Rates & Barrels - Trade Deadline Recap: Yusei Kikuchi, Jack Flaherty & Lane Thomas on the Move

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Eno, DVR and Britt recap the final moves leading into the 2024 MLB Trade Deadline including the Astros' addition of Yusei Kikuchi, the Padres' continued push to improve their roster with another bullpen upgrade in Tanner Scott, Jack Flaherty's move to the Dodgers, and a busy Trade Deadline window for the Rays and Marlins, who cashed in at an opportune time as sellers. Rundown 2:54 Yusei Kikuchi to the Astros in a Four-Player Swap 6:17 Tanner Scott to the Padres in a Large Trade with Miami 9:15 Trevor Rogers to the O's as Part of Marlins' Massive Deadline 19:45 Lane Thomas to the Guardians 25:37 Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers 30:13 The Rays and Marlins As Deadline Winners From Selling Position 37:51 Which Buyers Did Well? 44:23 Lucas Erceg and Bullpen Arms on the Move 52:10 Surprised the Angels Didn't Deal Away More Players? 1:00:53 Puzzling Deadlines Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us Thursday at 1p ET/10a PT for our weekly live episode with Trevor May! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper, Eno Sarris & Britt Ghiroli Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Tuesday, July 30th. Happy Trade Deadline Day. Derek VanRyper, EnoSaris here. Special shout out to the Live Hive watching us on YouTube. Rich Rowley will join us a little bit later in the show. We're going to cover everything happening up to today's deadline, kind of picking up where we left off yesterday, Eno.

I think if we count the whole window, going back the last week, 10 days, this has been a great trade deadline. There are tons of active teams, and I think this is the kind of day where we might even get a few last minute deals of some note too. Yeah, the pirates are sneaking a couple position players in under the wire. They're buying! The pirates are buying! The Marlins doing the maybe the quick rebuild, making a ton of moves, a couple of huge trades

for them. So many players. Like, it's almost like you got to like really take out a microscope on their 40 man and like, we'll have to look at their, you know, depth charts and figure out who's going to play this year and who's going to play later. And pretty exciting. I, I also think though that like, maybe it is due to the hype machine and some of the stuff. You know going into it where we want to put bigger names on the block than are actually on the block but you know if you're gonna sit here and tell me that tax Google and get crochet and blake snow. Are going to you know be traded then i am going to maybe look at the list and say.

then I am going to maybe look at the list and say, you say Kucchi and Jack Flaherty got traded and say, you know, it was a dud. So I mean, it's a little bit, maybe our responsibility as part of the media in terms of raw moves, in terms of people, you know, actually doing things, despite it being, you know, a seller's market, you know, I thought it was pretty, it's been pretty good. Yeah, it's been full of moves.

I love it. Friedrich it's been pretty good. Yeah, it's been full of moves. I love it. Friedrich in the live hive says, if the giants don't trade Snell, I walk into the Pacific. Pick a warm part of the Pacific. I recommend Southern California to Northern California. Seeing on Twitter, if Brian Rokeo is still on the Guardians roster in three hours, I'm going to drink a bottle of ketchup. Wouldn't recommend that. Probably not a good idea.

I like ketchup. All right. Not that much. It's poor. Yeah. The guardians turnout. That's so funny. The guardians turnout shortstop after shortstop and a renowned for being a pitching, a pitching, you know, machine.

And they go and get Alex Cobb and maybe leave Brian Roque at shortstop. You know, that's. It's okay. They got an upgrade. they got Lane Thomas. We'll get into that one here in just a couple of minutes. Let's get caught up on some of the big trades that have happened since you and I last spoke on Monday evening. You say Kikuchi could be the best starting pitcher moved at this deadline.

We'll see what happens in these next 20 minutes or so. Four player deal, and a lot of people think this was a huge return for the Blue Jays because Kikuchi will be a free agent at the end of the season so this is purely a rental. It's Jake Bloss, Joey Lopofito and Will Wagner all going back to the Blue Jays but I think people just underrate you say Kakuchi. We saw skills growth last year, he sustained it through this season. The results haven't been there in terms of the ERA and WIP getting to where they should be for the strikeout and walk rates that Kikuchi is posting.

But I think if you're an Astros fan and if you're looking at this from a fantasy perspective you're excited about Kikuchi going to Houston. Yeah I really value the conversation that I've had with many people about Kikuchi since it came out. I've talked with Matan K on Twitter and Alex Chamberlain and there was a lot of different and then you know in our discord we talked about Kikuchi. I got DMs from different people. Some, most of them were polite so that was enjoyable. I mean what I'm what I'm saying that he's better than Jack Flaherty, it's a stuff play. He throws harder than Jack Flaherty. He has a fastball that looks similar to Kikuchi does to Tyler Glasnow's

and a 90 mile an hour slider. Guess who has a harder slider than Kikuchi among qualified starters? Tyler Glasnow. So, you know, there's it's a high stuff thing. As some people have pointed out, he has allowed a higher exit velocity in other pitchers. It's not something I traditionally look at, but when you're 700 plus innings in

and he's shown that tendency, it's something to think about, I guess. It's also, you know, he has a 309 career Babbitt, 340 this year though. Kikuchi despite the Blue Jays being a well regarded defensive team by most statistics. So I think there's still a fair amount of luck in here, even if maybe the location numbers aren't sophisticated enough to capture the fact that his command is still a problem. It was a problem before. Maybe it still is a problem, and that's led to some of this hard contact against him. But if I'm going to go into the postseason,

I just want a guy who throws wicked hard and has great stuff. And I think Kukuchi's ahead of Flaherty on my list, but a lot of smart people disagree with me. In any case, what they gave up is also a little bit overrated, I think. Joey Lopperfito strikes out too much and is probably a corner outfield first baseman defensively. That's where he was played by the team that was using him. And he's going to have to hit for a ton of power to overcome some of those strikeout issues.

So he may not be a regular. And then Jake Bloss is has a pretty good fastball, pretty good slider. He kind of strikes me as like a little bit lesser version of Spencer Schwellenbach, whereas a good fastball, good slider. You don't know about the curve and the change. Neither is an elite pitch. And and so it's you know, it's kind of profiles four or five, six to me, which of course, when it's cheap, is still pretty exciting for the Blue Jays.

But I don't know that this was such the overpay that people expect. I mean, just look at what happened with the best reliever rental reliever on the market. Tanner Scott goes out and gets traded in a four player deal as well. And he gets Robbie Snelling back whose command is cratered. You know, the same similar thing. Guys who are like, oh, I know these names, you know, oh, this must be a good haul. But it's like,

I don't know if you've noticed, but Robbie Snelling's command is really cratered. Adam Mazer came up and kind of showed us that his fastball is not great and, you know, showed us he had some struggles striking out major league batters. I forget who else is in the day. Graham Pauley may not be a regular hitter, you know, in terms of pairing that, that defense and power quality somewhere on the diamond. It may be kind of like a third baseman who doesn't hit enough to be a third

baseman, you know? So it's not obvious to me that they overpaid, but they definitely paid for a high-end rental and gave up names that people recognize. So those are the two overpays on the market today, I guess. Yeah, the Padres late inning situation is really tight now, right? Because you already had Robert Suarez pitching really well.

You added Jason Adam in a separate trade. Now you got Tanner Scott in the mix as well. So it could be lights out from the seventh inning on and the middle guys aren't bad either. It's gonna be interesting to see how that bullpen holds up down the stretch, given some of the demands, the rotation might put on them. Could be heavy workloads for that group

in the final two months. But I think Snelling's is pretty fun by low for the Marlins. He's so young. He's not going to turn 21 until December. He was baseball. America's pitcher of the year last year. Yeah. He made it to double a last season. So even though things haven't gone great for him in 2024, given his age, that's a great profile to bet on a guy that could be an impact starter sooner rather than later, despite how things have gone this year. So to get that for Tanner Scott,

a guy that has been really good, but also has shown us a very wide range of outcomes in his career, I think that alone is kind of the headliner for the package is great work by Peter Bendix and that Marlins front office. Yeah, and for what it's worth, Lance Brozdowsky, I just saw a note from him.

