Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2197: How the Trade Deadline Went Down

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley recap the 2024 MLB trade deadline, discussing their big-picture takeaways, breaking down individual deals they found impressive, surprising, or perplexing, and examining the actions of the teams that drove the deadline by adding or subtracting, and the inaction of teams that didn’t do much. Audio intro: Benny and a Million Shetland […]

Well, it's moments like these that make you ask, How can you not be horny about baseball? Every take, hot and hotter, entwining and abutting, Watch him climb to the mountain, nothing's about nothing, Every stitch, wet with sweat, breaking balls back, Dormy on effectively, wow, that can you not be horny? When it comes to podcasts, how can you not be horny? When it comes to podcasts, how can you not be horny? Hello and welcome to episode 2197

of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley, a very busy Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello Meg. Hello. We are recording a few hours after the MLP trade deadline. The dust has settled.

How many posts has FanGraphs published in the past? Do you have a post count? Oh boy. Well, what a good, what a terrific question that I should have anticipated, but didn't. A lot? Yeah, dozens. A lot? Yeah.

Dozens? Many? You can count as we go, maybe. But we have, so some of these go way back. Like some of these are from early, but like we have 41 things that are tagged with the trade deadline tag, but not all of those are like trade reacts. Some of them are like summary pieces, like the trade value series is in there, but a lot. It's been many.

A few dozen posts. It's been eventful. I guess we should evaluate our prediction, our forecast that this would be a slow deadline. I think certainly in terms of quantity, we were wrong in terms of raw volume. And I should say that we also kind of predicted we would be wrong. It was a low confidence prediction. If you can predict something and at the same time predict you'll be wrong about it, which is the ultimate wishy washy hedging. That's kind of what we did, but everything kind of pointed toward it being slow. And it was slow in the sense that there were no real stars traded. Right? I mean, there were good players traded, but there were no great players traded. And I mean, Rosarino was traded and Eflin was traded and Isak Peretis was traded. I'm just naming Rays here. That was a theme of this deadline.

Tommy Edmond was traded. Jack Flaherty was traded. None of the best white socks. That's true. Exactly. Right. So good players, solid players, players who can help a team, but- Justin Turner. Yeah, but nobody breathtaking, right? And nobody surprising particularly, right? There wasn't anyone traded who made me gasp and say, wow, he was moving. Really, really like no crochet, right?

No Robert. So as you said, the best of the white socks who were rumored to be available, no Scoobel, no Snell who kind of entered the picture late in the deadline as a potential trade target. So no one like that who, when I saw the news, I thought, oh, wow, didn't expect that, didn't think that team was gonna be subtracting

or didn't think that guy was gonna be available. So in that sense, it was kind of measured. But in another sense, there was a lot of activity. Stuff was happening. It was a lot of trades made. I honestly, oh, this is such a take. I think the trade that surprised me the most was Eloy Jimenez going to the Orioles. That might have been the most surprising trade, not because, you know, I thought that the White Sox are going to be particularly keen to exercise his $16.5

million option next year. And if you're going to pay the buyout, you may as well trade them and see what you can get. But I just didn't know that they would find much of a suitor for a DH who has an ADW or C+. Can you tell that I just edited Bowman's React to this? Because all of these little facts are fresh. They're right on top of the top of mind for me.

And to a team like the Orioles, which famously, to the extent that you think that Jimenez can stand out and pretend to be an outfielder, like lousy with those guys, just, you know, they have a bushel, a peck. They're trading them away. They're trading them away. They're sending them out. They're getting new Austen's though, acquiring new Austen's to fill in the spots that their old Austen's occupied. But like I said, that was more a case of, oh, I didn't know anyone would want him particularly.

Less so than, oh, wow, that guy moved. Or it was maybe a surprising fit, but no one the White Sox could have traded would have surprised me that much. So we named most of the highlights, the most prominent players, Jazz Chisholm, of course, was moved as well. Just can't stop hitting home runs for the Yankees. Yeah, I know. Hit a home run for the Yankees as I was walking into the office to record, like just bump, bump, bump. Borrowed Aaron Judge's bat and had himself his first multi-homer game in quite a while. I think what did surprise me most maybe was the pace of it or I guess when it started, because we talk a lot about how teams tend to procrastinate. They tend to go down to the wire

and get as much information as they can. Not this year, right? A lot of the activity happened several days to a few days before the deadline, you know, late last week. Obviously, when we last potted, we talked about some trades and then there were more over the weekend. I guess it was good for you that you didn't get bombarded by all the trades at the same time. Very humane pace this year, you know? Just like a steady flow, nothing too wild. There was, you know, a number, there were a number of buzzer beaters as there often

are, but nothing too wild. We didn't get like crochet and Robert moving at the same time, you know, it was just sort of a steady stream of transactions of varying degrees of magnitude, many of which involved the race and also the Orioles. But yeah, very humane kind of pacing to it. Yeah. To the point where I wondered whether teams had conducted most of their business before deadline day. Like had they blown their loads early? Was it a premature trade deadline?

I definitely didn't have to put it in those terms. You sure didn't, but choices were made. You messaged me earlier the deadline day to say you were worried because it was quiet, too quiet. Right. Right. And yeah. And we were wondering, will there be some blockbuster that drops at the last minute? And as you said, there were some trades that just got under the wire, like Flaherty for instance. But on the whole deadline day itself was not super eventful because yeah, it was sort of spread out. Do you have a theory, a hypothesis, because it really did stand out. Joshian ran the numbers in an edition of his newsletter a couple of days

before the deadline that he compared it to past deadlines. And it was way more activity, say five days or in the five days before the deadline, as opposed to deadline day. And I wondered why that was happening, whether it was maybe that teams sort of psyched themselves out. Like they were thinking, like we were thinking that, oh, there's not going to be much movement. There are only so many opportunities. It's a seller's market. We better get ours while we can. And everyone was sort of thinking that way. And so they just almost artificially moved up the

deadline in a sense, because they were worried about being left out. I don't know whether that had something to do with it or whether it's just that there's so many tight races, people just wanted to get an extra day or three with the players they were adding. But it was unusual that teams did not wait for the last minute like they usually do. I think some of it was, you know, like if you think about the pitchers in particular who were, I think the most coveted players available and how available they really were, I think we can probably debate, but the most coveted guys who were ostensibly available, and I would say that that grouping consisted of Crochet, Scoobble, who I don't fault the Tigers for not moving.

I think I said that I would keep him if I were them. I'm glad that they did. I think that was the right choice. And then Flaherty were probably like the three best guys. And then you have like a tier below that includes Fetty. Although I will say the prices for pitching and even relief pitching at this deadline were quite high, you know, I think relative to at least my expectation, just based on who I thought was going to be available. But so you have these, you know, guys setting the top of the market in crochet, scoobble

and Flaherty and I think that the determination was made at a reasonable distance from the deadline itself that scubal and crochet were actually not going to move and I think that we've seen some some scuttlebutt that the Dodgers were trying really hard for for those guys and then it didn't materialize and they shifted to Flaherty and they were able to get what they needed there. For the last thing you say, Kikuchi. We got to talk about the Astros.

That's the other thing that was shocking. I forgot to mention it because I'm still recovering, but we should talk about the Astros at some point. So I think that because the pool of really desirable available starters was relatively small and it probably became obvious pretty quick that they weren't going to get done. And then the Dodgers just were able to get Flaherty finished. You kind of were out of good options. You know, if you were one of those teams that was like, I need a frontline starter. Well, there weren't very many of those guys on offer to begin with.

The second tier of them had already moved, right? Your Fettys, your Cucuccis, even though the Astros paid a top tier price for Cucucchi, I think. And then, you had such a small group that I don't think you had, there weren't blockbusters in the offing after that. Yeah, and I had a hard time just keeping track

of everything that was happening. It probably helped you to prep for the pod to edit many, many articles and, and have to direct traffic. But for me, I was just trying to get my head around everything that happened because every team made a trade and almost every team made multiple trades. I thought the twins made one, I think they may have been the only team that did team made multiple trades. The twins made one, I think. They may have been the only team that did not make multiple trades. Yeah. Because of the sort of flow of transaction activity over the last couple of days, we made the decision to run, every year I do like a transaction

analysis roundup because we run all these pieces. we take on trades that are beneath the notice of the ringer, but not beneath the notice of fan graphs. And you know, I know people lose track of stuff. So we decided to actually run that and just keep adding to it. I have some more transactions to add to that as after we're done potting here, Martel and I had a little debate about like, so the ace and the twins just have done nothing. You know, we had a couple of trades that had been completed and we were just waiting for the analysis to hit WordPress. But at the time that we hit publish on the roundup, the twins and the ace had just done

nothing. And I was like, yeah, let's leave the subheader. Then it's clear that there's just been no activity here, which for the A's part, I don't know. I don't know how I feel about their deadline. I don't know if I think they would have been better off moving Rooker at the very least. But they got in there. Everybody got at least one deal.

