah the phillies uh as we speak are tied with the cardinals yeah the race for that last wildcard spot. So I think they got better by more than the Cardinals did for whatever that's worth. Obviously getting Harper back would be the biggest addition that they could make, but they've played pretty well even in his absence. So they have kind of rated the ship there and they're trying to be better. So I like the work they did there at the end. So we've hit on all the teams, I think, that made a lot of moves, and we've talked about some of the teams that made no moves. Or very few. Right, and I guess the only other teams that were kind of caught in the middle somewhere were the Red Sox, right, who traded... Damn!

Real weird deadline, the Red Sox. Yeah, kind of a confounding deadline. They traded Vasquez, they also traded for Hosmer, and traded for Tommy Pham. Right, Tommy Pham. That was interesting. I guess the Hosmer, is that like the equivalent of the Schwerber move from last year? Because I don't think that's going to work out as well. I mean, I don't know. They were kind of a bubble team and I'm okay with them not trading big pieces away and trading Bogarts and all.

Like, they have a chance and they're the Red Sox. They can keep those guys. They could sign guys. Like, that's fine. But, yeah, the moves that they made, like, some subtracting, some addition at the same time, like, not a clear direction there. Not sure what to make of that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess so.

It's not that Eric Hosmer was free, right? Because they did send a prospect to San Diego to help balance that deal, but they're not really paying Eric Hosmer anything. Right. So he's basically free. And I don't say that to knock Jay Groom. It's just like it wasn't an exorbitant package that went back and forth. So there's that piece of it. Andmmy fam was like given away for practically nothing i think that was a player to be named later as the other side of that deal for them right so like you get a tommy fam

and enrique hernandez has been hurt for much of the year and franchi Cordero is bad. And so like, okay, but then you move Vasquez and doing that has inspired some of their other players to be like, what are we doing? Again, I think that you wanna try to avoid moves that inspire like that degree of clubhouse discord. And they were all professionals, but like when Xander Bogarts is like, what are we? That seems not the best, right? That seems like something has gone wrong. scored and they were all professionals but like when xander bogarts is like what are we that seems

not the best right that seems like something has gone wrong so it was just kind of a weird deadline for them i think that you know if we're looking at the al east it's like obviously the yankees are like the yankees are a playoff team you heard it here first folks and then i think that like the Blue Jays will Blue Jays their way, and that seems like it's going to go fine. And then the Rays keep hanging around despite the fact that their entire roster is hurt.

Yep. So I really liked that Peralta pickup for them. I think that's going to end up being good. Although they did make some 40-man consolidation trades where they gave up guys who seemed like they might be something just because they have to clear 40-man so that's suboptimal but they were gonna have to do that in the offseason anyway so whatever the jays were linked to a lot of guys

they didn't get and then they ended up getting a few they got zach pop who i will always remember for being the first major leaguer we met in meet a major leaguer so they got him from the marlins as well as Anthony Bass. Really, if you're the Marlins and you have Anthony Bass, like you have to hold on to the guy named Bass and also- And they got rid of Fishman.

I know. They promoted and then demoted Jake Fishman, Fishman on the Marlins. Come on, Marlins. What are you doing? I mean, I have questions about their deadline beyond that probably, but also like if you're collecting

fish themed guys- Yeah, you got to get all the fish guys yeah come on be like look we will take trout's contract i'm just saying like he is a fish man yeah the marlins ended up not trading pablo lopez i feel like they need to like rejigger that roster at some point yeah it doesn't feel balanced Yeah, so they didn't do much at this deadline. But the Blue Jays, they got Bass, they got Pop, they got Mitch White from the Dodgers. And then hilariously, they got Mirafield from the Royals, who I assume will indeed be getting vaccinated. I think the Jays don't have a home game for about 10 days. So he has a little time to get the jab and have that take effect and not miss too much time when they return home.

But there was like a very smooth bit of finessing on that question because I think they were asked about that. And he was like, we're getting to know him like that's between him and his family. And it's like, look, I think we have made our position on whether or not people should get vaccinated clear. vaccinated clear but you know you have to like manage people some of whom might have beliefs that are not in you know accordance with yours or certainly not in accordance with your roster requirements but instead you're like it's between him and his family and then you can have a soft conversation instead of being like he's a dummy we're mad about it yeah i mean they must have some inkling i mean he I mean, he did say. I mean, he said, right, that if he was traded to a contender, right?

He was pretty obvious. And it's like, yeah, if you're a winner, I'll think about it. Right. He doesn't sound like that. It's rude for me to do my, like, goofy guy voice when doing these things. But that is how it feels. Yes. And the other team that was kind of like, which way are you going?

The Giants, right? So we talked about a couple of minor giants moves they ended up not trading jock peterson or carlos rodon yeah so you know they're on the periphery of that wild card race and i guess they just decided to stay there and hope for the best basically yeah i mean how they are buffeted about by like good luck and like extreme performance is always interesting but i don't know like sounds really useful so just hold on to him maybe let's see all right well did we do it i think we've we've touched on probably every team at some point i think we hit every team that was active really so apologies if we did short trip to your roster yeah i'm trying to think if there's anyone

we didn't mention at all did we talk about the d-backs did we talk about the arizona diamondbacks at all ben lightly you you complimented their farm system they do have a nice farm yeah we didn't talk about the rangers too much they could have made more moves, I guess, than they did. There were some trade candidates. Yeah, they moved Matt Bush. Yes, they did. But they held on to Martin Perez and Luis Garcia and others. So yeah, I don't know. And Matt Moore, right, who seems like a logical trade candidate. I mean, speaking of the Diamondbacks, the Rangers have been snakebitten, as we discussed recently with the one run games and everything so i don't know if they feel like they can somehow get back into this thing or they just feel like they're a pretty good team and better than their record and they're just gonna keep everything together and run it back and hope for better results next year but yeah it could be true i think the diamondbacks moved luke weaver they moved luke weaver but yeah they had a pretty quiet trade deadline. Can I send us out on a personal anecdote?