He said he still saw 60 plus percent strikes on most of Snowling's offerings. So he's not exactly sure that the command is cratered as much as the walk rate suggests. There may just be, you can have luck in a walk rate, you know? It's like, when does the ball come? You know? If it comes 2-0 or 2-1 instead of 3-2, this is a fun one. Orestes Distrati mentioned on the live hive. Love it, thanks, Jason.

That's a great callback. I've forgotten completely about Orestes Distrati. But yeah, this has been a busy day so far. We saw the Marlins get involved in a trade with the Orioles where they got two guys back that should plug in right away for this lineup. Trevor Rogers joins the Orioles, he's gonna start, and you look at what they get back,

Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers, two guys that are major league ready that were pretty well blocked in Baltimore. I'm curious from the Orioles perspective, what do you think they might change, if anything, with Trevor Rogers to get better results from him because he's just not the same guy that he was when he broke into the league from a stuff perspective? Yeah, and I know people are pointing to like his last seven starts. He has like a three and a half era, but it's not supported by the peripherals. I mean, he has like an 18% strikeout rate and a 10% walk rate. That is that is not good.

Um, and that, you know, you put that in the AL East, I do not think it produces a 350 era. So, um, you know, you're looking, you could don't have to look at stuff itself, but you can look at Velo, he used to be 95, he's 91 now. You know, I mean, going from 95 to 91, you know, I just feel like, can I talk any faster? No, I can't, I can just do it in bursts. But 91, 91 is not good from Trevor Rogers. I don't know what they're thinking actually. I hate this trade for the Orioles, honestly. If I had to deep, dig down deep and try to figure it out

for the athletic today. And the best I could figure out is that his sliders had different shapes. So maybe they could go back to a shape he's thrown in the past and say, you know, this one that was a little bit more like a curve ball, we like it better. Stuff Plus liked it better when it was kind of a curve ball. So maybe you know, that's a possibility that

You know, they changed something about it. Maybe they can unlock some of these mechanics get back to 95 He has thrown a pitch 95 8 this year. So maybe they could get him to sit 93 again Maybe he's been mailing it in You know, maybe 93 is still in there. Maybe he's just 91 because, hey, I'm on the Marlins. This sucks. So, you know, I don't, I don't know, but you know, it's generally, it's change up first guy who hasn't thrown a good breaking ball almost ever in his career and whose fastballs are giving up nearly 500 slugging this year. So I don't know what they're thinking,

but I did notice that when I looked at the projections for Norby and Stowers, they were both for below average offense, which surprised me a little bit. But I think that's irrelevant for the Marlins. They're close. They have some ability. Getting a guy, guys like Norby and Stowers, if you're the Marlins, I think it makes a lot of sense. You got to take a chance on guys.

You can plug them in the lineup now. You can give them a chance and see, you know, I think basically those guys just need more opportunity. Yeah. And that's what they're going to have in Miami. We do have Britt Giroli with us now. So jump shoot among those in the live hive. Wondering what we do with Britt.

Britt's been doing double duty, trying to confirm moves while joining the show. But Britt, we know the Orioles prospect depth had made this a possibility to take guys like Norby and Stowers and move them in deals and maybe there's still more to come for them. What are your expectations for both of these guys now that they should have a clear runway of playing time for the rest of this season and through 2025 in Miami? Yeah, well, I think part of the reason, you know, you're talking about the projections being kind of low on those guys is that neither of those guys fit long term into the Orioles plans. They simply haven't gotten the playing time. And I think they both launched like a thousand plate appearances in AAA. So a guy like Stowers in particular, I know about two weeks ago, the Orioles said to him, like, look, we know you're blocked. We know you deserve to be in the big leagues. We're going to try to trade you. So

it was not really a big surprise that he was included in this deal. And on paper, I also hate this trade for the Orioles. But the longer I think about it, the more it's like, okay, if Stowers is blocked and he's not gonna fit into their plans, if Norby also really doesn't have a consistent path of playing time, the Orioles almost have so many riches that they almost are okay overpaying

because neither of these guys are going to be on the big league team. So is it worth getting Rogers? No, it's really not. But what's the flip side having these guys at AAA where eventually they peak, right? Eventually their value peaks and you're not going to be able to do anything with them. So I understand it a little bit from that perspective. I think Stowers can be a consistent everyday big leaguer and Norby was just scratching the surface. I mean, he's the fifth best prospect in the Orioles system. Means he's probably a top three prospect

in most other systems. The Orioles are just so loaded, you know, that that's what it is. So these are guys who are gonna slot in right away for the Marlins who low key, and we're gonna get later into the winners and losers, are having a hell of a trade deadline. Just have an absolute haul for Tanner Scott. I mean, they have really decided we're going to

go all in nine months after making the playoffs. We're going to burn this down to the studs. And they are picking the right trade deadline to do that because it is absolutely a seller's market. I think that was really smart to bring up their age. I, you know, Kyle Stowers is 26. I think that was really smart to bring up their age. I, you know, Kyle Stowers is 26. I believe Norby is already 24, you know, which you have would you have among prospect circles and when you're trading, you have kind of little expiration sell by dates a little bit. And you know,

once you get to, once you get to, I'm trying to trade this 28 year old or 27 year old, people aren't really listening anymore. I mean, part of the, part of the math there is just that players tend to peak at 26. So you know, if you got towers at 26, you're not going to sell them for any more down the road. I think the other question that's coming out of the live hive right now is are you confident the Orioles are a good organization for pitchers beyond the park and the changes they've made that have made it a much more pitcher friendly home park?

Do they make pitchers better? My lean is yeah. And I think Kyle Bradish, his development pre-injury is a good sign. I think you take a look at some of the like John Means even before that was a kind of a pop-up guy. They found Albert Suarez, brought him back over. He's been really nice for them as a backend guy. So I think there is an ability to identify talent, can coach it up a little bit and maximize ability. So even if Rogers is a number four starter for them, they've needed pitching for the last couple of years.

We talk about it a lot on this show and usually we're aiming higher than this, but it doesn't mean that they can't continue to find upgrades. Maybe this winter they'll get the big ace to replace Corbin Burns or they'll extend Burns and add something then. Yeah. I want to push back slightly on that because they got Jack Flaherty last year and I remember being on this podcast with you guys and we all were like, this is not a good move. We didn't really see the path there.

It seemed like kind of the safe. Oh, and then we said, maybe they'll make them better. Or maybe they'll get the head. Maybe they see something and they didn't really get it. It's a disaster. Well, I mean, they know they have a little bit of a track record, but I also just wonder with so many starter seemingly available and with such a wealth of prospect capital, you know, last year they played it safe and we said, okay, well, they played it safe throughout the beginning of their window.

How many years, if this is it for them, you know, and it just may well be we're 15 minutes to the deadline. How safe is too safe? Right. Did they go too safe? I think they went a little too safe here. I know they got Corbin Burns to start the season and we kind of all forget about that. And that was the big splash.

Oh, breaking news. Just as you said it. Did they get someone, Eli Jimenez. So they're making other moves because to me. But it's still not an arm. It's kind of funny. This was a little bit of a disappointing trade deadline on that front because it felt like, okay, last year could be excuses, the beaming of their window.