They got at least one. Yes, they're on the board. Yeah. No holdouts, no snubs. So just to kind of categorize it for myself, I made a spreadsheet because I did find that the fan crafts roundup there is helpful. What I wanted most was just a page

that kind of collected every trade by team, which is how you did it, but linking to posts. And in most sites that had some sort of trade deadline tracker, it was just by transaction basically. So it was just trade after trade after trade after trade. And it was kind of hard to organize in my mind. Okay, who did what? Because I'm trying to remember, oh yeah, this team made that trade three days ago and they just did this, right? So I wanted to kind of put it all in one place. So I made a little spreadsheet to get it straight in

my head. I guess I will link to this in case it's helpful for anyone else. But I just wrote down the incoming and the outgoing, basically the major league only guys, really not every prospect involved, and then tried to categorize as an adder or a subtractor. And by my categorization, I've got 19 addition teams and 11 subtraction teams. And there's a vast difference between some of these teams that I'm putting in the same category, because some just, you know, it was a clearinghouse sale. It was everything must go and others, it was like one move or something. But if I had to put them in one column or another, I did and I just, it was binary add or subtract.

So in the add column, I have the Orioles, the Red Sox, the Guardians, the Astros, the Royals, the Twins, the Yankees, the Mariners, the Rangers, the Diamondbacks, the Braves, the Cubs, the Dodgers, the Brewers, the Mets, the Phillies, the Pirates, the Padres, and the Cardinals. And for the subtraction teams that leaves, the White Sox, the Tigers, the Angels, the A's, the Rays,

the J's, the Reds, the Rockies, the Marlins, the Giants, and the Nationals. And again, none of those 11 teams that I just named as subtraction teams were like, wow, I can't believe it. I think the degree to which some of them went all in or all out as the case may be, that definitely took me by surprise. But which way teams went didn't shock me much.

And there were some teams that did a little bit of both, right? And added here and subtracted there and did things that kind of set them up for the future and also may have helped them now. And they were a few trades between contenders, right? Just kind of mixing and matching. And one of them had a strength that matched up with the other's weakness, et cetera. But on the whole, it kind of broke down the way that you would have expected it to. And it was a mismatch, a lopsided number there. I don't know that it's always like exactly 15 of one and 15 of the other, but it was 19 one way and 11 the other.

And I think it was a seller's market, a subtractor's market to some extent. Not every team made out like bandits when they were selling, but others I think did do fairly well and committed to it. If they were gonna do it, they really did it. And others maybe got kind of caught in between, which I tend to think is the worst way to go, but maybe sometimes makes sense. Now, can we talk about the Astros?

We could talk about the Astros, sure. Well, I guess we should, to put it into your framework, we should talk about the Blue Jays as a team that did very well. Part of how they did very well was fleecing Houston. What's going on, Ben? What in the world is going on? You don't have to listen to former big leaguers this much. You just don't.

You could say, no, that's a lot. That's a lot to give up for a couple of months of Kukuchi. And look, I know that your primary concern here is what will this move do to disrupt, you say, Kukuchi's sleep schedule and how many books has he read in 2024? What is his total at this point? Will he have used the flight to Houston to have read something? Yeah. There was a tweet I saw from a Blue Jays Nation contributor who linked to a almost decade old story that said Houstonians sleep better than residents of any other major US city. I have no idea what that was based on, but the tweet was like, Houston is about to unlock

the best version of Usai the league has ever seen. Because if he has the same quantity of sleep with even enhanced quality, then watch out. But yeah, maybe that's why the Astros gave up so much to get Yusei Kikuchi because they figured the sleep upgrade. Because yeah, Kikuchi for Jake Bloss, a Meet a Major Leaguer guy, he was my Georgetown alum, and Joey Loperfito, and Will Wagner, son of Billy. And that was kind of a lot, I guess. Nicole Zichalos It's kind of a lot. Look, we don't have to use one trade to determine this. And it's not like every move they've made in the last couple of years I've disliked. And I sure, you know,

just by default, I'm going to be a bigger fan of the current regime and the one that immediately proceeded it, to be clear. I don't have anything against James Click than the one that proceeded that. Yeah. Which didn't go great. But I think that we have this idea of Houston as a very analytical team, maybe value driven to the point of ruthlessness. And I think we got to talk about them a different way now. Yeah.

From a pure like beep boop bop boop, like, you know, surplus value perspective, like they're underwater on this trade. Now, there are times when it makes good strategic sense to just say, I'm going to do a swear, fuck it. You know, like we're in a precarious position at the top of this division. It feels winnable to us. It feels winnable to other people because of our obvious need for reinforcement in the

rotation. We can do something here. Let's go get this guy. We're excited about him. We think that he's going to help to stabilize the rotation, throw good innings for us, and he can help us now. We have an ALCS to go back to, but it's sure a lot for a guy who, you know, Kikuchi's been very good and after, you know, that first season in Toronto didn't go very well, has had good results. Yeah.

The peripherals are better than the surface stats. Right. He's doing that funny thing where last year his ERA was better than all of his estimators and this year his estimators are better than his ERA by a not small margin. So make it that way you will. But he's reliable, take the ball every five days, you know, he's a good pitcher. Like I'm sure that they think that he'll like try to take it to Seattle special because they, you know, traded him or whatever.

He doesn't strike me as that kind of guy because no one who sleeps that soundly can hold grudges. You don't, you don't hold grudges when you sleep soundly. You feel rested. Your spirit is strong. But he is famously a free agent at the end of this year. So it just feels like a lot to have given up. And the kind of decision that is in some ways, apart from the individual players involved, mostly interesting to me as an indicator that the philosophy of the front office is very different and it does make me wonder how much This is Dana Brown show and how much this is like the owner and Jeff Bagwell show. So yeah, you know

Fascinating Overpay like every every person I've talked to you in media and on the team side is like, that was all big trade. The Astros sure did a trade, didn't they? One other one, I guess, that maybe prompted the most consternation or celebration was the Eric Fetty deal, but specifically the Cardinals side of the Eric Fetty deal. That felt to me kind of like the William Contreras going to the Brewers in the Escher Ruiz Sean Murphy trade. Yeah, not quite to that extent maybe, but similar in the sense that the team in the three team trade that gave up maybe the least or didn't give up that much got like the best player or, you know,

a very good player without seeming to have, uh, you know, really paid through the nose for that. That was, yeah, that was nifty on the Cardinals cause that was the, the three team deal with the White Sox and the Dodgers where the Cardinals got Fetty and Tommy Pham. Pham is back in town. Yeah, player to be named later, Cash from both teams, I think. And then the Dodgers got Kopec and Tommy Edmond and a prospect from the Cardinals. And Edmond, of course, has been a valuable player. He just hasn't played this year. He's had injuries.

He's been in AAA. He's been DH-ing. he's had injuries, he's been in AAA, he's been DHing, he's had setbacks. So if he comes back, then he could certainly help the Dodgers. I don't know that he would have helped the Cardinals that much though, because he would have been blocked. They would have had a hard time fitting him in. So it doesn't seem like a big loss from that perspective. And then the White Sox in that deal got Miguel Vargas and a couple minor league infielders and a player to be named later or Cash as well. So the Cardinals gave up Edmund, who hadn't been of any use to them this season and didn't figure to be of a ton of use to them for

the rest of the season and a minor league pitcher. And they got back Eric Fetty. I mean, that was pretty solid who was one of the better pitchers available at the deadline, not quite in that top tier we mentioned, I guess, but on the next tier with Zach Efflin, let's say, and Kakuchi. Yeah. Efflin, yes. I forgot, Efflin, you're right. Efflin's definitely in that group.

That was an eye-opener. That was a good bit of business from the Cardinals, I thought. Not necessarily bad for the other teams involved, but the Cardinals specifically seem to make out bandits a bit there. I don't know that I totally get that trade from the Dodger side either, like I do, because he an obvious, well, like assuming he comes back healthy soon, at least in the field, he's an obvious upgrade over some of the like multi-position guys on the downswing of their careers. You know, you're Chris Taylor's and you're, you know, Rekha Hernandez's and you know, Nick Ahmed is just like, great, now I have to look for a job again.

