Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 256: The Trade Deadline in Review

Episode Date: August 1, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss their favorite and least-favorite deadline moves, the biggest upgrades, teams that should have sold, and more.

The loser. Loser. The who. The her. Good morning and welcome to episode 256 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I am Ben Lindberg, joined as always by Sam Miller. Hi. Hello. And I'm wondering what your A-Rod confidence level is on this Thursday morning.

Well, it's not good. I'm trying to figure out if he were to appeal, whether the Yankees would play along or if the Yankees would conspire to keep him off the field anyway. But I would say my confidence level is about one and a half percent. Yeah, that sounds about right right now. Down from, what was it, 15 when I asked you a couple days ago? Yeah, and down from 80 or 90 a couple weeks ago. Yeah, falling fast. So we weren't sure exactly what to talk about today,

but we spent the day writing about trades and waiting for trades to happen. In the end, not all that many of them did. But I guess we're going to talk about trades maybe. And we didn't really want to do winners and losers so much. So we're going to do teams that did well and teams that did less well. Or we can do biggest upgrade maybe. Or just a favorite trade. Just a trade that you're fond of.

So I opened up, we have a blog posted BP where we listed and linked to all of the transaction analysis stuff that we've done this month. So I'm looking at that and scanning down the list. And I'm supposed to tell you the trade that I like the most? Yeah, I guess, yeah. From one team's perspective? Yeah. I guess I like, gosh, this feels a lot like a winner's.

This feels a lot like saying winners. It does feel dangerously like that. It does feel like we're doing winners and losers. So what? Maybe we are. it's what the people want i would say i like the braves getting scott downs for nothing yeah i like that too that might be my favorite move and i guess that's telling i guess that tells you all you need to know. Yeah, I like that move because I don't know whether it's because he's not a capital C closer type or what, but he's one of the more consistent, effective relievers out there, one of the best at getting lefties out. And they really didn't give up much. They gave up kind of a potential right-handed middle reliever, maybe,

Corey Rasmus. So that seemed like a good move because I guess one of my favorite moves was the Jose Veras trade from the Astros' perspective. And I guess it gets kind of tiresome to keep praising the Astros for getting rid of all their players. I feel like, I don't know, at some point I'm looking forward to being able to praise them for acquiring someone someday. But the Varus trade is, it seems like a good one.

I mean, when they signed him, it sort of seemed like he was just a very generic reliever with no real closing experience or anything. And they just kind of turned him into a closer for half a season, and he happened to pitch very well. And they didn't have to spend a lot of money on him or anything. And they turned him into a pretty promising prospect, it sounds like, someone who could potentially be a regular someday. Yeah, the clever thing was figuring out to get Jose Veras in the first place.

You really only get one shot at this. I mean, you maybe get two. You can maybe squeeze in two closer experiments before the trade deadline. But basically, you get one shot to go pick some nondescript arm who you can pay $800,000 or whatever for a year and tell him he's going to get a few save opportunities but not many because you're terrible. going to get you know a few save opportunities but not many because you're terrible and he's he's got a pitch you know if not better than he did before at least superficially better and they they did it they they hit they hit on a 32 year old who's never done anything yeah so that's kind of kind of impressive and maybe i don't know if it's kind of lucky or not but probably kind of i mean he's not you normally expect this kind of

guy to be a former closer who is kind of fallen on hard times so like you might have expected them to engineer for for francisco rodriguez before the season started sort of a thing uh you know get a guy who is just needs to reclaim the the proven status. Uh, but Ferris was not an obvious one, but no. Uh, and I mean, he was a guy over the last three seasons. I mean, in each of the three last three seasons, he had a 3.6 or seven or eight something ERA. Um, which I mean, if you, if you stick that guy in the closer role, he will, he'll save the game most of the time. But he actually got, he got quite a bit better.

He cut his walk rate. Yeah, he did. Which, yeah. So that, that part is surprising. He had never had, he had never had a walk rate below 4.3 in a season. And, uh, you know, this year he's had good control. Yeah. It's hard to predict that.