Okay, they have so many guys now. Is this the time? But again, if we saw what the Astros had to pay to get a rental, we saw the price here for Rogers. Was it just going to be too much to land some of these guys? Are they better off waiting until the winter? You can make that case. You can also make the case that if they go away

in the first round, like they did last year, because they don't have any pitching, that we're gonna say they squandered another year where these guys were under team control. So it is a really difficult situation to be in. And I don't envy Mike Elias in that front office at all, because you are trying to kind of thread the needle here between long-term sustainability

and quote going for it this year. And it's just a very tricky situation to be in. Yeah. And I think, you know, to some extent, there's a math that every team does. That's a contender that says, who is our playoff starter? Like, is this a starter who gets us there? Then I just want to give you something really small and just get a rental or just a guy

whose guy can plug in for a while. Or is this a guy who's going to start a playoff game for me? And they may have looked around and said, you know, we probably have our playoff starters here right now. And so we're just in, at least in Grayson Rodriguez and Corbin Burns. So you know, maybe they just didn't think that they needed to go. But this is Trevor Rogers is kind of weird in between too, because, you know, he's not

a playoff starter, but you've got him for a couple of years. So it's kind of acquiring depth for many deadlines. I don't know. It's a little bit of weird one. And Eloy Jimenez is kind of a funny fit too. Yeah, but it's a funny fit for the Orioles because I guess he's just gonna DH. Right, makes things a little more crowded

in a position player group. That's been crowded. Yeah. I hadn't thought they need a bat for me. I mean, he's getting, it looks like 13 million in the final year of that six year, $43 million deal. The white stocks obviously just looking for anybody to take him any takers at this point in time.

And. Oh yeah. Eflin is a good, I think I have no problem with the Evelyn move. I think that is a solid number three starter. However, because they're missing so many guys, I felt like they needed to move more towards that. Like get another three, get two threes. I don't consider Rogers a three. He is a five. Yeah. You know, he's five, as you wrote might be better in the bullpen, but they're not going to put him in the bullpen. They need him as a starter.

They got him as a starter. So I have no problem with the Eflin move. I thought it was going to be Eflin and maybe a higher end pitcher. And it's not. I wonder if Rodgers... I put Kikuchi on every team. Yeah. He was your Seth Lugo of the Deadline where you were just placing him everywhere.

And hey, everybody was interested. You could tell by the price the Astros had to pay to get them. I wonder if we'll see Rogers kind of work like Andrew Heaney in the postseason where he'll follow the rotation, but he'll chew up two innings here and there in games where a starter goes short. Get a bunch of lefties in a row, yeah. That might be the way they decided to deploy him in those spots. Although his change-up is his best pitch, so it might be righties. Who knows? If you're shopping while working, eating,

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or go to rakuten.ca to start getting the most bang for your buck. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Lane Thomas traded yesterday, sent to Cleveland in a four player swap. This is a hard one for me because I know this makes the Guardians better. The hardest thing for me to figure out

is Lane Thomas still being below average against Riteys even though he just had a breakout in 2023. Right? There's legitimate speed. There's some power. He's an above average regular despite being a below average hitter against Riteys each of the last four seasons. So as much as I like this move for the Guardians because it gives their lineup some depth, I'm wondering how long the Lane Thomas gravy train can keep rolling. Yeah. Well, it's funny because as I wrote for our trade grades for the athletic, people forget you can create this trade in a vacuum or you can look at it as the Nationals turned two months of John Lester into Lane Thomas, which is how they originally

got to this point. And then they turned it into a whole bunch of more prospects. I don't have a huge problem with this deal from Cleveland's side. It's a smaller upgrade, a marginal upgrade for an offense that all of a sudden looks like it needs some real help. Lane Thomas last year was the year to trade Lane Thomas. That would have been the quote unquote hall or the peak of the Lane Thomas last year was the year to trade lane Thomas that would have been the court of hall or the peak of the lane Thomas projections as you said he had a career year my issue with the national should have traded in last year my issue with the next return and i think will feel that way about Kyle finnegan who doesn't look like he's getting moved because the return is the asking prices to i think we'll look back on that next year and say they should have felt and again when his price was this high that what? Tander Scott just got um I think from the Nationals point of view you know they're kind of selling the we're going to be good very soon You know they've got all these young guys that are up now Mackenzie Gore and CJ Abrams and James Wood just came up and then they get these prospects that are in a ball and I Kind of figured they would be targeting guys who are a little closer to Major League Ready. The guys they got really, you know,

the prospects involved in this deal, the two prospects, there's one utility player as well, 2027, 2028 for Major League Readiness. And so to me, that's just a hard sell. It's very different from the Marlins who got a lot of players who are right at the cusp. Exactly. Interesting thing. I mean, what you have, I think,

when you make that decision is, I mean, yes, there are timelines. So it's good for you to point that out. If they're close, why are they getting these young guys? But with the young guys, you sometimes get more upside. And if you count on your scouts, you say, oh, our scouts really good with Abrams and Wood. And like, let's just,

let's take the guys who are further away where it's more scouting, I think, than numbers. the closer you get to the big leagues, the more the numbers mean something. That's why the A's have, I've often gotten guys who are close to the big leagues cause they're like, Hey, those guys, the projections are more solid. You can believe them. They, the guys done this in AAA, you can believe he can do this in baseball, you know, in baseball. Yes. And to be fair,

James Wood was a guy who was like 18 years old when they got him in the Soto trade. It was all about Gore and Abrams. He goes fast. Yeah. Though I did hear that H.A. Prowler, who I think we can all attest is a bit of a savant with the drafting and finding these guys, was heartbroken over Wood. That was like the one guy he didn't want to trade. And people were like, you're crazy.

He's 18. He's got like really low energy. Come to find out that's just the way he plays. And also he's going to be a superstar. So AJ Freler is, you know, you could say what you will about that guy. He seems to be excellent at identifying and drafting talent. And the Padres keep dealing from a farm system that should be depleted by now. They just keep restocking and reloading.

Only Ethan Salas is left right now. Yeah. The funny thing for me though, is that you, the guardians are almost like what we were saying about the Orioles last year. They're forever too safe. You know, like, you know, they're in first place. I don't know, like a second ago, they had the best record in the big leagues. Was that, is that true?

Yeah. How was it? How close are they to the best record in the big leagues? They have the best record, they have the most wins in baseball. They're tied with the Phillies. So then they go out and they get Alex Cobb and Lane Thomas. And if Lane Thomas is below average against Wrighties, as you said, Will Brennan is actually an average against Wrighties.

So did they just get a short sample, short side platoon, extra outfielder and Alex Cobb who just popped a blister? I mean, I like Alex Cobb. I'm just trying to be a little bit negative. Is a great way to put it. Now this is a team in a front office though that prioritizes wins per dollar, right? Not just win. Which he really seems to.

I mean, this is like the Fang graphs 2005. Yeah. And it's almost like, yeah. And it's again, like kind of what we're seeing is kind of the drawback of these very smart, very savvy, very risk averse model front offices. Sometimes you just gotta go for it. And that's why having the AJ Prelors

and the David and Browskys of the world, sometimes prospects are prospects, right? Sometimes you just gotta to push your chips and then you're right for Cleveland. We talked about their pitching staff on the podcast and how we don't think they're going to hold up. Is Alex Cobb enough for you to say, this is a World Series team?

And why not? Can't we say this is a World Series? There's no reason why Cleveland can't have World Series aspirations. We are past the halfway mark. As you said, the record speaks for itself. It is a little underwhelmed. We did see Jorge Soler get traded to Atlanta.

Again, it worked last time Ronald Acuna Jr. Tour in ACL, so they get some power back. What's the expectation here? We got breaking news? Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers. Hey, do we have the return yet? And Gareth Crochet not going anywhere. We got breaking news? Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers. Hey, do we have the return yet? There it is. And Garrett Crochet not going anywhere. Garrett Crochet not going anywhere.