Yeah. But cause, cause lest, lest we forget that wasn't the only infielder deal they made that day, was it? Was it? For the second year in a row? For the second year in a row? They're like, let's be in the Ahmed Rosario business. Let's do it.

Anyway, he's an upgrade, he being Edmund, but also, you know, like, he's not really going to blow you away with the bat, but he's a good base runner. So like, you know, it's like, it's fine. It feels like they're just like collecting a lot of this kind of guy in a way that I find really funny from the Dodgers because I know that they like the versatility piece of it, but like, I feel like the versatility guys used to be better than they are right now. There's not a lot of length in that lineup. CB Yeah. They've had that Swiss Army Knife Team pretzel model for a while, but they used

to have it with guys who were really good while they were doing that. It was like when Chris Taylor was good. They had a bunch of guys who could do that and now it's sort of the same model, but the off-brand version of that. I think that that's right. So, but yeah, it did feel a little bit like, why are you guys in here? Why are you getting the good stuff? What's going on with that?

Yeah. I do think Vargas could be good for the White Sox because he will have no trouble getting playing time in Paris. He sometimes did in LA and, and he was a, you know, top 50 prospect for, for one year or two years, he's still 24 and he's been a pretty good on base guy. So if they could just plug him in and let him play more so than the Dodgers did, then I think he could help the white Sox. I mean, I don't know that anything can help the white Sox in any real way at this point, but, but theoretically in a vacuum, he could, he could help the white socks. I mean, I don't know that anything can help the white socks in any real way at this point, but theoretically in a vacuum, he could help the white socks.

I can't imagine Copac just turning into a monster going to the Dodgers. That would not surprise me at all just because he's got good stuff. He throws hard and who knows, maybe he's the next Evan Phillips or whoever, like, you know, some reliever that the Dodgers tweak and fix and suddenly he's unhittable. It could happen. They have a good track record. It doesn't always work, right? Like they weren't able to fix Noah Sendergaard, but, but- There are some limits to their wizardry. But you don't have to have a hundred percent hit rate to be well regarded in this stuff, right?

I guess just a high level bit of analysis, Neil Payne at his Substack, the aptly named Neil Substack, he was doing a running total throughout the day updating this. And now it's final, I'll link to this for anyone who's interested, but he was just looking at net war added or subtracted by team at the deadline, and he looked at it a couple different ways. He looked at it basically extrapolating this season's production over 162 games for everyone, or more of a baseline looking at previous seasons closer to a true talent expected production over a 162 game rate and so the biggest winners and losers just in terms of most war added or lost it's not surprising really but if you go by this season's war extrapolated it's the Padres, the Cardinals, the Mariners, the Pirates, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the

Royals, the Mets, the Cubs. And on the bottom end, the team that lost the most, the Rays obviously, the Marlins, man, just an exodus of talent from Florida this week, the Blue Jays, the Tigers, the Nationals, the White Sox. If you go by more of the true talent or multi-year production baseline, which might be the better way to do it and maybe would match your inclinations more closely, you have the Dodgers adding the most followed by the Padres and the Mariners, however you slice it.

AJ and Jerry, they did their thing. They were busy as usual. And the Mets, the Royals, the Cardinals, the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Guardians, the Orioles, and then you're getting into barely moving the needle. And then on the bottom end, it's the Rays. The Rays, I did a stat blast last time about just most year to date production ever traded at a deadline and I'll have to do the math for the Rays, but they must be up there because this was significant sell off. So Rays, Marlins, Jays, whichever

method you use, they're going to be the ones that show up as having sent away the most. And then there are the teams that basically netted out to zero, which is, I don't know if that's where you want to be. It's certainly not an exciting place to be. The teams that moved less than a win in either direction. If we go the second method, the multi-year production method, the Rangers, the twins, the Reds, and the Giants right there too. Or if you go by the single year method, mostly the same, the Giants, the twins, the Rockies, the A's close there. So those were the teams that just didn't move the needle much in either direction really.

I know that we had talked about the Rays being a potential seller and that seeming likely to us just because of how crowded that playoff picture was, how narrow sort of their path was to a playoff spot. But were you a little surprised by the extent of it? Jared Siff Oh, yeah. I was a lot surprised by that. Nicole Zichal-B that. Like once you're dealing with Parades, like you're, but they did hold on to Yandy Diaz, which I was also kind of surprised by given the other moves that they made. Right.

It wasn't in, in every thing or everyone must go, but it was pretty close. No, but many, many, and I, you know, I don't, I'm going to be fascinated to see how Parades like does in Wrigley, but I was a little surprised by the extent of the sell-off. It was more than I maybe thought it would be. Yeah. Well, me too, because if you look at their record as we speak now, they're two games over 500, right? They're a winning team.

They are three and a half back in the wild card race. So I mean, they were trading with some teams that had worse records or, you know, there were teams that were going for it, were aggressively adding that at least on the surface were not as good as the race, or maybe not even better positioned than the race. And so, I don't know, I've seen people praising them and I've seen people panning what they did

on multiple grounds. I guess one ground would be just, it's nothing new, but well, it's a tough way for fans to get invested in a team, right? It's just constant churn. The upside is that they are usually good and rarely bad and certainly rarely bad for long. So if, if your interest is primarily in watching a competitive team, more so than watching the same players on that team perennially, then the race will,

will stand you in good stead there. But they're just not sentimental about players. They will cut bait. They will always be looking to the future and, and going full surplus value. And you can always kind of make it make sense from that perspective, but you could also say you're three and a half back, you're a winning team right now. Like, what are we doing here? This is, you know, you should be staying in it or going for it. This isn't like a, it doesn't seem like it needed to

be a tear down sort of situation. And so it's almost like they, a evaluated their own roster and performance and, and projections and everything, which, you know, the record doesn't necessarily tell the story. They've been outscored by 50 runs, right? Like they're, they're not a great team. They've been outscored by 50 runs, right? They're not a great team. They've gotten some guys back. They're getting some guys back. That could help, but they were admittedly an outside shot to make any kind of run. And between that and the fact that this was shaping up to be a seller's market where they could sort of swoop in as a pretty good team and say, hey, all of these guys are available when everyone's wondering where all the players

are going to come from. They probably saw an opportunity there and they seized it for better or worse. So yeah, I did not expect that kind of volume on their part. And maybe we should have because it started early with a trickle of race trades, right? They traded Aaron Savalli, they traded Phil Maton weeks before the deadline. That was the tremors, the warning signs before the quake, and then Arosa Reyna and Eflin and Paredes and Jason Adam and Ahmed Rosario and Tyler Zuber and Sean Armstrong. And they added some guys too. They got Dylan Carlson from St. Louis, they got Christopher Morrell back in

the Parade of Strad with the Cubs, they got Cole Sulser and they got just a whole barrel of prospects. A bushel, a pet. But not name guys, not highly ranked guys really, right? It was more, and I know they always have roster crunch because of the way that they go about their business. So these were guys they didn't have to add to the 40 men yet to protect them. And so it didn't squeeze anyone else off the roster.

And it's just kind of depth and banking on their developmental prowess and I guess just bulk and let's get a lot of guys and we'll sift through what we got and hopefully there'll be some gold nuggets in there somewhere, right? So it's kind of playing the probabilities and the odds, I guess, whereas some other team in the same situation might have said, let's go for it. Let's roll the dice. That's not really what the Rays do. Katie Svedal It's not really what the Rays do. I mean, I think you're right that maybe we should have anticipated it because this is a very Rays

deadline, sort of front to back. The reliance on bulk, the belief in your Dev to not hit on all of these guys, but to make some of them into either useful big leaguers for your own purposes or attractive sort of trade targets for further use down the road. I do think they got some good guys and they got some interesting lower level prospects and if they can teach Christopher Morel how to play third base or they can get something out of Dylan Carlson's bat, then more power to them. But it's a tricky thing. I don't know what my preference would be as a fan.