So yeah, it's 32. I don't know whether that's just a lotto ticket that came out well or whether they felt like they could fix him somehow. But yeah, I like that move. And we talked recently about how the Cubs just kind of signed people with the intention of trading them and did trade quite a few of them. And the Astros weren't so active on the free agent market. They didn't really pursue the same strategy.

But with him, they did, I guess. And it seems to have worked out well. Yeah, the thing about this trade deadline is that everybody spent the last, you know, after it passed, everybody talked. And even before, everybody talked about how it was the most boring trade deadline is that uh everybody spent the last uh you know after after it passed everybody talked and even before everybody talked about how it was the most boring trade deadline and there were no moves and nobody was being you know that there were no good rumors although there were but you know not as many and um the idea is that that you know i think that the narrative that even we've talked about and that has been generally embraced is that something having to do with the second wild card, something having to do with extensions, has made teams less willing to sell.

And I actually think I'm reconsidering that. I think that it was the opposite. I think that – and I don't know why it was the opposite, but I think the problem was on the buyer's end. I don't think there were teams buying this year. Because you look at the Angels, for instance, they don't have any illusions about what they're going to be able to do. And they didn't really, I mean, they had Howie Kendrick, who is a phenomenal trade piece.

And I mean, obviously, they're not giving him up for nothing. They're going to give him up only for something that is a lot, but you never really heard any traction on that trade. You didn't hear a lot of traction on a lot of guys who were known to be available. I don't know why the buyers weren't there, but I think that that's what it was. That's why I'm impressed with the Astros because, as Grant Brisby pointed out, they probably got the biggest prospect haul in this, if not the whole deadline, at least in the last few days. Maybe the Cubs did with the Garza trade alone. But they did it with really nothing interesting at all like bud norris is really like if bud norris were on any team but the astros and he didn't start opening day he would be really like probably

wouldn't have gotten much notice at all um like you know he's he's basically maybe phil hughes right he's not he's not good and yet um that he was their best trade piece. Maxwell is a pretty generic corner outfielder. And Varus is, you know, he's nothing. He's a right-handed relief pitcher who, you know, yeah, he's got saves, but I think that we're probably in an era that we're kind of past that. So they managed to turn, you know, nothing into a pretty good crop of prospects. And I think a lot of teams probably were shopping guys around trying to do the same thing and being unable to.

I mean, I don't, like everybody's ripping on the Mariners for not doing anything. I don't think the Mariners have any illusions about what they are. They're 12 1⁄2 games out of the division. They're, I think, 8 1� a half out of the second wildcard spot behind, like, six other teams. And, I mean, I really have a hard time thinking that the Mariners are thinking, oh, yeah, no, we really, we're still in it. We're buyers.

My suspicion is that they just, genuinely, it was hard to pull anything off, even if you had guys available. You know, the Giants, certainly, you certainly, there's no reason to keep Javier Lopez unless it's to, I don't know, if they just figure out what the heck, we'll just commit to the World Series core forever and they plan to re-sign everybody. But it doesn't feel to me like there was a lack of team selling. If you scroll through MLB trade rumors over the last three days, there's a million guys named. So there were guys available.

Maybe the price was high, but the price has traditionally been high. Teams overpay at the trade deadline. That's just been a fact of the trade deadline history. Teams always overpay, or they always have historically. So yeah, that's all. What do you think of that? Well, is it possible that some of those players who were reputed to be available were just, they were semi-available? Like if you blew them away, they would maybe part with them. But a team like the Angels, even as you say, if they're under no illusions about competing this year, they're still thinking about doing so next year, right? They are, yeah.