Oh no, we got the Garrett Crochet staying put. News also. The big fat F for the White Sox, this trade deadline, but we'll get into that later. Yeah, I like the Flaherty to the Dodgers because that is an organization that has a penchant for finding, Flaherty has pitched really well.

He's not the reclamation project that the Orioles were getting last year. He's pitched very well. He's in an organization that is going to make sure he continues to pitch really well. We haven't seen the return yet, but Andrew Friedman has had himself very quietly a very good deadline.

Now, when you look at between this, the three team trade, the Dodgers are getting healthier. They are going to be an absolute jug or not. Now you add Jack Flaherty to that rotation. I don't know what you guys initial reacts on that, but this was a market where a lot of people wanted Jack Flaherty. So I'm curious how much they gave up, but I almost don't care because this is a win now Dodgers team, obviously. So what's different this year? We talked about Flaherty at last year's deadline. The concern was that he sat right around a VELO threshold with the fastball that really made his effectiveness waver.

Why will it be different in these final two plus months with the Dodgers? No, it's the exact same thing. It's amazing. You know, he's averaged 93.5 this year on the Four Seamer and that seems like not much off of 93.1 for last year. But I have the numbers in front of me. Over 94 miles an hour, Jack Flaherty has, let's see, this is under 94, he has a 280 batting average, 390 OBV, 460 slugging on the fastballs with an 18% whiff.

Over 94, it's 253, 327, 349 slugging with 27% whiffs. I mean, I think that's a pretty big shelf. And what you see if you look at his velocity over time this year is that it's going down. And if you look at his results, they're going down. And I think that one of the things that happens when we look at a player like this is we see the good results at the beginning and they're supported by a good velocity

and a great strikeout minus walk rate, and we don't really check back in on our priors. So, you know, for example, you know, he had, he had like 94 plus VELO early. I mean, there were some 95 games in March and April and his K-B in March and April was 30%. In May, it was just under 30%. In June, it was 25%. In July, when he started falling under 93 in some games, it was 19.7%. So his results have been slowly going back down to kind of where we thought he was before. The stuff has been going down, the VELO has been going down, and it's all happening right

around this shelf. We did see the first couple of games that he goes to Baltimore last year after we talked about this. He did throw 94 plus and he did, I think, have a good debut with the Orioles last year, but he wasn't able to keep it up. And so I kind of see this telling the same story of him kind of just not being as good as we thought he was because everyone's going to look at the K-Mines BB and look at, you know, say, oh, it's, it's, you know, top end stuff from beginning of the season, but it hasn't been quite the same since. I mean, let me see what I have for him on the last game was all right. And that's probably a little bit of like, oh, I see the tread deadline coming. And I'm about to get traded.

Oh, no. 92. eight in his last game. And he's at a ninety two two since June started. So, you know, it's definitely the trend is downward in his view, though. And that that bothers me. Yeah, because he's a two pitch pitcher, mostly. The Rays acquired Dylan Carlson as well. There's a bunch of moves trickling in. And I said this earlier on Twitter,

they only have to be agreed upon at six. So sometimes it takes a while for them to kind of trickle out. The Raiz, maybe the best deadline. What do you guys think? There's been- Padres got Martin Perez. Yeah, a lot of ladies-

Raiz- Those trickling in. I think both Florida teams have done really well. They've been active, they've gotten volume back, but they've gotten some quality back as well. And I think when you look at Dylan Carlson, in particular, we've wondered for years if there was one more gear there because of the type of hitter he was coming through the Cardinal system. They just haven't been able to maximize the ceiling that we thought he had. Tampa Bay is one of those places hitters go with sometimes limited power

or an approach that needs to be tweaked. The tweak happens and they reach a new level. So as far as places Dylan Carlson could have landed, that's about as good as it gets from a hitting instruction and development standpoint. Yeah, exactly. And the Cardinals have Loki, I think had a pretty decent trade deadline. It's probably get reliever Sean Armstrong back. They kind of were targeting today bullpen depth. Obviously were involved in that three team trade earlier in the week. But I think the Rays have put on a clinic as to how to reset and reload the Marlins as well. I mean, look, you look at this market, like we said, it's a seller's market. So if you were a fringy team, you know, maybe it benefited you, but the

teams that decided, you know what, we're going all in or selling down to the studs have really come out strong. I mean, you know, a Rosarina, FAM, uh, Isaac Parades. I don't think anyone saw that one coming. I mean, you look at what the Rays have done and what they've cleared payroll wise and what they've brought back. The same thing for the Marlins. Uh, these are organizations in much better situations than they were a week or two ago. So I really like what both of these teams have done. If there's going to be winners of the deadline. I'm going to push back a little bit on the Rays. And you know what's coming.

I mean, they're, they're above 500. I know that they're in a hard division, but I was a little surprised to see them trade off guys who will be, who could have been with the team for years to come. And I don't know, it's a little bit that the cynicism in me reaches a certain level when you start to think about their stadium deal and is this, are they like potentially like taking a step back on purpose in order to be more in, have more in place when the stadium is in place or something? I don't know.

It's, it, they weren't that expensive of a team. They didn't have to cut money. Like. I don't know. It's it. They weren't that expensive of a team. They didn't have to cut money like I don't. Yeah. Maybe this is just what they've always done. And I should just be quiet. But it just seems like cycles. And they haven't been bad in a while. So they kind of have to reset. But they aren't bad. They're bad. They're three and a half back in the wild card. They're not a team who you look at it and you're like, OK, are you look at the

American League, though? Are they better than Cleveland? Are they better than Baltimore? Are they better than Houston? I know. But how about the twins? Like the Royals just got better. I agree with you. But what if they had just done the safe trade deadline thing? Then we'd be knocking them like we're knocking some of these other teams that they just made marginal fringy upgrades, right?

They had two choices. They do the fringy upgrades and play for the wild card or they burn it to the studs. Yeah. I mean, I guess, uh, you know, really there are two options. I think the one team I think of that's kind of, and I also think there's so many different perspectives you can take when you're analyzing this. You can take it from the competitiveness standpoint. You can take the, you know, whether they make the team, make it a this year standpoint, where they make it over many years standpoint, do we take the standpoint more of sort of the front office

or we take the standpoint more of fans? And sometimes I think the standpoint of fans gets dropped behind and so would you rather be a fan of the giants right now or the Rays? Because both of them are like three and a half teams, just in terms of the trade deadline they had, they're both about three and a half teams, just in terms of the trade deadline they had. They're both about three and a half games back. They both sold to some extent,

but the Giants are keeping Blake Snell it looks like, and they're trying to just sell off the pieces that were most expensive and stay in it. I don't know. I just, it seems a little bit painful to me to be a Tampa Bay race fan. It's, you know, it's the way they've existed though, forever. The Marlins though, nine months ago, they won a playoff game. If you could say the same thing about both of those organizations though, can't

you instead of just picking up the Marlins were healthy under the hood in terms of, you know, they may have won a playoff game, but I don't think that it was a great organization right away. And I feel like the Rays are a better team than selling. Sure, but the Marlins sold by like May. They were done by like, remember? They were even waving the white flag

since basically opening day, it feels like. What's strange for me is that I look at the returns the Rays got. And Christopher Morell is a fun player. We talked a lot about him on the Monday episode. Where is he going to play defensively? Second base tonight? Is that going to work in the long run? No idea.