I feel like I, in my own fandom, have existed on the extreme opposite end of the raised model where despite rooting for a team that has at times been apologies for another square dog has had these like really important sort of to the sport transcendent individual players. But like, they didn't go to the playoffs for two decades. You know, and, and like the proof is kind of in the pudding for the race to a certain extent too, because like they haven't won a World Series. So like, you know, this, this iteration of the team has not yet won a championship, but

they sure do play a lot of playoff baseball and that seems fun. So and like the, the unspoken of part of this for, for them is that like they tried to have like a, you can buy his jersey and count on him being their guy. And then he ended up being like a sexual assailant. So you know, like that sucks. And for reasons that are more important and bigger than baseball stuff, obviously, but like, you know, their one go at doing that ended up really being a non-starter. What comes of this vast mass of prospects they amassed, that's going to have to be

a wait and see for several years to just find out because if they get a good guy or two out of that, who's the foundation of their next good race team. And I don't know if this is, you know, the Rays don't really rebuild so much. They don't tank or tear down. So I assume that they have plans to contend in the not too distant future, right? Like it might be tough to run it back next season and say, you know, and I'm surprised that they weren't better this year. I thought that they would be better than they've been. So again, they're kind of rolling with the punches, I guess. And they probably think that they can come back from this in fairly short order, but we'll see. But yes, that was the most

in fairly short order, but we'll see. But yes, that was the most unexpected, I think, the extent to which they went in that direction. And I did not foresee that. So that was bold. Whereas the Marlins did that and that was quite foreseeable. So you could credit them for doing it because I do think they needed to do it. That was like theays wasn't imperative that

they do that necessarily. If they were a different team with different ownership and different payrolls and everything, this was not necessary that they do what they did. Whereas the Marlins, it did kind of feel like maybe it was time to raise that roster to the ground and to try to raise it back up again, different spelling of raise. Cause the Marlins, here's what I have in my handy dandy spreadsheet. So they, they did get back some good prospects and known names, but they traded AJ puck, jazz, jazz, home, Trevor Rogers, Brian Hohing, Tanner Scott, Brian Dela Cruz, Oscar Brazoban, JT Chagois.

A mariner again, the once and future mariner. Yeah, that's true. And Josh Bell. And Josh Bell. He's always coming and going, it seems like. I think that kind of made sense. That kind of closes the book maybe on an era of Marlins baseball and you know, Luzardo was hurt, right? So if he had not been hurt for much of the time, yeah, he probably would

have been part of that exodus also. So, you know, it's hard to like be optimistic when the Marlins do this because they've done this so many times. So with some other team, you might say, oh, this was a necessary tough decision and then they'll build back up and they'll spend and they'll get good again. Whereas the Marlins, it's just kind of a perpetual motion machine of this. It's one step forward and then a couple steps back again. But with a different engineer at the helm of the perpetual motion machine this time. Yes, a more razy engineer now. Right. And, you know, I don't say that as if we need to like assume that everything

that Bendix is going to do is perfect, but I do think that when you have a new, we always say regime. Why don't we say administration? What's up with that, Ben? That's got like, is it because we're acknowledging the inherent totalitarianism of being a pobo? It's got kind of, you know, you get to have hard opinions on things and then people act on those hard opinions. But yeah, like I think that every newish regime gets, should have the opportunity to sort of shape the organization in the way that they see fit. And I don't think that you can look at this current iteration of the Marlins and be like how dare you they're so good

Like they're not and some of that is them being hurt and you know, they're pitching not being healthy But like the position player side of this is just like been pretty Yeah bad of this has just been pretty bad. And so maybe they have an opportunity here. Now how excited you are about it is going to depend on your evaluations of these guys. And we historically have been lower say on Robbie Snelling than other publications. Zips does not care for Robbie Snelling. Zips is like, get out of here with that. But they got Snelling, they got Connor Norby, like they

got some interesting guys from the Pirates, like they're gonna, you know, they got Kyle Stowers, who's like a useful guy. So I think, you know, it's sort of a good first step to saying, let's evaluate what we've gotten back in this. They clearly took time to evaluate what they had in house and we'll kind of see where it goes. I would like it if a priority of this front office was like changing ownership's mind about spending again. I don't know that you hire a former raise guy if that's your, you know, goal, but they should figure out how to compete There are a couple of different avenues to that right The one that Bendix is the most comfortable with is gonna be this like let's have

roster turn let's turn these like middling big league pieces into Potentially dynamic and interesting minor leaguers. Let's see what we can make of those guys. It's a living and sometimes it results in good baseball teams and sometimes it's just cheap. So we, I don't think can decide yet or make a call which version of it it is, but you know, hopefully it's the good kind. It'll still be cheap, but maybe it won't be just cheap. Another notable subtractor in kind of a different category here, the Blue Jays.

So they shipped out Ymi Garcia, Nate Pearson, Danny Jansen, Yusei Kikuchi, Justin Turner, Trevor Richards, and Kevin Keirmeyer and Isaiah Keiner-Falefa. That's a lot of guys. A lot of guys. You know, it's not Vladito. It's not the biggest guys they could have traded, but it was pretty clear that they were going to go in this direction. And it's disappointing that they found themselves in this place.

They are in this place and I think they made the right evaluation about this season, but it's still just a sad, I don't know if it's a, an ending exactly to this current core of the Jays that has kind of failed to, to flourish at least. I was going to say failed to launch that. That seems slightly harsh, but failed to flourish. We've just kind of perennially expected more from this Blue Jays club and it just hasn't completely clicked. So you know, these are more marginal players and impending free agents and also some guys like Nate Pearson, who was supposed to be a big part of that team for years to come and just didn't happen, injuries, et cetera.

But I don't know if it's just a step back and they can try to make another run with some of the guys that they've got here or whether there will be more paring down in the offing over the off season. But yeah, it's just a, it's kind of a bummer ending to at least this latest attempt to win something with these guys. Well, and it's interesting too, because I think that one of the things that we said going into the deadline was that they had this decision that they needed to make with Guerrero and part of that was, do you want to extend him or do you not? And if you don't, then it makes sense to try to move him even like I was maybe a little low on what I thought his market would look like.

Apparently Tommy Fan just hit a pinch hit grand slam. So welcome back to St. Louis, sir. But it's a roster that the remaining elements of it are like, some of them are older. Like what are you going to do with George Springer? Like, you're not gonna get anything for Springer, right? And like, he's around for a while longer. Like, he got two more years of that guy. If you are in this tear down mode, does making that decision impede your ability to extend Vlad if you've decided you want to, because he has to say, yeah, I want to be a Blue J forever or whatever.

So that's a consideration. Now they did bring in, now they just have Joey Lopofito in left field, right? He's just going to be there and Varsha's having a good year and everyone should pay attention to David Schneider and how he's not been heading because someone might have a vested interest in that. But yeah, they're in a weird spot. And I think that they've done well in these couple of trades to reinforce a farm system that was pretty poor relative to certainly what it had been just a couple of years prior when you had that young core coming up at the same time.

But they haven't moved at least, I think, when you look at our updated farm system rankings, they're still in the bottom third. They haven't had good drafts lately. Like the Blue Jays drafts of the last couple of years have not yielded really great contributors. They've moved on from a lot of those guys already. They've traded a lot of those dudes when they've deemed them not working. So I guess there's something to being honest with yourself about

that. But it's just kind of a weird, they're in a weird spot. And it's not a cheap team. This isn't one of those times where it's like, oh my God, go spend some money. It's like, well, spend your money differently. It's not like they're not running a meaningful payroll. Yeah, it's been flummoxing. It's been confounding that that hasn't paid off. Confounding. Now, as for the White Sox, I don't know, it feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity

just because things are so bleak for them, right? They've lost 15 in a row. They are currently holding a lead in the eighth inning as we speak. So maybe we'll see if they manage to do Roy to. Oh, they're playing the Royals. That's right. Cause they had a little, they had a little go across the field swap it to do today. Yeah. Yeah.

So we'll see. Maybe they'll be able to actually win one there. There is a report I saw earlier from a guy named Shane Riordan who works for 670, the score of the radio station in Chicago that said the White Sox clubhouse is fractured. The first game back from the All-Star break manager, Pedro Grafol, told his team, paraphrasing, that if this goes down as one of the worst seasons ever, it's on absolutely no one but the players. How much of a paraphrase is that? Cause that's quite

a, quite a statement. I know, I know Kerr falls like he's put his foot in his mouth more than a few times, but he actually phrased it that way. Also, I guess they're mandating running and batting practice now, which, you know, that can be kind of an eye wash thing. Although if anyone needs practice, I guess it's the white socks, but the drill sergeant part of the narrative. Great. If that was actually the message, if this goes to the worst, it's on no one, but the players, no one else's fault.