So Kendrick seems, I mean, he's an important part of that. It's true. Kendrick's not necessarily the best example. so it's true it's kendrick's not necessarily the best example um but i just think generally speaking there are there is a very large right now that at this point in the season as we talked about on i don't know if we talked about on a show or if we just chit-chatted about it but there's like something like eight teams right now that are between one playoff one percent and 90 playoff odds pretty much everybody is settled. And it just, it sort of defies belief

that these teams that are under 1% don't realize that and aren't shopping guys around and that they have some like sort of, oh, well, there's two wild cards, so we're still in it kind of delusion. I just really have a hard time believing that. So is there any team then with the caveat that we don't really know who was talking to who or trying to do what,

is there any team that you do feel like really missed an opportunity? Like, I don't know, do you feel like, say, the Pirates not getting anyone except Robert Andino? Is that a big missed opportunity? I mean, there were rumors that they were really trying to get Giancarlo Stanton, and they were talking about Alex Rios and various other players, and they seemed like a team that probably should do something. And I thought that a couple of years ago they did a good job of kind of being buyers, but not really.

Just being buyers just enough to placate their fans who really wanted them to win. And they were in kind of a tough spot because they hadn't won in forever. And so when they had a good first half, naturally all their fans wanted to see them try to stay in it. But they kind of knew that they weren't actually as good as they had been to that point. So they sort of like, you know, they got Derek Lee and someone else of that ilk and

just kind of didn't really give up anything and were just nominal buyers and didn't hurt themselves in the long term. So I thought that was smart. But they seemed like a team that could use some things this year in that they've been great, but probably aren't quite this great and had a couple holes where they could probably upgrade and had the prospects to get deals done. So is there a team, either the Pirates or, I don't know, the Phillies or anyone else who just stood pat who you felt like that wasn't such a great thing?

The Pirates are tricky because they're, I mean, they're 99% likely to make the playoffs right now. And I feel like that'll be kind of an unqualified success. And, you know, I mean, it's been so long since they've even had a winning season that while it would be wonderful and it would be magical if they won a World Series, I feel like the incentives for them don't really support them necessarily going for it this year because they're just not going to get that much more out of winning a playoff series than they are from getting to the playoffs, if that makes sense. They're going to capture virtually all the goodwill

that you can capture with the very first postseason game. So there's declining rewards for each additional playoff game that they win and, and they don't have to really worry about missing the playoffs. They're, they're going to make the playoffs. It's just not, it's not a concern. Um, so, uh, yeah, I mean, I do think that as, you know, like, as we talked about with the nationals, they, there might be, uh, they might be falling into the trap of thinking, well, we're playing well and we're young, so we're going to play well for many years, and therefore we should have this long window.

You might be right, because it's very likely that they'll win 78 games next year, and then they'll start breaking things down, and then who knows what they'll be going forward. It might be best, but I don't know. I don't feel that there's that much pressure on them to try to improve right now. I would say that the Mariners maybe are the team that I would have thought should have sold that didn't, that it just seemed pretty obvious that they should have sold just because of the sort of type of player that they have right now performing well for them um and uh so i guess i i would probably ding them but i don't know like i don't i don't know that i'm dinging anybody today i i didn't find any of the trades particularly uh lopsided or weird um i didn't find everybody seemed to hate Kevin Towers for his move. Which is nothing new. Yeah, and it didn't really bother me.

And everybody hated the Royals for their move getting Maxwell. And I thought that that was perfectly legitimate. I wouldn't ding either side in that trade. But if I were going to ding either side, I almost kind of think that the Astros side is more questionable. I mean, you know, Maxwell, to me, is, as I wrote in the transaction analysis, Maxwell's basically had 500 plate appearances in the last two years, which is a red flag. So let's just acknowledge that right there. He has 500 plate appearances in the last two years. But that's, you know, that's basically a full season.

It's less than a full season. He's got 2.7 warp in that time. He's got 2.7 warp in that time. He's extremely versatile. So even if the level of play drops, he's got a lot of different uses for a team that wants roster flexibility. And it just seems to me that Kyle Smith is unlikely to produce 2.7 warp in his career.

So Maxwell, it might be, I don't know. Maybe it's arguably a weird fit, but he hasn't even hit arbitration yet. It does seem maybe like a little extreme that the Astros are trading pre-arb guys like their trade deadline rentals. So I found – maybe I found that the strangest move and from the Astros' perspective. Well, what about the Royals non-selling? I mean they kind of had a recent little hot streak and they went a game above 500, but they were still one of those teams that was in the 1% to 2% playoff percentage range with some guys like Irvin Santana, say, who seemed like pretty good trade candidates. So did they fall into that Mariners bucket?