I don't know if they can make him a passable defender at any infield position, but they at least will try. They have a core of good pitching. Taj Bradley is having a breakout year. Shane Baas is healthy again. Shane McClanahan comes back eventually. Pepio looks like a nice pick up from the Glass Now deal. Jeffrey Springs is healthy now. We know they can always find relievers. Trading Randy Arroz Arena, it was inevitable, but it doesn't make me any less sad for Raze fans because he was one of their impact guys. He was one of those guys that had showed up

on the big stage for them, but also had the ability to be a consistent, above average regular. And I think the hard thing that is similar with both the Raze and the Giants is the extreme mixing and matching on top of the selling at the deadline when you do have at

least a chance of going to the playoffs. That's hard, but the mixing and matching, I think, always makes it hard to get really into a roster. So when you have a player like Randy or Rosarina and you trade them away, that stings a little bit more because he's not one of your semi-regulars. He's one of your recognizable stars. Yeah. I agree with that. Listen, I don't think it's a fun deadline if you're a race fan by any means, but I think the alternative is just half selling. Right. And then do you really get any better or half going for it? I don't know.

I like teams that pick a lane dramatically, whether that's sellers or buyers. Like this is the time to create excitement in the sport for these bigger deals to go through. You know, and I think if you're Tampa Bay, you're looking at it as like, is this a world series team? Probably not. So operating under Tampa Bay's constraints, right? Like Cleveland approaches this the same way, but they're even safer. If Tampa Bay had Cleveland's record, I think they would be a little more aggressive. Don't you? A little more creative.

Things like the Nelson Cruz trades. Yeah. They've done some things in the creative when it comes to these kinds of things. Yeah. They supposedly offered some big one-year deals to some of the bigger free agents that have come and gone. So they're supposed to be a judge. Yeah, exactly. So I like what they do generally.

This trade deadline, I was like a little surprised in a negative way that they sold so hard. I think it's really easy to like what the Marlins have done. I think that they needed to do this. They couldn't field a really good lineup. They have it in a long time. Maybe one year there was okay, but they really needed position players

and they got a lot of close position players and they did it really fast. So that's an easy win for me. In terms of buyers, who are your favorite winners? I like the Dodgers. I like the Dodgers, what they just did. Dodgers, that's Flaherty and who else they got? Flaherty, they got Edmund in the three team swap.

Who, yeah, Derek and I think might just be their starting shortstop. They did one other thing. I feel like we need a list, because so many deals are trickling in that I'm getting confused. Yeah, Kopec was part of that deal too. Kopec, they got Kopec. Okay, I was like, wait, they got another reliever.

Big time reliever, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and honestly, I think that they were one of the bigger winners on the buyer side. I like what the Cardinals did a lot too. I mean, we know the mandate from ownership to not add- Was not to spend any money. Not to add. So then, you know, you have you have to again not approach it too much from the fan side but kind of also thread the needle and I think what maziliak did in kind of swapping guys and getting involved in that three-team trade that they could address their

concerns yeah it wasn't bad I mean Brandon Donovan kind of made Edmund a little bit and Mason Wynn made it Edmund expendable and you took that $8 million and you turned it into an outfielder that could, that could help you now for as a rental. And it is funny. Tell me fam coming back, but I don't love it. I don't love Fetty, but he is totally a Cardinals type type starter. And he fits right in. I honestly think the white socks shouldn't even have gotten involved in that trade

because they were totally fleeced in the Feddy, Feddy, Copac return. When you look at what they got really was not. Yes, deals can still trickle in. I said this before. They only need to be agreed upon. So just because they're agreed upon doesn't automatically mean the media. No, someone's asking in our live stream about that. But really, it's like a half an hour by six thirty.

If you haven't heard your team is done, right? That's the Red Sox just got Luis Garcia, who I had. I had Luis Garcia as a top five option on rental relievers by Stuff Plus. And that's great because that's funny. The Red Sox got Lucas Sims, who was second on that rental reliever stuff plus to Tanner Scott and Luis Garcia, who I think was fourth or fifth. And, um,

they did not go to the table for Tanner Scott. So I kind of like that, you know, going and getting the second and fourth options for a lot cheaper, uh, than, than being at the table at the first. Yeah. I like, um, I like the Mets too, as like sneaky winners here as buyers. They very quietly, David Stearns remade that bullpen without giving up very much.

The Paul Blackburn deal, again, really gave up a fringy, he's like 28th or 29th prospect for a guy who isn't gonna light the world on fire in Blackburn, but he's been a serviceable starter. They're missing Kodaisanga. They're not certain what's going to happen with Christian Scott. And they have him pass this year. And when you look at what the market has been like for starting pitchers, I think they really didn't give up a lot. And they got better without sacrificing their future. So I think they're one of the quieter, maybe not the

splashy Dodger winners, but a really solid like B plus if I had to grade deadline for the Mets. I think you got to give the Mariners at least a B, if not a little better. I mean, Randy Rosarena makes that team a lot better. They have them beyond this season. So they fixed a longer term problem at the deadline. They made the bullpen even better

because they added Ymi Garcia. They got JT Chargois, a small trade today. So two more relievers, one of them being a really good high leverage guy. We talked about the quality of that rotation last week on our livestream with Trevor. And when you have a rotation as good as the Mariners do, Castillo Kirby, Gilbert, Bryce Miller, if that quartet stays healthy, you really shouldn't ever punt a season. You should continue trying to build around that because having pitching that good is rarely something that lasts several years.

Take advantage of it while you can. I think they at least did that in a decent way. Maybe they could have made one more move for depth and maybe that'll still trickle in. They did add Justin Turner for some infield, uh, I guess depth as well. So kind of replacing time. Offense seems like the hardest thing to buy at the deadline. We've seen some bigger deals for guys like Manny Machado and stuff like that in the past. And they've found ways to do it, I think, without harming their,

their future that much, you know? So I, I, yeah, I'd like what they did. Um, a little, a small shout out for the Yankees who weren't that super active, but I think the jazz chism trade was really good. Yeah. You know, I mean, that team sorely needed a little bit of foot speed. They're second to last in stolen bases. They need a guy who can play on the infield right now. It's second and third is a little bit of a problem for them

and both those places. I think Jazz can play there. We haven't seen Jazz play third base, but this is a former shortstop who played second base all right. I think he can do third. I think he has the arm for it. So doing that and then adding Mark Leiter Jr.

to the bullpen who's not just a rental, I thought they did all right. Yeah, I'd say they're in the sea, missing a starter. It seems like they missed out on all the starters though, right? Woo, Brit's a tough grader. Well, they were supposedly shopping Cortez. So they feel like the year that they traded

Jayden Jordan Montgomery away, they feel like they have their playoff rotation set. It is, you know, coal and heel. I mean, they've got they've got what they want and Cortez on the outside. I think the key there. We talked about it. I think like three weeks ago, but they were only looking for top end. They were looking for crochet if they can get crochet, but they don't. They weren't today with total body soreness.

I don't know. See, he's got a stomach bug. There's nothing wrong with it. They don't know. See his. Yeah, he just stomach bugged deadline. There's nothing wrong with. He was just they weren't going to trade for Trevor Rogers. You know, they weren't going to they weren't going to trade for. They had, you know, that's another thing that I think Yankee Stadium is really hard to pitch in. So they can't just trade for somebody that might be OK. They kind of have a little bit of a higher bar when they're acquiring pitchers.

I thought they might get one more option to help at first base, but maybe by having jazz moving all over the place, they just play a little more DJ Lemahue there, just do a strict platoon with Ben Rice, getting the starts against righties, Lemahue playing mostly against lefties, but that seemed like an opportunity to possibly get another bench piece. Not like there's a lot of impact guys out there, but something could have helped them in that regard. There were a lot of relievers on the move.

Lucas Erceg is kind of an underrated player for a lot of people. I mean, he's a converted position player, just started pitching a few years ago in the Brewer's system before ending up in Oakland, debuting there. He took a pretty big step forward already this year. I was looking at the pitching plus model. By model, he's got three above average pitches. He throws four different pitches. He's got above average location numbers too.