I mean, I guess, uh, that's true in the sense that the players are not good, but, uh, it's not necessarily the' fault that there was not a better team assembled here, right? So anyway, yeah. So given how terrible they've been and given the market, it did seem like, okay, they could really do it. Like if they move crochet, if they move Robert. And I know that maybe they were hamstrung somewhat

by crochet's usage and workload and innings limit and also the extension request or demand that his representatives floated. So that may have kind of sunk their chances of getting something done potentially. And there are arguments to hold on to him and to Robert. And obviously they could revisit those questions in the off season too that we could make a case that that might be a better time to trade crochet even. And they traded a bunch of guys. They traded Koepke and Fedetty and Fam and DeYoung and Jimenez, right? But, you know, other than Fetty, just kind of around that, that trio that they had on offer there. So and I think they did okay in some of those individual deals, but yeah, I don't know if it was the transformative deadline that it felt like it could be.

Yeah. I think that if I were going to identify like a real missed opportunity, for me, it's actually less crochet and more Robert because I'm going to make a semi-confident prediction. I don't think Garrett Crochet will be on the opening day roster of the Chicago White Sox in 2025. I think he will absolutely move in the off season. Right? Don't you think he'll absolutely move?

I'm so emphatic. I think he will move and he will be incredibly appealing to whichever team he moves to. They will be excited to be able to like manicure his usage next year and sort of decide how they want to deploy him in terms of how many starts he throws and they, you know, he's clearly open to an extension. They probably get one done, they get two years of ARP left with him. Whereas with Robert, like you have one more year on the current deal and then you have two $20 million options. And so you can keep him around for three more years, but it's like he's 27 already. And like, are you guys excited about that? I don't know. I just feel like

it's a more compelling thing to say you get this guy for the stretch run this year, you get a full year next year, and then you get the two option years and now you get like half a year less. I don't know. I think him being just a little bit older makes that feel like more of a missed opportunity to me, even though like he is still around to be a member of your organization for three years after this if you want. But like those two club option years are 20 million bucks. And so like maybe you think that's a little less attractive.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know either. I forgot Tanner Banks, another reliever they traded. What is it with these manager quotes throwing players under the bus? There was one with Ron Washington and Mike Trout, which there's been more bad news about Mike Trout. Oh, no. But you've forgotten about him.

Yes. You told me I was supposed to put him out of my mind until and unless he returns. But it sounds like that will not be quite a while. So I will have to continue to not remember about him. But yeah, we talked about a Ron Washington quote earlier, this way it was a suicide squeeze situation. And he was like, I didn't do anything wrong. And so the, the trout Washington, he said, it's Mike, you have to talk to Mike. It's all on Mike, how he feels. And if he can go out there, we can't force him out there. It's all on Mike.

He's dealing with something. He's never had the surgery like that, et cetera, et cetera, to put a timetable on it. I don't have it. I hope to have him soon. So I'm sure that there is a way in which, yeah, you do have to talk to Mike about it because it does come down to like, does he feel okay? Will he play? It's becoming almost Rendon-esque now, the kind of conversation about- Rendon, you went back on the aisle today. don't ask now the kind of conversation about boy. But there was a, an update from perimonesia and angels GM who said he had a setback trout had a setback with his repaired knee.

It's so weird. Cause like he was removed from that rehab game and then he returned for testing and the imaging was clear. And I saw reports that said it was just scar tissue breaking up and he just had never felt that before, but it wasn't bad necessarily. But now he had a setback and his rehab will be shut down. He'll be reevaluated by the medical staff. There is no timetable for his return.

And then another tweet, Minasian declined to say what the setback was asked if he could come back this season. We'll see. It's really unbelievable. It's just incredible. But putting it that way, just it's all on Mike. We can't force him out there. That is almost the implication is like, yes, you know, that he should be out there, that we're

at our wits end or something, or that he's like shirking his duties here, which I mean, I hope that isn't the case, but that's kind of what it leads you to believe. I don't know if it's phrasing or tone or it reads differently than it sounded or something, but yeah, when you see that quote, that's like, oh, it seems like there it sounded or something. But yeah, when you see that quote, that's like, oh, it seems like there's something happening here. Yeah. It doesn't seem good, does it? No. Do you think Perry Manessian is going to have a job at the end of the year? I don't think

he... Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that I'm confident that that's going to be a stable situation for him come the off season. I don't know Mike Trout, you know, and I don't know how he is approaching these things. I suppose the possibility exists that he's like lollygagging, but it seems unlikely to me. And even if it were true, your team's situation is terrible. And this man is like beloved and an icon. So maybe like suck it up in front of people, you know?

Like sometimes I just get this feeling where I'm like, do you need to be fighting at the dinner party with your spouse the way you seem to be? Like, is that the vibe you really want to put out there? And it feels like an unforced error to like cause speculation around the relationship between him and the franchise at a moment when he's just hurt. And so you don't have to offer, like no one, no one is going to think that Mike Trout isn't busting his ass to try to get back on the field. So why introduce that narrative? You know?

Like, why? Yeah. Even if he weren't, it might not be worth bringing up in airing publicly. Exactly. Unless, like, it's a last recourse and you've already had this conversation with him behind closed doors many times and nothing has changed and you want to put pressure on him or something. But unless it's that, which seems unlikely, then I'm sure they're frustrated. I'm sure he's frustrated. We're frustrated. We're at our wits end here. And it gets to this point every season when he's hurt where it's like, well, the angels are out of it. Might as well shut him

down. Have him rested and fully healthy for the start of next season. But then he just gets hurt again the next season. So it doesn't seem like the extra rest is really having a protective effect. Anyway, I have forgotten about this man. So I don't even know who I'm talking about. Right. You don't even know who he is. Who is he? You don't even know. I'm like, Mike Trout. And you're like, I don't even know who he is. Who is he? You don't even know. I'm like Mike Trout. And you're like, I don't know. I've never heard of him. Yeah. The Angels traded Carlos Estevez.

That happened. This was not the first time, it was a couple of years ago when they traded Rice Alglacius, that was more of a, a salary dump, I guess. And so they traded their closer to an NLE team, Atlanta in that case. And now they have done the same to the Phillies. And you know, again, they got some talent back. As you mentioned, relievers seem to bring pretty good returns this season. Yeah.

Any other notable subtractors that we need to talk about here? I think it's probably worth noting, you know, we already talked about Tommy Edmond and the Dodgers and the Dodgers obviously got Flaherty who I think short track record around his performance at times, but like has been really great this year and is probably the best starter to have moved anyway. And so good for them, but like the Padres were very busy. Buzzy, busy, busy, busy, busy. Yeah. Consulting my spreadsheet here. Let me see who I have the in and the out for the

Padres. So they got Jason Adam, Brian Hoeing Tanner Scott, Martin Perez, Aniel de los Santos heading out. Right? Did I leave anyone off there? Any notable moves? But yeah, you can always count on, on Prelor to be busy in one way or another. You know, they needed to reinforce their, their bullpen and they did that, I think, quite successfully. So like that's a good thing. And they were busy and moving.

And I think the gap is like meaningful, but it is much smaller than it once was between them and the Dodgers. And I don't know that they really think that they're in a position to win the NL West and their pitching is still kind of up in the air. Like we don't really know what's going on with you Darvish or if they're going to get Darvish back this year. I hope that whatever's going on with him resolves in a way that is good. But it's nice to see them being like, no, we want to be a competitor in the playoff race.

Even though we came into this year with everyone having really diminished expectations of us relative to the years where we were like, they're kind of on the World Series. Probably frustrating for them though to be busy and then probably the Dodgers still upgraded more than the Padres did just in getting Flaherty, Edmund, Keir Meyer, Koepke, Rosario, and sending out Vargas, Paxton, Finasco. I agree with you that they improved and I think they improved more than the Padres did, but I don't know how much Kevin Keiermeyer has in the tank anymore. So like put a star on that.

I've still got a glove seemingly, that has not gone away, but yeah, they could have used maybe a better outfield upgrade there. It's funny, because if you had told me in the beginning of the season or pre-season that we would be saying, yeah, the Dodgers need a starter and the Dodgers need an outfielder. I just, I wouldn't have foreseen that because it seemed like they were pretty stacked, but yeah, best laid plans.