Sure. My sister came to visit earlier this year, and we went to a Diamondbacks game. You might be familiar, Ben, with the Diamondbacks mascot, Baxter. He's like a cat of some kind. He's like a desert cat. I don't know what kind of cat he's supposed to be. My sister was like, why is it a snake? I'm like, because it is a giant

stuffed thing walking around by children. You can't have a giant snake walking around the ballpark with children. That's going to terrify the children. You can have giant former ball players with weird huge heads, but

you can't have a snake walking around. Even if you tried to make it a friendly snake, it would be terrifying. I think they should have a snake, though. I think they should do it. I think they should be brave and commit. I should be done podcasting now.

Probably, yeah. Only other things we didn't mention because we noted that the angels didn't get back a lot in some moves they did get back logan oh happy from oh yeah that's true yes uh number 50 prospect i believe according to the board or wait no yes no he is he is a 50 future value and also number 50 on the board yes i know they have stassi and they extended stassi but i guess there's still room there. So that's a player. That's a notable name they got back.

And also the Mets, they traded Colin Holderman, right? And we have noted his fun name before for a pitcher. Just like a lot of fitting names with the like Holdermans and Gassers. And then, of course, you have James Outman, who has not made many outs. And that is not as fitting as Joshosh outman i guess who was a pitcher named outman yes although really like james outman will make plenty outs too it's just not a good thing when he does it but enjoying some of the names that have been bandied about today yeah there have been there have been some great names there have been many many words written we should

tip our caps to the scoopsters who have big days today and uh you know i hope everyone enjoyed reading stuff at fan graphs we will have more by the time you're listening to this it'll probably be live we'll have some summary posts coming in the next couple of days and we sure appreciate people spending the deadline with us because we had a lot of fun today and we hope you did too yes indeed now i. Now, I will make this quick, but I do have to end with the pass blast. Oh, that's right. Pass blast. We're not going to get another episode 1884. So this is Richard Hershberger, historian, saber researcher, author of Strike Four, The Evolution of Baseball. This is episode 1884.

This anecdote is from 1884. And Richard writes, for this year, I present a momentous event in baseball history that is nearly entirely forgotten today, the invention by some unknown genius of the left-hand catcher's glove. Just to be clear, Richard says I am not being ironic, from the Cleveland leader of April 4th, 1884, a new style of left-hand glove for catchers has been brought out. The fingers are still cowhide, jointed at the bottom with buckskin. The finger ends are stout enough to withstand And Richard says, decade at this point. They wore matched pairs because everyone knows that is how gloves come. The earliest were leather work gloves with the fingers cut off so the catcher could throw the ball. Over the 1870s, there were incremental improvements, adding padding to the palm and putting serious thought into the seams that would bite into the hand. But the basic pattern remained

the same. The flash of genius we see here is the realization that only the right hand needs to be kept free to throw the ball. The left-hand glove could be constructed more stoutly. The idea caught on immediately. Catchers initially continued wearing fingerless gloves on the right hand, but some soon were experimenting with wearing just the glove on the left. Some infielders were, by 1885, experimenting with these new gloves, and in 10 years they were nearly universal. I've also attached an advertisement from the 1886 Spalding Guide showing this style of catcher's gloves. The two gloves are of similar size apart from the fingers, but this was a brief transitional stage. Freed from the dictates of symmetry, the left glove began expanding into the catcher's mitt,

as shown by the second ad from 1890. So once they started wearing gloves, everyone said, hey, this is a good idea, especially for catchers. And then those gloves got bigger and thicker. So sometimes someone has a stroke of genius and a brilliant insight and everyone says, why didn't we think of this before? Why didn't we do this before? Our hands hurt. Our joints are breaking. Let's wear gloves. Yeah. Sometimes you're like, wow, we should have just traded for Juan Soto earlier than this. Wait, that's different. I think left-handed catchers should make a comeback, but left-handed catchers gloves, or at least left-handed catchers gloves, those are pretty important too. Okay. I think we have finally come to the end.

Thanks everyone. All right. It occurs to me now that we didn't talk much about the Dodgers, but there wasn't much Dodgers dealing to discuss. Not like last year. We did touch on some of the individual Dodgers moves. We skipped over the Chris Martin, Zach McKinstry swap. There were a couple other minor moves, but Joey Gallo was the big addition, potentially at least.

And really, if the Dodgers had made more of a splash, which they didn't necessarily need to, it wouldn't have made much of a difference in a sad day for Dodgers fans. I do have a few other follow-ups and notes from previous episodes, but this has been an epic podcast already. After all the trade talk, after learning about Vin as we were recording, I won't try your patience or overstay our welcome. Hopefully we haven't already. I will get to those things next time, because we do three of these things a week, if you hadn't noticed. For now, I will say that you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going,

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editing and producing session. We will be back to talk to you a little later this week. Trees fade out in the black of night Sometimes it don't hardly seem worth the fight But at least tonight I'll get to hear The golden voice of Enskoli The golden voice of Minsk