And given that he hasn't been pitching for that long, there's not only the possibility that he just keeps getting better, there's a chance there might be a starter in there longterm, even though he's been used as a short reliever up to this point. Given the whole story of, you know, drinking his way out of Cal and

ending up at Menlo College with Jason Ochart, who's the director of hitting for Boston Red Sox, and then, you know, being drafted in the third round as a third baseman, hitting 35 tanks in the minor leagues with the Brewers and then stalling out and changing to a reliever, like, I don't know. I feel like his arm is fresh. And he's from my conversations with him. He's just now kind of getting to understand the craft of pitching. Like I was talking to him about some stuff that most pitchers nowadays are used to talking about, like their movement on their pitches, their spin axis and stuff like that.

And he's like, I'm just finding out about this stuff, man. I'm just, you know, I'm just trying to get comfortable as a pitcher. So, you know, there's, there's some upside there. What I also like is Hunter Harvey, Lucas Ersak, James McArthur. It may not feel exactly like that. Those old bullpens that, you know, the power bullpens that brought the Royals a championship, but it's closer than it's been in a long time. I mean, this is, there's definitely some better stuff in that, in the Royals a championship, but it's closer than it's been in a long time. I mean, there's definitely some better stuff

in that Royals bullpen than there has been for a while. And I laud them for putting it together in a way also that won't just disappear at the end of the year. No. All three of those guys are there next year. That's why I think we should give them a shout out as well. They add DeYoung, as I said, for another bench bet. I mean, I think the Royals had for a team that was so

active in the winter and has kind of played fringy, right? Where we're like, well, are they in it? Are they going to put we kind of wondered on the pot? Are they going to do anything more? Are they going to push forward? I talked to someone in Kansas city that was like, we believe we can do it. We believe with the way Bobby White Jr. is playing, you playing, we believe in the way the division is going that we still have a chance. And I think they made some really smart moves that like you said, don't sacrifice the future. And that's where Kansas City needs to play.

They need to thread that needle and play in that playground of get better today, but also not sacrifice tomorrow. I would give Kansas City like a B. I think they had a really solid off season. I think going out and getting Hunter Harvey early was big. They're a team that is trying to go for it. They avoided the kind of pressure cooker that was today.

When all of a sudden, oh, well, look what they got for Tanner Scott, we want more. It's like, let's just get Hunter Harvey three or four days before and not you know, not worry about like having to compete with everybody. I thought that was a pretty sneaky good move. The projections don't like Mike Lorenzen. They never have, but for the last, you know, three years he's had like a four zero ERA basically. He has a big old wide arsenal. I know pitchers, pitching coaches love getting a wide arsenal guys. They're like, they always think, oh, I can do this with that or this with that.

And so I think he's a, he's a great way to make a strength of theirs better. They have, you know, they have the third best rotation by Fangrass war this year. Really? Well, it's been so good. And I think not enough people have talked about the year that he's had, depending on himself to be a starter. Yeah. I like Kansas city. It's very easy to get lost today. I like what they did overall at the deadline, for sure.

There's there's a funny thing for me happening. I'm local. So San Francisco is right here. But I'm having like a sort of head versus heart moment with the with the Giants trade deadline. I hate it with my heart and I understand it with my head. There's a just some late breaking news that they the Giants got Mark Kana. This is kind of the Farhan thing that he does sometimes.

He's done this before. It's a little bit like the Jerry DePoto thing where he trades away one piece and he gets it back another piece. It's almost as good. Remember what was it? The, he traded away Devensky and everyone was mad. No, he traded away Kendall Graveman and everyone's mad about that. But in the next trade, like a day later, he got a reliever, but as a rental reliever and he was just trying to like, you know, as you've been saying,

thread the needle. He's just trying to, and I understand that taking the money, the Jorge Saler money off the table for next year gives them more flexibility. I understand that. And he there's obviously a team that needs to buy more to get better. And that Jorge Saler at DH did clog them up a little bit. And now with DH open, they can, they can do more things. It gives them a chance to bring Marco Luciano up whose glove has not really fit anywhere.

And now they can just play him sometimes a DH, sometimes wherever and see what he can do at the Major League level. But at the same time, I hate it. I hate it. It seems like too smart. Like you're just trying too hard. That's what it feels like. And what we, and it, and what we were saying earlier about picking Elaine, it's not picking Elaine.

It is not picking Elaine at all. And so some part of me just hates it. And I love Markana, come on down Markana. I wanna know what you guys think about the pirate's deadline cause to me that's kind of one of those like, what? It's a tepid bye. Yeah, like what, what? It's a tepid buy. Yeah, like what? What?

It's probably just a grade below whatever the Royals grade is for me, because I think Brian Day-LaCruz is underrated. They needed it. They needed a bat. They got a bat and he's there for more than this year. He's not a rental. So he helps him be on the season. They got a glove first infielder, Isaiah Kiner-Falefa. He can play all over.

They've had problems at second base. So if they're not going to get They've had problems at second base. So if they're not going to get production with the bat at second base, at least they'll have a great defender there. That'll help run prevention. So I'm okay with that. They definitely sold and bought at the same time, selling Martin Perez and buying Kiner-Falefa and Brian De La Cruz and Josh Walker. They did some really small stuff too, but they kept a roll to Chapman, which is a big deal. Yeah. So they're hanging around.

Their deadline was okay. I think it was appropriate for where they're at right now. Trying to get a little bit better, not a bad idea. They also had the biggest challenge trade, I think. Quinn Priester for Nick York. Yeah, I liked that one. I think that's, if it's not my favorite trade from the deadline, it's like in the top three for me.

It's just long. Yeah, it's really a really interesting trade. I also, you know one of my favorite trades of the deadline that's just a small little trade that I just really love is the Austin Hayes for Sir Anthony Dominguez and Christian Poche deal. Yep. Because they realized they needed a center fielder against lefties

because they've been sitting Mullins against lefties and that Kauzer is not really a great center fielder. So they go and get Christian Pache, who is a great defensive center fielder but shouldn't play unless it's against the lefty really, because the bat's not good. So that was a better fit than Austin Hayes, Who they don't really want to play in center. Yeah, you know, so then they're doing guys Has the good stuff but had been wild this year, you know That's the price for maybe getting a full-time starter and left field like Austin Hayes may end up The full-time starter and left field for for the Phillies

Yeah, a little a little bit of like shifting things around to hope to get a better fit out of a couple players. Are we a little surprised the Angels didn't do more? The Carlos Estevez and Luis Garcia trades, you can kind of see those coming from a mile away. Maybe something else will come in here in the next little while, but Luis Ranjivo didn't help somebody else.

Yeah, Matt Moore. Really surprised to see both of those guys still there. Surprise, yeah. I'm surprised the White Sox didn't burn it down a little bit more. Are you guys surprised at the lack of top 100 prospects? I think up until- That's gone. There weren't any really top 100 prospects traded up until, let's see, maybe for Flaherty here now.

Flaherty- Yeah, Robbie, well, the Robbie Snelling- Snelling might've been back in top 100. I have been dropped out of a lot of top 100s, like the mid season updates, but he was there going into the. Probably not many. I mean, remember the Snell, the sale trade, Juan Moncada? Yes, it was the only trade in the last 30 years where they traded a number one overall prospect. There you go.

Didn't someone write about that? Which was my thought. That's done. Which also spoiler alert, Jackson Holiday wasn't traded. People think the Orioles are gonna do these crazy things and they just are in tepid buy stuff. But anyway. No. Benjamin's dropping a C- on the Brewers.

I mean, again, I look at the whole window last couple of weeks, they added Savali a little early. So you take Aaron Savali, you get Frankie Montas, and kind of a strange deal with the Reds. Joey Weimer was just an extra outfielder for the Brewers. Wasn't gonna get on the big league roster anytime soon. Great defender. Garrett Mitchell got healthy,

so they were kind of, they started to have a lot of outfielders. Yeah, had plenty of depth. It was interesting to me that Jake Junis went back the other way. I think that goes back to something we talked about on Monday's show, probably financials, just balancing it out, right?