Yeah. It's cool that Jack Flaherty gets to go home. So that's exciting. I'm sure that his mom has already tweeted an adorable picture of him as a baby and like Dodgers gear. So like that's nice. Do you think there's any chance like greater than zero chance that given that, you know, Dodgers have needed pitching, Dodgers have needed an outfielder. Do you think late in the season they might say, show me your Tony. He says medically cleared to put a glove on.

That would be kind of awesome. I don't think it will happen at all, but I would love it. I could imagine pitching is probably not going to happen. Even if like conceivably it could, they just have such a long-term relationship with this guy and there's just so much at stake that I don't know that they would jeopardize his arm to rush him back and have him, you know, pitch out of the bullpen or something that seems unlikely, but you know, could he get a few outfield innings or play your first base or something like that at the end of the

season? I mean, maybe I guess if, if there were a need, it doesn't seem like it would be that huge a risk, but that would be kind of a fun, you know, coda to a potential MVP season where it's like, oh, we thought he was just a DH and no, here he comes. The cavalry arrives. It was on the roster the entire time, but you're thinking too small because the more exciting possibility is the one that Ben Clemens and I discussed in Slack, but did not put into the Josh Beltrade react where

Ben was noting that even if Christian Walker comes back very quickly from getting dinged up yesterday, which like I'm devastated, Ben. I'm so upset. I just feel so bad for this guy having this tremendous walk year, walker year. And then he gets, you know, an oblique, he's on the IL. Hopefully it's just, you know, it'll be quick and he comes back and it's great. So they go out, they opportunistically acquired Josh Bell to serve as backup while they were waiting for Walker's MRI results to come back. They moved him to the aisle today, so it seems like things were bad. But Ben noted that even if that weren't true, he could be a good injury reinforcement for

this team. And he noted a couple of the guys who have been hurt, including Alec Thomas. And then he noted that Josh Bell the guys who have been hurt including Alec Thomas and then he noted that Josh Bell is obviously limited to first base DH and then I said put Josh Bell in center field for one game. I want to see it. I want to see it. And then I was like, is that like really rude to Josh Bell?

Because I'm like, you know, delighting in his potential embarrassment, but I want it then. Thank you for not asking me about my Mariners. I thought it was fine. I thought they did fine. I thought they did fine. I thought they did fine. I don't know how much Justin Turner really has in the tank anymore.

I don't know how much juice there is there, but it can't be worse than what they already got. And he had an RBI single in his Mariners debut. So maybe everything's coming up Jerry, you know? Right. What about the Orioles? The Orioles were quite busy. They did a lot. Yeah. We talked last week about the Sir Anthony Dominguez, Christian Pache, Austin Hayes trade. and Pache, Austin Hayes trade. They also got Austin Slater, Gregory Soto, Ole Menez, Trevor Rogers, Levan Soto, two Soto's and two Austin's and Eflin, of course. And then they did trade some prospects you have heard of. They traded Connor Norby. They traded Kyle Stowers. They did not

trade the tippy top prospects. So there was a world and unlikely one, but somewhere in the multiverse, there's a more bold Michael Iass who just really pushes some chips in and they have also called up Jackson Halliday post deadline. He's coming back up. So that's pretty big news and that's a reinforcement from within. So look, they added Eflin and Rogers. That's a solid, you know, two or three starter and fourth starter, like going into the playoffs with Burns, Grayson Rodriguez, Eflin and Trevor Rogers. That'll play, you know? Like it's not dominant necessarily,

but that's good enough. That could get you there potentially. So I think they did what they had to there. And then the other editions, it's kind of hard to see where some of them fit. And you know, there was only so much out there. So could they have put together a package that could have brought back a crochet or a scouple? I mean, certainly they could have if they had been willing to get

really aggressive. Did it make sense for them to do that given where they are in the division? I don't know. I've been as critical as anyone of Elias, just prospect hoarding at various points. But then he went and got Burns and then he made enough moves here that I would be appeased at least as an Orioles fan. You might have hoped for something more dramatic, but he's chipping away at the lower level depth redundancies. I think that they did fine for what the market would bear. I think that my guess, this is not based on me having inside knowledge here, but my guess

would be that the contract extension piece just took them out of the running for crochet because that seems to be their MO. And then I am skeptical that the Tigers were ever really interested in moving Scoobel. And I feel like they might've done that thing where they like ask for so much that they know that the answer's going to be no, because they didn't actually really want to trade him, which I think is defensible. I wouldn't want to trade them either. But I do think that the Orioles need to ask themselves a question as a front office group, because like the fact of the matter is that they just, they have too many of these dudes. Right?

They have so many very talented prospects. I think that they're perhaps learning with holiday that like, or being reminded that like prospect value quote unquote, isn't stagnant. It can go up, but it can also go down, right? Like we've moved holiday out of the top spot of the hundred. He moved out of the top spot in the last update. James, what is the top prospect in baseball? And like every-

Shining of the guard. Yeah. And like, you know, Eric made this point when he wrote about it. I think others have made this point in the public prospect space that like we're in sort of a stretch where there isn't a flawless, no doubt, sure thing guy at the top for anyone and you know, who's sitting in the number one spot is sort of varying publication to publication. Although, Holiday would have been that, that with the start of the season, right? He was sort of that. But this is part of my point, which is that the fortunes can change.

And so I do think it would be useful, and I'm sure they're having this conversation internally because I'm not some brain genius, but I do think it would be worthwhile for them to be like, who are you willing, like who is good enough to you that you are willing to part with more of these high profile guys? Like, who are the guys? Because there might come a time where you're not maximizing your potential return here. I think that we have talked about points where you can be so budget conscious that you're not actually utilizing expected value the way you should be, that you're not getting the most out of

a young cost control core because guys like Gunner is going to be wildly expensive. And I think that some of the guys that they have on their team right now are good enough that they're going to be the kinds of guys who make a lot of money in arbitration. You know, you're not going to get Gunnar Henderson for $2 million a year when he hits Arb. You know, he might be one of those guys like Mookie did and like Soto did where it's like, they're setting new records for arbitration salaries because of how good they are. And they have a couple of those guys. So like, who are your targets to make this team, like the knockdown, we don't care what the Yankees do, get out of our way, Orioles.

They need to decide who those guys are and then like, see if they can get them. Because if they can't, then they need to pivot to either being willing to spend some money or and I know that they're good at pitching Dev but like being really good like get you need more than just they still need more. They still need more. I think you're right that like they went out and they reinforce that rotation. I think there are a much better team for postseason play when you're thinking about the potential playoff teams, certainly among the division winners. It's like, wow, Guardians, you really could have used more than Alex Cobb, but okay. But the Orioles have to answer this question for themselves because you only get so many more years with Gunner and Adley. Like, go get it. I started

by saying I think they did a good job and I've worked myself up and being frustrated with them. Go get it. All right. I mentioned I like what the Cardinals did. Fetty, Fam, Armstrong, they dealt from depth with Edmund and Carlson. Maybe we can talk about just a few teams kind of in a did they do enough lens, which I guess is what we ended up saying about the Orioles, but teams that objectively did less than the Orioles. Now there were some teams that you wouldn't have expected them to do a whole lot, like the Pirates, right?

I appreciate that the Pirates did not sell, did not give up, but you knew they weren't going to break the bank. They weren't going to go get the top guys, but they did okay. They improved on the margins. They got IKF, they got Brian De La Cruz, they got Jalen Beaks, Josh Walker. They sent out Martin Perez and Quinn Priestor. Okay. Nice little moves, very pirates coded kind of moves, but what about the New York teams?

What about the Yankees and the Mets who, at least according to Neil's estimation, similar impacts. So the Yankees, they got Jazz Chisholm, they got Enyo de los Santos, they got Mark Leiter Jr. and traded Caleb Ferguson. The Mets got Jesse Winker, Ryan Stanek, Tyler Zuber, they got Brasband, they got Paul Blackburn and Walker and Sulcer were the guys exiting the Mets. And the Mets needed something, something I think because pretty devastating blow for them to lose Kodaisenga the way that they did.

Yeah, it sucks. He misses most of the season, comes back with a couple months left and you're thinking, oh, this is big addition, top of the rotation arm here added at the deadline. And then one game in, he, what high calf strain was it? A bad calf strain and he's done for the year or at least done for the regular season. That's a big blow. And I don't think there was kind of a Senga replacement really out there unless they were going to go get maybe a Flaherty or someone. So, you know, Winker helps. This has been the good Winker, not the Seattle era Winker. So he's been a good on base guy.