They probably did, objectively speaking, but my guess is just that they don't – my guess is that they just probably aren't looking at that playoff percentage and they've convinced themselves that they're higher than that. I don't think that they think that they're like a favorite or anything um but uh you know they've got a lot certainly dayton more personally but i mean as a franchise they've got a lot riding in this being a good season i mean they they are they invested a lot in this year they uh you know might be wise to consider at some costs and move forward thinking about the future but it's hard for humans to do that and the fact is they're four and a half behind the

second wild card there's not really a good team in the american league it feels like other than the rays and the red socks and uh it's it feels to me that if you're on an eight-game winning streak, you're somewhat justified in thinking that you're a pretty good team and can hang with a bunch of flawed teams. Basically, they have to gain four and a half games on the Indians, who aren't a powerhouse, although they're also winning, the Orioles, who aren't a powerhouse, the Yankees, who should be, I don't know how they're doing so well, and the Rangers who are about to lose Nelson Cruz and were perhaps a seller today.

So it's a weird, I mean, that's a weird jumble, and I don't, I mean, I wouldn't have done it that way, but I don't really begrudge them that. I don't know, there's a, one of the interesting things about the Royals is that because we hate all the moves they make all the time, uh, like the players that they have who are doing well are guys who we have previously hated. Like Irvin Santana is a guy that nobody likes. I mean, that's why he's on the Royals, right? Because, because he's Irvin Santana.

So it feels like they should be trading Irvin Santana when he pitches well. Uh, cause you you know what are the odds that he'll do it again um so I don't know yeah I mean probably they should have but I mean you know they're they're over 500 and then the Royals I don't I don't I don't I don't begrudge them this little this little dream they have and it's a it's a really bad league right now yeah that's that's not a strong assortment of teams ahead of them there. Yeah, I almost brought up Kevin Towers as a topic on the show recently, just kind of revisiting all the moves that everyone hated over the winter that mostly haven't worked out so poorly for them.

And it seems like this deal, the Kennedy trade kind of violates, I don't know, two maxims of trading, which is not to trade a starter for relievers and not to trade someone whose value is kind of at a low, who's having a very poor season after some good seasons. at a low, who's having a very poor season after some good seasons. And so just instinctively, that seems like a strange move. But I thought RJ made a pretty good case in his analysis of the trade that it does kind of make sense, even though it violates those two maxims. Kennedy really isn't worth getting worked up about. Maybe we're still thinking of him as the 2011 pitcher who won 20-whatever games.

Yeah. I basically – I think RJ made a good point, and RJ's point is that know, as a, as a, uh, uh, you know, kind of, I don't know what, what's the word, uh, axiom or whatever. Uh, Maxim, what is the word? What is the word I'm going for? Idiom? Not idiom. Malaprop? Don't think so. Uh, anyway, axiom, those were axiom. Axiom is the word, right? Did I even say axiom yet? Yes, you said it once. Okay. Anyway. What was I talking about, Ben?

Yeah. RJ's point was that we tend to think that buying low is by nature a bad thing. But in fact, if the stock is going to go lower, you should sell it. It doesn't matter how much you bought it for. It doesn't matter if it's lower than that. If you have reason to believe it's going to go even lower, that is the time to sell. You want to buy things that are going up.

You don't particularly care if they've gone up or gone down. And I don't know that I see enough of a difference in Kennedy's underlying performance to really believe that he has regressed this much. But the other point that RJ made, or I guess the speculation maybe that RJ made, which is just that the Diamondbacks probably weren't going to tender him a contract this year. If you accept that, if you start with that premise, then sure, move him. Getting anything from him is good. And then Jeff Sullivan wrote that it feels like a trade

where, you know, he didn't get enough teams involved. And like he sort of jokingly said, it feels like the team where he forgot that there was more than, the kind of trade where he forgot that there was more than one team in the league. And, you know, maybe that's true, but we don't, I mean, presumably Kevin Towers didn't do that. He's been a GM for a long time. And people said the same thing about the Justin Upton trade, where they said, well, geez, how is that all he could get for Justin Upton?