Not adding too much payroll. Montas, I think, gives you more length than Junis. Junis' strikeout rate's down this year. It's really one great pitch. You can get through the lineup one time in long relief. You can throw an opener from a guy like that. Montas, maybe you can get away with using him for five innings at a time, so maybe that's the difference between the two.

And getting- Gotta save the bullpen to some extent. Yeah, and getting Montas- They kept Devin Williams, there were a lot of people saying, one and a half years left, that's when they traded Josh Hader. I know David Stearns is gone. A lot of those front office people are still there. I think they learned from that.

And Trevor McGill just went on the aisle too. There was a lot of backlash, right? Oh yeah, that was an unpopular move in the clubhouse at the time. So yeah, maybe a C minus because the reason, if you're gonna be hard on the Brewers, I think the thing they needed with the Yelich injury, even though he's not having surgery,

they needed one more bat. One more impact bat because if Yellich comes back, has a setback, and then ends up being done for the season, or if he doesn't make it back, I think your one impact bat, or at least one above average bat light, there's a lot of ways they can get there. We've talked about Jackson Churio being better,

a great second half from Reese Hoskins is possible, so there's a few guys that could be better, but maybe it's calling up Tyler Black or something along those lines where they end up trying to find that extra player. I thought they would trade for a veteran to fill that spot. Wow. The Orioles get.

Yeah, go ahead. Orioles get Gregory Soto? Saw that, yeah. Why are the Phillies trading away relievers? Soto's decent, isn't he? I'm not looking at his ERA. He has good stuff. We just discussed the pirates who just sent Martin Perez to the Padres.

And the Orioles get Austin Slater. Orioles get the weirdest deadline. They're the stellar buyers. They're the stellar buyer. Weird stuff going on. What do you guys got on the Padres? Because this was a big swing and it's either going to be go down as like a terrific move because now they basically have a super bullpen.

Super charged bullpen. Yeah, the bullpen is good. Right? We knew they needed a starter, they had Perez. That's kind of a not really a deal that moves the needle. But when you look at this bullpen guys with Tanner Scott, who was the best closer available, you add him to what Robert Suarez, right? You look at really the whole back half of this, um,

Jeremy Estrada, Adrian Morahan. I mean, this is a, a super pen. Pretty much. They have the sixth best WRC plus in baseball so far this year, which surprised me a little bit, although I know it's been pretty good. And what's kind of cool about that, I think, is they haven't had Tatis for a while, and Manny hasn't been Manny all year. So there's still a little bit more

this team can do offensively. So I guess they thought, we're just gonna wait for Tatis to come back and for Manny to continue getting better and we don't have to we don't have to push the needle too far defensively. Defensively there's a little bit of an issue here. At least I'm seeing this by DRS. Let me see here by DRS the San Diego Padres are 24th by By UZR they are 19th. By Outs Above Average they are 19th.

So this is a bad team defensively. Does that make sense? When you consider some of the health problems they've dealt with, it makes sense. Right? I mean, Tatis missing time, Machado missing time. Bogart's missing time. Bogard's second should at least be solid, right? So that's probably what it is, that combination of injuries dragging them down a little bit. Tenth best overall pitching staff.

When it comes to starting pitching, they've been ninth and they're gonna change their 12th best relief core into something better than that. I mean, if you got everything, let's just give them everything but defense, you know, in the top five, six, seven, like not necessarily top five, but top 10, then you're a contender, right? It's just, it's just about getting things to land the right way in the, in the, in the, uh, in the postseason. I mean, it's a, it, they asked me on the radio if I thought, you know, is this a contender?

And I do. It's a contender. Yeah. It's legit. And if they get everybody healthy all at once, that's going to make them a really dangerous. Grove still coming back and cease looks like an ace. I mean, it's it is just one of those things where the the the bad parts seem to be just like in the rear view mirror,

just seem to be like, you know, you're just like, oh, now they really only have Ethan Solace left in that, in their farm, right? But these core guys are only getting older though. You kind of have to just go in now. What's going to happen when they have three, three hundred million dollar contracts on, and they're not a good team? If they win a World Series, no one will care. Yeah, if they win a World Series, it won't matter.

And if they don't, AJ Prelor is going to be long gone when we're asking those questions too. So either way. Yeah. The only move in my book, I think if you're AJ Preller, really, because they were playing really well heading into the deadline too. They had a season high seven game winning streak that was broken on Sunday. They obviously ceases, no hitter was a big deal. So yeah. And then as somebody pointed out, the Dodgers, they still, they aren't that far behind the Dodgers. Like there is still a chance that they make a real run there, but they're solidly in a wild card spot right now. They got better this deadline. I think this is what you have to do when you have a aging core and a guy like Datisse, who just is going to be tough to stay on the field. It feels like over his whole career, you kind of, you know, Manny's not getting younger,

Bogart's isn't getting younger, Musgrove has had injury problems. You kind of, you know, man, he's not getting younger. Bogarts isn't getting younger. Musgrove has had injury problems. You kind of have to do this. And what we're not mentioning either is you Darvish, is he out for the season? Is he coming back? He's been on leave with like a personal reason. You know, if he does come back, that's obviously a boost for them, but I don't know if they're counting on that.

Um, they're very much a team that if they get into the playoffs, right, they're sneaky, they get into the playoffs, right, they're sneaky. They get into the playoffs and Tatisse is healthy and Musgrove is healthy. And Manny's Manny's Manny, yeah. Like they're a dangerous team. So I kind of like be going all in here. Dude, that NL wild card is gonna be intense.

Wild. Braves, Mets, Pirates, Cardinals, Padres, D-backs, those are six good teams. They're all above 500. They're all well above 500. You know, they're not just one game above 500. The Pirates and Cardinals are two. But, you know, that's six teams.

And I haven't even mentioned the Giants who, you know, tried to, you know, stay competitive while selling and, you know, the the the C cubs which I what do the cubs get? Are you bringing them up because it's a puzzling deadline? I mean they they traded for EZOCK Parade Ace. So we traded away a reliever out of a bullpen that's bad. They traded for a reliever that had more stuff maybe. Right. So trading away Mark Lighter Jr. is weird. While trading for Nate Pearson is just a weird combination of money. They kept Tyon.

They kept Tyon. Yeah. I think that, I mean, I think the thing is we're gonna be good next year. We're just gonna rerack and be good next year. They could still be good this year. It's still possible. Yeah. I'm more convinced the Blue Jays are and be good next year. Well, that's still be good this year. It's still possible. Yeah.

I'm more convinced the Blue Jays are going to be good next year than the Cubs because they I'm a little confounded by the whole thing. So I saw something really as I traded anymore. It's changed a lot over the years. So J.J.

Cooper in one of the write ups, I saw Baseball America today, look back to the deadlines going all the way to 2015 and found 511 prospects traded during the month of the trade deadline since 2015. So roughly 40% of those 511 traded prospects haven't reached the majors. Another 41% have produced less than one career F4. So, you know, a lot of players change hands.

So that's that was that's 80 percent basically didn't do it. Either haven't reached the majors yet or haven't made a major impact yet. Some of them will. But that gives you a general idea, right? Like that's a pretty big window. There's a bit of a logarithmic thing too, with the way that like top 10 prospects have a much, much better bus rate and better outcomes than even. 10 through 20. And they're much better than like 20 through 30.