That's been a strength of the Mets and, you know, just like kind of a few other pieces they picked up and the Yankees, I think, you know, they're hoping that Chisholm will have a breakout there, that he'll become a star on that stage and everything, but could have done more, you know, like I think lighter helps them maybe, but neither team made among the most major moves. And given the way that the Yankees have played up until the past few days, there was a lot of pressure on them to make more major moves than this. Nicole Soule-Bare-Nichols Well, and I'm sure that Yankees fans aren't

encouraged by the fact that Garrett Cole was like, I am tired. And to be clear, Garrett, I feel you buddy. Did they do enough? Well, Ben, my really useful answer is tell-all-tell. I do think that Jazz is fine in center. I think they're not deploying him there. He's playing third base now, which is crazy. But they are one of the teams where I thought they could have used.

Like, maybe it, Robert Junior. Now maybe they're like, Jason Dominguez is going to be healthy and fine soon, so we'll just have Jason Dominguez and it'll be okay. But I thought they could have reinforced things there. They felt like they needed pitching. They didn't really get more pitching. At least not like starting pitching. And then the Mets, I don't know what I think about the Mets, man.

Like, Zynga going down, just Casapal over the whole thing. I like the moves that they made. I don't know that I look at that roster and think like, oh, this is a team that's obviously going to be able to make a long postseason run. So in that respect, I don't know that they did enough. But I'm having a hard time like really faulting any team. I know I got myself all worked up at Mike Lice there for a minute, but I just don't think that the big transformative moves were really on offer this deadline.

And I know that I don't want to make excuses, and I'm sure that there were prospects that were hugged too tight and what have you, But I do think that it's useful to remember the broader context and reality of this market, which is that there weren't a lot of big guys, and the biggest guys didn't move. There's an alternate timeline where one of these playoff teams sells the farm for Garrett Crochet and then they extend him and then he like gets dead armed because he's never pitched this much before and then like he can't pitch in the postseason anyway, you know? Like it's, I get why there's a reticence around some of this and like Robert had injury stuff too, you know? So I don't know. I feel like everyone did a good job and I'm proud of them, except the

Asteros who I'm very confused by. I'm not contractually obligated to be proud of the Asteros. I have that exception. It's one of my writers, but it just wasn't a market to give you the guy where you're like, ha, now they're going to win the World Series. Yeah. I kept finding it. Like the Red Sox. I would have liked to see the Red Sox do more than they did, but I could say that about a few teams. So the Red Sox, they got Luis Garcia, Lucas Sims, Quinn Priester, Danny Jansen, James

Paxton. Okay. If they had gotten a good starter, a second baseman, a Ren Hefo, or someone like there, if they had gotten a good starter, a second basement, a Ren Hefo or someone like that, like that Jonathan India, I don't know, like, yeah, right. There are some guys who weren't traded and, and, you know, is that just on, no one was, was willing to pony up or what, or Brent Rooker, like why, you know, like, I know the A's kind of like the, this core that they have and he's just

been great, but yeah, there are some guys who you might've expected to move who, who didn't, which I guess is always the case that not every trade candidate is traded, but underwhelmed by the Red Sox deadline, especially after Breswell was like, we're going to pick a lane, you know, trying to avoid the Heimplume era of like, we're, we're coming in, going at the same time. And I guess he picked a lane, like he, he added, but just not really inspiring additions here. And, you know, I said the Braves, they were another team that, uh, did a reunion. Right.

They just kind of, this worked for us before. Let's go get Jorge Saler and Luke Jackson. Man, the Jorge Saler San Francisco era sure didn't last long. I feel like when the Giants signed Jorge Saler, I'm pretty sure my reaction was like, are we sure Jorge Saler is good? And I just, I still don't think he's good really. Like there are times when he will get hot and, and, and he certainly hits some Titanic home runs. He can

hit them as far as anyone, but on the whole, he's just, he's not really that good. But, you know, the Braves have made like these exact moves before and it worked out well for them. Yeah. Did you know they won the World Series? I did know that. Yeah. And, and Ronaldo Lopez, who we've been singing the praises of and marveling all season, he's got forearm issues now, though the MRI came back negative and he's just day to day, but we'll see. So yeah, there are a bunch of teams like that, like the twins, you know, they just really didn't do much. They got Trevor Richards. That's it. They could have done more, you know, cause they're still- they're still not proud of them either.

Yeah, they're, you know, potentially within striking distance and the Ayl Central, but certainly going to be a playoff team and you know, they didn't need that much maybe, but they could have used more than that. And the guardians, uh, they got Lane Thomas, which I think is good for them. Anytime the guardians go get an outfielder, I applaud them. They got Alex Cobb also. And the brewers were kind of quiet. The cubs, I was sort of surprised because it seemed like they had intimated that they

were kind of throwing in the towel and then didn't really and went and got Paredes. So that sort of surprised me, but okay. I guess, you know, they're still kind of in it-ish and, you know, he's not a rental either. So, but yeah, like a lot of those teams were kind of in, you know, no man's land, like didn't, didn't budge their fortunes a whole lot. But if you find yourself saying that about a handful of teams or more, like, Oh, could have done more, could have done more. Well, they can't, they can't all have done more. Like there, there was a finite amount of talent available and maybe more

finite than usual, so there was just only so much to go around or like the Rangers, for example, you know, people were wondering, will the Rangers, well, they give up and I didn't think they'd give up, but they did a little bit of both. Like they traded Michael Lorenzen away, who's maybe going to get squeezed out anyway. And Davis Wenzel and they got Carson Kelly and Andrew Chafin, you know, just minor moves that probably aren't going to make or break things one way or another. Same with the Diamondbacks, I guess, Puck, Floro, Bell, you know, it's probably not going to make the difference. But then again, in one of the wild card races this year, a win could make the difference.

So you never know. Yeah. And sometimes you're like, Oh, do more. And then like, you know, the astro's like way too much for you to take a good sheet. By the way, I got a, so first of all, I want to devote more time later this week to the Danny Janssen apocalypse that, that faces us because Is it really an apocalypse though?

Well, I mean, it may be for stat sites that have to code it, but I want to explore that subject more because Danny Jensen has the potential to play or have played for both of the teams in one game and also to have been the batter and the catcher in the same plate appearance because it was the Red Sox Blue J matchup and he has now switched teams. He's with the Red Sox now, he was with the Blue Js and so if he plays in the suspended game that resumes, then we will see something that we have not seen in MLB before and that is exciting, but at least for some people scary, I think. But the funny thing to me

was that to make room for Jansen, the Red Sox designated Reese McGuire for assignment. Now, Reese McGuire, he had a week because there was a on-field confrontation, the Red Sox and the Rockies, right? Tensions boiled over, benches cleared, and it all, I really did not, I was gonna say it came to a head. I didn't even, that was not planned. But it climaxed. Oh my God, now you're just milking it. Oh, don't say that. Okay. Oh my goodness.

Anyway, for those who don't know, Reese McGuire, I think everyone knows now probably, but yeah, it was 2020, but it was pre-pandemic. So we can't say it was a pandemic era thing. Not that that would necessarily excuse it, but he had a little bit of indecent exposure in a parked SUV in a Florida strip mall going on in 2020. And, you know, he has- Look, okay, now that you've brought it up, we have to say, like, he didn't-

He wasn't- He wasn't being a flasher. No. Which is what- But inadvertently- Inadvertently. Which, I'm not saying it to excuse the behavior, but I just want- No. Which is what- But inadvertently. Inadvertently. Yes. I'm not saying it to excuse the behavior, but I just want-

What a man does in the sanctity of his own car in a public parking lot. I'm not- It was a bad decision. Okay. I'm not saying- He wasn't whipping it out. He was not ostentatiously- Oh my God. Anyway, that happened.

Oh my God. And the reason this came up again this year is because Cal Quantrill just decided to raise this. Gosh, raise this. How is this still everything I say sounds worse. I'm not even trying to raise this. How is this still? Everything I say sounds worse. I'm not even trying to do this. He yelled at him and he said some words. He did. Yes. He invoked this incident.