He shot Justin Upton around for two and a half years. So presumably we don't actually know what every offer is going to be. And, you know, presumably, you know, you weigh each, I think you have to weigh each trade on its merits and say, does this trade make the team better or worse? And you can't get it all hypothetical about what trades might have been out there. You have to assume that they're not out there. I mean, unless you hear otherwise, you have to assume they're not out there. You know what was a crazy move that didn't happen but was rumored, and I wonder if it actually was

was out there is uh the cardinals offering carlos martinez to the white socks for alexi ramirez which that sounds like a completely bananas uh trade to turn down i can't i can't imagine why yeah they wouldn't i mean alexi ramirez is borderline with his contract right now so if you could get carlos for that, that sounds insane. So yeah, that's all. Yeah, there are a lot of, there's always one move like that where, I forget, there was one over the winter that we talked about. I think it was like the, maybe the A's and involved Brett Anderson and Will Myers.

Yeah, right. and involved Brett Anderson and Will Myers yeah right there's always one of those where seems like maybe some signals got crossed on the way to the rumor mill or something if it sounds that weird it's probably best to assume that it didn't happen we know that most of this stuff didn't

or a huge percentage of it is flawed so probably the stuff that sounds least believable is actually the least believable. So I just got an email from a scout who was sending me some quotes for our scout quote series, which will be up on Thursday. And he said that his favorite move of the deadline is the Alberto Callaspo trade,

which you wrote about. For which team? For Oakland. Interesting. Yeah, to me that kind of felt like a dud on both ends. That might be the one trade where I don't really get either team's position. I mean, I think I ultimately concluded that the most rational way to look at it is that the A's feel like they can trade Chiaspo for more this offseason with a weak third-base market and more time to shop him and perhaps more buyers, which is, I mean, obviously it's

a very speculative thing to say. And if you have to speculate that much to see how it pays off. I don't have any confidence whatsoever in Chiaspo at second base. I think he could be a negative 20 fielder there. I feel like we should acknowledge, or I should, the PV trade for Boston, which I felt like was a pretty good move. Can't really find much wrong with that. Not that I'm a big fan of PV at this point.

I mean, he could be on the DL tomorrow. But as long as he's not, he's making a reasonable amount of money. And it was just kind of a case where the Red Sox had money to spend, and they were really in the sweet spot where every win counts because they're neck and neck with Tampa Bay, who didn't have the same sort of money to spend. And so they traded. I guess they sold high on Iglesias. He hasn't hit in a month or so, so they could have sold higher,

he hasn't hit in a month or so, so they could have sold higher, but sort of sold him to a team that was in a desperate spot. In a pickle. Yeah. In a pickle. Would you say in a pickle? Definitely in a pickle. Really needed a shortstop because of Peralta's impending suspension. And kind of took advantage of that and traded a guy who has never hit before and may not ever hit again and could still be an asset just because he's so good defensively, but they seem to have plenty of replacements for him or plenty of players who are just as good or better at the upper levels on the left side of the infield. So it seems like a pretty good move to me. They're without Buchholz for another month or so in the best-case scenario, really.

So they fill that spot with Peavy, and they don't really give up a whole lot in the short term or the longterm. Is, uh, is he going to be rookie of the year? Is Iglesias going to be rookie of the year? Uh, last time I looked,

he was just kind of the leader by default because there just weren't any, any good AL rookies really. Uh, I mean, there were, there were like several NL rookies who would probably be better candidates than the top guy in the AL. I guess Will Myers is going to have two months to make a push. But yeah, assuming that these guys are actually rookie eligible as they're listed,

there's Ian Gomes, David Lowe, Leonis Martin, Nick Franklin, and Myers and Iglesias. So, yeah, I just asked because I was wondering if anybody's ever been traded during a rookie of the year season. I don't know. And I didn't really love that move from Detroit's perspective. It sort of seemed like a move that they had to make, but gave up Garcia, who seems likely to become a better player than Iglesias. The scout who just emailed me included Iglesias and said, I thought this was a great acquisition for Detroit.