And what we see traded the deadline is 70 plus in terms of ranking, you know? So that's why you get, I mean, that's, that's what I would call an 80% bus rate. Yeah, yeah, or at least an 80% disappointment rate. I don't know if that's any different or any better. Teams are still hoarding prospects. It's still a weird, teams are still hoarding prospects. I guess they're thinking like quantity over quality. They're just like, we want to keep all these,

just in case one of them turns out. I wonder if there's a way, and this is the thing on the horizon a few years down the road, if club control changes and gets shortened up at some point, or if the cost of club controlled players goes up, arbitration starts earlier, minimum salaries go up considerably at some point,

like how much of a change do you need in how club control and cost control works before teams are gonna cling less to young players? Because that's a huge part of it. It's so, even think about this too. If this guy is good, I get him for six years. Right, it's very hard to give up on that knowing that compared to what you're getting

on the free agent market. If this guy's good, I get him for three years, you're like, eh. But it's like Jig Bloss. If Bloss is a number four starter, we know number four starters cost like $10 million a year on the free agent market. So like that's a pretty big deal for the Jays to get that guy now for someone

that they couldn't keep anyway. Even if he's not that good. That was the worst deal of the deadline, I think. What do you guys think? The worst deal as far as you think the Astros overpaid. I like Cucchi better than a lot of people. And I don't think Lover Fido is a regular. So you're getting how many starts out of Kikuchi though?

That's case 12 point. But they win the World Series. It doesn't matter. He I do think he is a playoff starter, which is a big deal. Yeah. And a lot of guys that got moved in the last couple of weeks aren't necessarily guys you want taking the ball in. Price is high. That window, when it shuts on the Astros is going to slam shut. Yeah, they kept it open longer than we thought.

It does seem like they have many prospects. I can't name an Astros prospect that I'm excited about off the top of my head. Here's the other question for both of you. Looking at Atlanta's deadline, they bring back Soler. We know Max Freeds down with the neuritis right now in his arm. Ronaldo Lopez had an MRI that came back negative. So his forearm issue that caused him to leave early over the weekend. He doesn't have a forearm.

Doesn't he has a forearm. It's just not torn up. But you look at the way they handled this, they got out in front by acquiring Chris Sale during the offseason. Think about the difference in price trading for Chris Sale, giving a Von Grissom and a one for one in the winter versus going out and getting a starter now. And again, at hindsight's 2020, Von Grissom has had a lost season marred by injuries and illness,

and we can't fully grade that trade for a couple of years, but just in terms of relative cost to what other starters were going for, the timing is so much better. It's like being stuck at the amusement park and having to eat lunch there and just paying ridiculous prices for bad food. That's what the trade deadline becomes if you need started pitching. Is Nick York that different than Juan Grisam and Nick York brought back Quinn Priester, not Chris Sale. Right.

Well, yeah. Well, look at Gordon Burns. What would he have gotten at the deadline? Right. Same thing. You're right. It does seem like the better deals can be added. If you can convince somebody in the off season, that's harder though, in the off season, because people all think they're going to be good. That is the main problem. Yeah. Eli to the Orioles was odd. Derek says in the lecture, he's right. This really was about the White Sox just wanting somebody to pick up the salary. You know, obviously I'm a little still wondering and I've yet to hear any comments on Twitter as to why the Orioles felt like they were the people

that needed to pick up the salary unless, you know, what we said earlier. Cause they just wanted to give up a not a good prospect. They'd rather give up. They'd rather spend the money. Lineup helps. So do they see something in Eloy? You can make a strength better. You can make a strength better, I think. You know, he's probably better than their worst hitter.

Yeah, he wanted to play every day, necessarily. They could play him three or four times a week. So I guess that's the way to look at it. If you're stronger top to bottom in your lineup and you didn't give up much to do it, then not a terrible thing. The Royals went out and got Lorenzen. They could have just kept moving at Malik Marsh out there and still been a top three rotation like they've been.

Yeah, it's true. You're looking for better at the margins. Hook'em 355. Would the Tigers have been better off with Loper Fido, Will Wagner and Jake Bloss was they got his return from the Dodgers. I got to grab that. They were on Luzano and.

Trace Sweeney. Yeah, shortstop Trace Sweeney. I like the Blue Jays return better. I think this, like I said, was the trade, worst trade on the Astro side and maybe the best trade, most savvy deadline from the Blue J side because you are slotting in. Those guys are all pretty much big league ready. Wagner's been at AAA hitting well. Bloss, the Profito, these are guys that can come and slot in next year to your team. Well, Trey Sweeney is in AAA.

He's not having a great year. your team. Well, Trey Sweeney is in AAA. He's not having a great year, but he's 24 and just last year was 18% better than the average as a shortstop. Good strikeout rate, good walk rate. People look at Bloss and say, well, he struggled in the big leagues. Well, he played across like three or four different levels. And if you average all that out, his ERA this year is like 2.4 or something. Like the guy's going to be good.

He's just moved very quickly. So if you just look at his numbers, you could say, well, what did they get here? Well, he was pretty highly regarded in Houston with that system. So I think it was Lou Profito had a terrific spring and really kind of showed himself as a non-roster embiteie that ended up making his debut. So I really liked that return. I think that was maybe outside of Tanner Scott, which got a haul from the Padres. But Tanner Scott, I think had a much higher ceiling as the best clothes were available on the market.

So I just think that that was in my mind, probably the best trade of the deadline. I think the Marlins really plays. If Sweeney plays on the dirt, it could change the calculus a little bit. Yeah. Someone wrote in that Norby and Stowers are better than Sweeney and and they might be right. I mean, I think people are selling. That's where the math gets weird for me. Yeah. Then I start comparing those deals.

I'm like, I think I might I might rather have Norby and Stowers. I mean, Nor start comparing those deals. I'm like, I think I might, I might rather have Norbi in his towers, maybe. I mean, Norbi's going to play on the dirt, I think, you know? And I think, you know, I'm not sure Sweeney is, even his Fangrass profile says, might be a utility guy, you know? The other guy's like a 18, Liriano's like a 18 year old, 19 year old catcher with a bad arm. I don't know. Yeah. It's weird. All this is weird. But I think generally the one thing that maybe take away

is that Cooper analysis is just like, you know, like to say someone got fleeced or they gave up too much or like the likelihood is that most of these guys that got traded today didn't, aren't gonna move the needle for your organization in the future. No, and if you- Mo Pro Fido, for veto like I said strikes out too much may not have a defensive home. Sweeney may not have enough power to be in everyday shortstop yeah that's true I might not have the arm all these things sort of you know tend to go in the wrong direction because their own team evaluated them said you know we can give that guy up. and said, you know, we can give that guy up. Yeah. But every once in a while you get Lane Thomas for John Lester and he turned out.

For two months of John Lester. Yeah. I forgot all about John Lester with the Cardinals for like a dozen starts three, four years ago. Was that the time where you couldn't throw to first? Basically, yeah. That was such a low trade that I like assumed as cash considerations. And then they get lean Thomas. Mike Rizzo had another good deadline, I think, overall. He's showing us that he's he's like another Dabrowski. That's that's the level he's at.

He's he's there. He can wheel and deal and turn things around. And he's showing he's got more than one note, I think, in these last couple of deadlines as well. So yeah, Prather seems to be kind of one note. And it's like I make prospects and I sell them. All gas, no breaks. You make prospects at a crazy clip though. A crazy clip.

Yeah, I mean, if you scout and find players that other teams like, then that's something you should lean into. Lean into the depth. Just keep going. But a lot of ground covered today and I'm sure we'll have more on the athletic here in the days ahead,

including some more detailed analysis of the prospects on the move. It's tough to get a good read on some of those guys because they're very lower level players like guys in the Dominican summer league, for example. So we lean on Keith Law and Melissa Lockard and our great staff at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels gets you a subscription to dollars a month gets you in the door. Special shout out to the live high people who stayed the entire time despite some audio issues. Thank you for your patience.

You can find Britt on Twitter at Britt underscore Jiroli. Find Eno at EnoSares. Find me at Derek from Rhyper. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.