Incident. He invoked this incident and it was one of these cases where you could read the lips very clearly. Oh, yeah. And I'm not an accomplished lip reader, but this was a case. Usually it's like someone tells me what someone is saying with lip reading and I'm like, I guess if you say so. But in this case, you can very clearly hear that he was referencing this incident in a very derogatory way. It escalated quickly. And I wonder how long Cal Quantrill had this in the holster. But the funny thing was not that actually. It was the aftermath of that, because this went viral and

circulated online and everyone was doing the lip reading and sharing what Cal Quantrill had clearly said here. And then the Red Sox in the clubhouse after the game, they heard about what Quantrill had said, because in the moment they actually didn't realize, you know, heeded the moment and it's loud and stadium noise. And, you know, I think even McGuire didn't know what Quantrill had said, and the teammates did not know what Quantrill had said. So when they became aware of this, I'll just read from the Mass Live report here. Because there are no TVs in the dugout,

it wasn't until after the game, back in the visitors clubhouse, that most players, including McGuire, found out what Quantrill, as captured by cameras, said to McGuire on the field and the stir it had caused online. That realization led to many Red Sox wanting to go back for more.

The game is over by this point. With one prominent Sox player so incensed that he started asking stadium personnel where they could find the home clubhouse, where the Rockies were packing up for a road trip to San Francisco, Red Sox players were spotted waiting out by Colorado's team bus at one point as well. So it was like a shark's jets situation suddenly. And the guy who brokered peace apparently was Trevor Story because former Colorado Rocky on the Red Sox now still has friends on the Rockies roster was instrumental in

preventing a potentially ugly incident postgame. So Trevor Story was Switzerland here. The sense among those who witnessed the events was that an altercation was narrowly avoided. And Story says, I was in a unique position having been a member of both teams. I didn't like what had been going on. And so Story managed to talk down his teammates and ultimately this kind of come down. But the coda to all of this is that the Red Sox were willing to fight the Rockies to, I guess, preserve Reese Maguire's honor here. I mean, you know, no lies detected. I mean, Calquantro, it was to bring it up that publicly, I guess on camera, but he was just stating

factually what Reese Maguire had done with some derogatory epithets appended to that recounting of events. But the funny thing is they were willing to take on the Rockies here and then Reese Maguire was shortly after designated for a sign, he was just the backup catcher and now he's just off the roster. Which I guess that tells you something about Clubhouse dynamics. I mean, for all I know, they love Reese McGuire and they don't hold this incident against him and they were affronted on his behalf. But it is kind of funny that a marginal guy on the roster can, that's what you have to do, I guess, to be a quote unquote good teammate.

You have to like, everyone's equal. You have to rally around the least of your teammates, who's at least a big league veteran and kind of come to their defense, even if you're defending indecent exposure. And it's just a funny, this like high stakes incident that almost boiled over here, if not for the presence of Trevor Story. Nicole Zichal-Klein Yeah, it's maybe unbecoming to bring up in public, right? It's unbecoming for Reese McGuire to bring it up in public. But then, oh my God. But maybe there's a statute of limitations. So four years. It's very embarrassing.

It's the lowest public point of this guy's life, right? Yeah. And as far as we know, there's- No one was harmed, I guess, right? Right. Like again, I'm not defending- you get in this weird spot where I'm like not defending the behavior, but I also, to our knowledge, he doesn't have anything, he didn't have anything like this beforehand.

He doesn't have anything like it since. And you know, it's embarrassing. It's an unfair, like, I know that happened to him and so does his mom. That's terrible. CBer Yeah. Maybe he's done his time. So in the court of public opinion. Yeah. Let the poor boy live, you know? Yeah, by the way, while we were talking about this, uh, Ken Rosenthal reported that the Yankees backed out of a trade for Jack Flaherty because of, uh, they had a preliminary agreement with the Tigers, but then there were medical

concerns after reviewing his, his records. Yeah, you never know with these whether this is a, we tried. So I am going to just echo the sentiment that my colleague, Jay Jeffy had in responding to this. It feels like very sour grape seed, but if it's true, like the Yankees don't have very much in the way of rotation depth and even the Dodgers are obviously grappling with injury, hence them making this move. Like they are better positioned to weather something should it happen to Flaherty. So I could see the risk calculus actually being different between those two clubs, but

also shut up. You know, like, sorry. It's been a long day, Ben. It's been a long couple of days. Humanely paced, but still a lot of work was done. Terrific work by the entire Fandegraaff staff. Abely shepherded by, I hope, me, but also Matt Martell, who did a great job. So good job, Matt.

But also, shut up. Like, come on. You know? You're the Yankees have some dignity. Like, geez. I know. It's not like they haven't, uh, acquired some starters with shaky injury health track records too. This is where you're going to draw the line. But yeah, it's funny cause, cause one of my favorite genres of baseball story is like the alternate history of so-and-so could have gone there, right? But often years after the fact when everyone comes out is like, yeah, Bryce Harper could have been an Astro or whatever, right? That kind of thing

that I kind of do enjoy, but when it's right after the fact, and it may be true. And I know if you're like ownership or front office, you probably want to get that message out there, but I don't know that it makes anyone feel better. You know, is any Yankees fan like, oh, okay, they tried. At least they tried, but they decided, you know, especially if the Dodgers go get him. Cause it's like, okay, well, you know, unless like he breaks his next start or something.

And then you might say, okay, maybe we, we made the right call here, but otherwise you're looking at the Dodgers who like the Yankees are supposed to be like this big behemoth that can just spend their way through injuries, right? Like that's what the Dodgers are doing these days. And the Yankees aren't certainly as much as their fans would like them to. So, you know, you're the Yankees. Like certainly as much as their fans would like them to. So, you know, you're the Yankees, like you can afford to take that kind of risk. Go get a good starter, Shannon.

All right. Well, have we more or less covered it? I think so. You know, I'm sure we left things out because we had to. There were so many transactions. I hope that everyone listening's favorite team got them exactly what they wanted for their deadline. Yeah, I think that that's it. And now we get to see if it worked and we won't have an insane waiver deadline like we did last year because I don't think

that anyone's trying to move on from Otani right now. So how about that? Yeah, I don't think we've mentioned trying to move on from Otani right now. So how about that? Yeah. I don't think we've mentioned the Royals, by the way. I think the Royals did a decent job at the time because they didn't give up a whole lot, it seems like, and they got Hunter Harvey, that was some time ago, and then Michael Orensen and Lucas Erceg, they pried away from the A's and Paul DeYoung. So they helped, right? It was not like major impact blockbuster moves, but little tinkering around the edges of that roster,

I think that could help them. Yeah, and look, during the off season, I think we were like, are all these moves going to be worth anything for the Royals? And a lot of them happened, you know? They picked some good guys. They've been a good team and they've gotten help from the guys they brought in over the winter. So it

makes me a little more confident in their ability to pick them. Yeah. The Reds, by the way, I guess it surprised me a little bit that the Reds didn't really divest. They didn't do anything dramatic. They- They got rid of Mont dramatic, right? They, they traded Montos to Milwaukee and then Austin Slater, Lucas Sims, Levon Soto. They brought in a few guys, Jacob Junas, Ty France, Joey Weimer, Davis Wenzel. Yeah. It was kind of a meh deadline for them. They didn't really reinforce or, or sell in any significant way. So yeah, you know. And the Rockies, they made a couple of trades. They traded Nick Mears, by the way, who came out

and was like, yeah, I was tipping pitches for like a month and a half. And then, and who knows that could always be an excuse or something. But he said, I've definitely had a few implosion innings, but it also doesn't help that I was tipping pitches for a month and a half and I was never told. And he said a player from another team told one of Mears' teammates before the All-Star break that he was tipping while coming set and Mears immediately instituted adjustments. At the end of the day, it was my fault for broadcasting what pitch I was throwing. I take full responsibility. I need to be better about that moving forward and try to be better. But if you want to add that to your lull Rockies pile of, uh, their guy

was tipping pitches for a month and a half, maybe, and no one told him until some other teammate, someone told him over the all star break that it's not a great reflection, but who knows? Yikes is what I'd say to that. Yikes. Okay. Well, I think we've covered it. Happy deadline. Yeah. Glad we made it through and we can always return to any trades we didn't devote a ton of time to later in this week. Because you know what? It's only Tuesday as we're speaking. It feels like later in the week,

but nope, it's Tuesday or Wednesday by the time you're hearing this. All right. Well, enjoy it everyone. Well, I spoke too soon. The White Sox blew that lead and lost their 16th consecutive game somewhere. Pedro Cofal is saying to himself, it's no one's fault but the players. If they had played better, we would have won. And hey, if more people supported this podcast on Patreon, we'd have more Patreon support, which you can provide by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild as have the following five listeners who have already signed up to pledge some month or yearly amount and help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. Martin Gannon, Benjamin Lee, Chris Curtis, Big Dog, and let's see

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