I don't think he has suddenly developed into an even below average offensive player, but I'm not so sure that the Tigers care. He is a defender of the highest caliber and he fills a major hole should rumors of the Peralta deal prove true. He shores up the left side of the infield almost single-handedly thanks to tremendous lateral range and quickness and a strong, accurate arm. And that could make all the difference in the world for Detroit in tight October games. Yeah, there are very, very few things predictable in baseball, but if you have elite shortstop defense, that's pretty much as certain as it gets, right? I mean, you're probably not going to get bad suddenly, barring an injury,

and you're not going to be phased out of your position. You could be an elite defender at any position, really. And the Tigers have had, and I never figured out if this was the Tigers or if it was something about their infield, but they've had terrible BABIPs on grounders for many, many, many, many years. And it'll be interesting to see. I mean, you know, just defensively, it's as big a defensive upgrade

as almost as any one guy could make at any position in any team in baseball. Yeah, and we talked recently about how the Tigers are hurt less by their bad defense than almost any other team would be just because they strike out so many batters that they allow fewer balls in play. But the balls that they do allow tend to be grounders.

I wrote that they had the highest ground ball rate in the American League. So that seems like something that could pay off for Doug Pfister and Porcello and anyone else who gets grounders on that staff. Jose Veras. Right. It on that staff. Jose Veras. Right. It'll pay off for Jose Veras.

Maybe it's kind of like the Nomar-Orlando Cabrera trade in a way, except that they're not trading away Peralta. They're just losing him through no fault of their own. through no fault of their own. So what would you say is the biggest short-term upgrade for the rest of this season, regardless of whether you think it's a good move in the long term or not? Of the trades that happened, you're not asking me. Yes, of the ones that happened in the last, I don't know, week or two.

Um, uh, eh, eh, eh. that happened in the last, I don't know, week or two? I can't answer that. This is awful. There's no good players. Yeah. If we can go back to Garza, I would say Garza. If we can go back that far. Sure. If we can't go to Garza, I would say Garza. If we can go back that far. Sure.

If we can't go back that far, then... Who says? Who says we can't go back that far? Yeah, I say we can go back that far. If we... Yeah. I mean, not a lot to choose from in the last couple of days before the deadline. I guess I'd go with TV or... Hey, come click on all our stories.

Yeah. I guess I'd go with TV. Hey, come click on all our stories. Yeah. Everybody, read our transaction analysis from trades that we are barely mustering up the enthusiasm to even review, to even pick one from. Read the TAs. I enjoyed writing about some of these trades. I did too.

I enjoyed reading about them too. Yeah, me too. Just not a lot of impact ones, some interesting ones. I kind of wish – I always wish that there would be more buyers who also sell. Yeah, no, it's true. Buyers who sell to get better. I like the trades that involve major leaguers on both sides. Yeah, and I like a team that's contending that gives up something short-term, something useful now, but just an area of depth for them to another team that needs that, and they upgrade in some area of weakness.

We don't really see many of those. I think it'd be fun if somehow teams didn't have farm systems and they like there was a draft of farm like if if all the players were were developed by some central authority and then there'd be like a draft each year for like you know 23 year olds or whatever and you'd get your 23 year olds but you just don't you only get your 40 men and then you you just would have to you'd see i think you'd get your 23-year-olds. But you only get your 40 men. And then you just would have to – I think you'd see teams in the moment, living in the moment a lot more. And that's what everybody likes.

Everybody likes prospects too though. So there's that. Yes, people love prospects. People like everything. Baseball is fun. So do you think that the biggest deal of August will be as big as the biggest biggest deal of july yes i think i think it will be bigger i think it will be significantly bigger i think that we've got a hot august to come all right get excited people uh all right i guess we've we've covered that great uh so we'll be back

with one more show tomorrow uh send us emails at podcast at baseball perspectives.com. Were there, were there emails that address things that we said yesterday that we were going to follow up on? I feel like there were, there were, but we're not going to do it today. Okay.

We'll do it tomorrow. All right. We'll be back.